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"Effective communication is a fundamental element of life. Relationships, choice, employment, and so much more are severely limited by an inability to communicate. Let's make effective communication a reality for people with disabilities. Join TASH's new campaign, Communication for All. The campaign was created to promote life-long communication for people with disabilities through awareness, professional development, access to communication technologies, instruction, and support. Join the campaign group (members-only) to promote life-long communication for all!"

Even the most well-intentioned person can be a poor communication partner for individuals who use AAC. The average person has no idea how to communicate effectively with someone who has a significant communication disability, and is likely to do things that are less than helpful. These Communication Access Cards, developed by Scope, can be just the thing to improve the quality of interactions.

"Welcome to the Communication Matrix Community: an online community of support for professionals and family members of individuals with complex communication needs.  Log in or join now to start contributing!"

Looking for games and activities to do with your students to help them learn to use their communication systems more effectively and engage in social interactions? CALL Scotland to the rescue! Their website provides a wealth of free downloadable games and activities designed to provide fun communication opportunities.

"Below, you'll be able to download a short but constructive and fun communication activity for a youngster who uses AAC. The activities aim to help a student to learn and practise - in other words, use! - his or her communication aid to enjoy interactions with others and build up useful social and communicative experiences. To benefit, you first need to ensure that the Talker is always out of its bag, charged up, and on the table/wheelchair mount ready for daily use. That done, even a 5 minute 'gap' can be turned into a useful communication game. The activities are taken from CALL's 'Keep Talking' book, which was inspired by the teacher who, on one of CALL Scotland's visits, said with some desperation 'I know I'm not doing enough. Somehow, my brain goes all fuzzy - I just can't think of any communication games...'."

There is a rapidly growing body of research that demonstrates the positive effects of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention on the communication of children and adults with complex communication needs. Despite the positive impact of many AAC interventions, however, many individuals with complex communication needs continue to experience serious challenges participating in educational, vocational, healthcare, and community environments. In this paper, we apply the framework proposed by the International Classifi cation of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to illustrate the need to re-think AAC intervention to improve outcomes for individuals with complex communication needs, and to foster a new generation of intervention research that will provide a solid foundation for improved services. Specifi cally, the paper emphasizes the need to take a more holistic view of communication intervention and highlights the following key principles to guide AAC intervention and research: (a) build on the individual ' s strengths and focus on the integration of skills to maximize communication, (b) focus on the individual ' s participation in real-world contexts, (c) address psychosocial factors as well as skills, and (d) attend to extrinsic environmental factors as well as intrinsic factors related to the individual who requires AAC.

"The Communication Supports Inventory- Children & Youth (CSI-CY) is a tool to help professionals working with students with complex communication needs make educational plans that are comprehensive enough to capture their strengths and restrictions. The  CSI-CY is designed to make goal writing easier for teachers and speech-language pathologists who work with students who are augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) users or potential users. By itself, it is not an assessment, but rather a guide to organize the professional's understanding of the impact of a student's communication strengths and limitations on their participation at school and home. The Inventory consists of a survey and a report. The World Health Organization developed the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health-Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY) in 2007 to provide a global common language for describing the impact of health conditions and disabilities on human functioning. This Inventory uses that same global common language. It utilizes the broad perspective on function and disability of the ICF-CY to characterize students who use AAC."

EVERYTHING an individual uses to communicate or enhance communication. Different strategies may be needed for different situations and communication partners. Strategies and tools may be combined to meet a wide variety of communication functions. flipbook

"The ASF Communication Training Series takes all of the hours of great communication workshops and breaks them down into small, digestible parts so that you and your individual with AS can reach her/his greatest communication success at any age. Using web-based teaching, the Series is designed to be sequential and you can join at any time and proceed through the training at your child's pace of learning." A list of webinars, by topic, is here: http://www.angelman.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/ASF-CTS-My-Webinar-Log-by-Topic.pdf

This non-exclusive community has come together in an effort to unite all individuals concerned with communication rights for Pennsylvanians with intellectual disability, autism and other disabilities that create complex communication needs. This wikispace aims to serve as a mechanism for: Sharing ideas and resources (including appropriate and/or promising practices) Raising awareness of issues and barriers for individuals with complex communication needs Problem solving through collaboration

Setting up communication systems for students with communication challenges should also allow them to communicate effectively in all situations. No matter what communication device you have chosen to implement with your students, incorporating core vocabulary words maximizes the students' ability to communicate in a variety of settings. see http://www.ttacnews.vcu.edu/2011/05/core-vocabulary-makes-communication-meaningful/

"Progressive Language helps your communicators progress to full communication! Ever since we released our first core word vocabulary in multiple grid sizes, back in Proloquo2Go 2.0, we've been recommending that people choose the largest grid size they can use. Choosing a large grid size gives you the most language on a single screen. With more language available at a glance, you can quickly recognize the words you want to use. You don't have to remember which folder a word is in and then navigate there"

Communication books are used as a support for spoken communication (or in the absence of speech), to enable people to get their message across. They may range from very simple formats with few pictures, to extensive books with many pages. Links to resources and ideas bank for communication books and passports.

Children and adults with developmental delays have benefited from the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems to develop language skills necessary for more generative and functional communication. Beginning communicators however, have historically been considered too young or too pre-linguistic and therefore have not been introduced to AAC systems until behaviors, thought to be prerequisites, have been noted. Recent research and theories about early communication development have challenged this traditional practice and broadened the scope of what is considered to be AAC. Practitioners and parents unfamiliar with early AAC options may not recognize possible applications of communication strategies used with typically developing children and older persons with developmental disabilities. AAC is applicable at all ages for learning communication roles and behaviors as well as for functional communication for persons who do not yet demonstrate clear referential symbol use. This article addresses nine questions that are frequently asked about early introduction of AAC systems to children under 3 years of age. Rationales and strategies are provided that can assist early interventionists and parents in considering AAC options for children at risk for being unintelligible or non-speaking.

The Penn State AAC community of faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students are dedicated to enhancing communication and improving the overall quality of life for individuals who have complex communication needs and their families.

"Every voice should be heard Some people are hard to hear -- through no fault of their own. Disabilities like autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, Angelman syndrome and Rett syndrome make it harder for many individuals to communicate on their own. Many people use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) tools in order to help make their voices heard. We work to help bring out the voices of those with complex communication needs through good tech that actually makes things easier and supports everyone in helping the individual succeed."

PODD Communication Books Image of child using her PODD with her mother.Pragmatic Organisation Dynamic Display (PODD) is a means of selecting and organising symbols so that people with complex communication needs and their communication partners can commu

Step-by-Step communicators can have a whole string of messages recorded onto them. The messages are spoken in the sequence they are recorded by pressing the switch. The device has 75 seconds of recording time.

"The International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) works to improve the lives of children and adults who use AAC. ISAAC's vision is that AAC will be recognized, valued and used throughout the world. ISAAC's mission is to promote the best possible communication for people with complex communication needs"

"All people with a disability of any extent or severity have a basic right to affect, through communication, the conditions of their existence. All people have the following specific communication rights in their daily interactions. These rights are summarized from the Communication Bill of Rights put forth in 1992 by the National Joint Committee for the Communication Needs of Persons with Severe Disabilities."

The ASF Communication Training Series takes all of the hours of great communication workshops and breaks them down into small, digestible parts so that you and your individual with AS can reach her/his greatest communication success at any age.