Designing Augmentative Communication Systems to Meet the Demands of Home and Community

In my last post, I discussed the importance of supporting the use of augmentative communication systems in the student's home and community. In this post, I will present ways to design and personalize communication systems to meet the demands of use in the student's home and community.

Guidelines for Parents for Using Augmentative Communication Systems:
-Designated family members, trained thoroughly by the school, should be in charge of support for the student 
-Determine vocabulary and phrases necessary for in-home use
-Parents should be trained to encourage communication and wait for responses from their child rather than making assumptions about the child's needs and wants
-Parents should evaluate the effectiveness of the communication system to determine if assistance is necessary
-Parents should build on and encourage increased communication from their child
-Keep explanations simple when helping others understand the child's communication system

Guidelines for Talking to an Augmented Communicator:
-Be yourself
-Speak to the user in age appropriate language
-Talk directly to the user, not to the person with them
-Ask the user if you can read their screen or if you can guess what the user is saying
-In a regular conversation, don't praise the user, just have a regular conversation with them

Dell, A., Newton, D., & Petroff, J. (2012). Assistive technology in the classroom. Boston:

      MA:  Pearson.