An overview of the Do's and Don'ts of AAC

Do's and Don'ts

3 minute read • December 9, 2015

Implementing Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is not easy so we created a poster and overview series of blog posts about the do's and don'ts of implementing AAC.

There are practices in AAC implementation that lead to better outcomes for every individual with complex communication needs.

There are also practices that lead to poorer outcomes for those same individuals. As we always focus on communication for all, we felt it was important to address both the do's and don'ts together. Sometimes addressing only the good practices might mean the bad ones don’t get tackled too!

Below we list the essential do's and don'ts with accompanying blog posts or articles to read for more in-depth information.

Do's	Don'ts
Aim high	Demand prerequisite skills
Use a well-designed, comprehensive vocabulary (core vocabulary or PODD)	Provide an AAC system with only a handful of choices
Make sure AAC is available all day, every day	Limit access to the AAC system
Respect multimodal communication	Say "now use your talker"
Use the AAC system to talk yourself	Expect the AAC user to communicate without you modelling how
Focus on key words when modeling	Think you always need to model grammatically correct sentences
Allow exploration and access to the whole vocabulary	Create custom pages for specific activities
Provide wait time	Do all the talking
Ask open-ended questions	Ask questions the AAC user knows you already know the answer to
Describe what you want to say using core words	Focus on adding lots of vocabulary

Remember, communication is a human right, fundamental to literacy development and participation in education, and occurs all day, every day. We are all responsible for making sure this happens for everyone.