Chapter 1: Augmentative and Alternative Communication Processes Flashcards
Why is effortless communication not an option for all people? Why does this matter?
Because some are unable to meet their daily communication needs through natural speech.
Because effective communication is essential for learning and development, personal care, social engagement, education, and employment. Also, medical care.
Why is communication essential for medical care?
It is not simply a patient’s right, but is accepted as an essential component of quality care and patient safety.
Successful joint establishment of meaning wherein patients and health care providers exchange information, enabling patients to participate actively in their are from admission through discharge, and ensuring that the responsibilities of both patients and providers are understood.
Percentage of people who cannot rely on natural speech:
1.3% (4 million Americans)
Who are AAC stakeholders?
Those who design new technologies
Educators
Speech-language pathologists
Physical therapists
Occupational therapists
Rehabilitation engineers
Technicians who provide AAC intervention services
People who shape public policy and funding
Researchers who document AAC use and acceptance patterns, as well as investigate communication processes when AAC strategies are used.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication
An area of research, clinical, and educational practice. AAC involves attempts to study and when necessary compensate for temporary or permanent impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions of individuals with severe disorders of speech-language production and/or comprehension, including spoken and written modes of communication.
Rehabilitation
Intervention strategies and technologies that help someone who has an acquired disability regain a capability
Habilitation
Intervention strategies and technologies that assist a person, such as someone with a developmental disability, to develop a capability for the first time.
What are the most common congenital conditions that can cause the inability to speak or write without adaptive assistance?
Most common congenital causes:
Severe intellectual disability
Cerebral palsy - Infirmité motrice cérébrale
Autism - l’Autisme
Developmental apraxia of speech - apraxie verbale dévelopmentale
What are the most common acquired conditions that most often result in the need for AAC assistance?
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - sclérose latérale amyotrophique
Multiple sclerosis - sclérose en plaques
Traumatic brain injury - traumatisme crânien
Stroke - accident vasculaire cérébral (AVC)
Prevalence of people with severe speech and/or writing limitations - Canada, 2001 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey
318,000 Canadians older than age 4 have difficulty speaking and being understood.
1.5% of the total population older than 4 years old.
Prevalence of people with severe speech and/or writing limitations - Enderby and Philipp, UK
800,000 individuals, 1.4% of total population
Prevalence of people with severe speech limitations - Province of Victoria, Australia
5,000 individuals, 1.2% of total population
How does the prevalence of severe communication vary across age groups?
Blackstone (1990): 0.2-0.6% of school-age population worldwide has severe speech impairment
Hirdes, Ellis-Hale, & Pearson Hirdes (1993):
- 8% of 45-54 year-olds
- 2% of people aged 85 or older
What is it like to rely on AAC?
People talk behind, around, over, under, through, even for you. But never with you. You are ignored until finally you feel like a piece of furniture. - Rick Creech, cerebral palsy
Deny a person the ability to articulate intelligibly and that person is sentences to live in social, intellectual and emotional isolation. - Jim Prentice
That one letter, scrawled on the floor with a broken bit of yellow chalk gripped between my toes, was my road to a new world, my key to mental freedom. - Christy Brown
Just as dance couldn’t possibly be a dance unless people moved to it, so language doesn’t become communication until people grow to express it back. It has to be a two-way exchange. - Janice Staehely
