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 ![[Horizontal Rule]](/webart/nav_rule.gif){kind=small}            Click here to learn about |
 ![[----------------Horizontal Rule----------------]](/webart/hrule.gif){kind=small}  1.Message from the AuthorI was born in 1937. I tell you this not to reveal my age, but to demonstrate that I am a survivor. Handling a disability with significant physical impairments is never easy. In the late 1930s and early 1940s it was a formidable task indeed. The base of scientific knowledge on disability was scant at best, the concept of assistive technology was unknown and attitudes towards people with disabilities were primitive to say the least Anyone observing the scene in the delivery room on the night of my birth wouldn’t have given a plug nickel for my future. When I came out into the world, my doctor thought I was dead, and when I proved him wrong on that score, he predicted I would never amount to much. Wrong again, Doctor. Here I am sitting at my desk writing this when I wasn’t supposed to be able to do anything of consequence. Why? Why have I been able to affect such a positive outcome in my life when others in a similar situation have had outcomes that were less successful? Surely luck played a part in it. I was born in the right place at the right time. My family was well connected to the civic life in the city in which they lived. Yes, they encountered their share of quacks in their efforts to help me; but in the end, they were able to ask the right questions to find the right people who had the right answers to help me in my seemingly hopeless situation. How about today? What are the forces that help shape an outcome in AAC? Who are the stakeholders? The main focus of this issue is on: Whose outcome is it anyway? This article appears in AS Volume 2, # 1. You may order this issue by clicking on Ordering Home Page Online Ordering 
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