Why Might My Child Need AAC?

Not all children with communication difficulties will need AAC, but some children might benefit from it because:

• It gives them a way to communicate if they aren’t speaking yet. Just because a person isn’t speaking, doesn’t mean they have nothing to say. AAC can give your child a way to get their message across if they find speaking difficult. This helps to reduce frustration and the barriers created by communication difficulties.
• It can support language development. AAC systems provide a visual support for language. Words are represented using symbols, which your child can see and point to. This can make them easier to learn than language in the spoken form alone.

Will AAC Stop My Child From Talking?

No. Research shows that there is no evidence that giving a child any type of AAC will stop them from talking. In some cases (though not all) it can actually encourage speech. Because AAC can support language development, we will often recommend it for children who already have some words. AAC isn’t a last resort, it’s a tool that can be used with other support from Speech and Language Therapy to help your child to develop their communication skills.

Will AAC Fix All of My Child’s Communication Difficulties?

Probably not on its own. It is likely that in addition to AAC, they will need support with the areas of language and communication that they might be finding difficult such as vocabulary, sentence building or social communication. For more information on these topics, please see the relevant sections of our website.

How Can I Help My Child to Use AAC?

Getting an AAC system is the first step on a child’s journey. Like any other equipment, they will need to be shown how to use it. If you wanted your child to learn a musical instrument, you wouldn’t just give it to them and expect them to start playing!

We teach children to use their AAC system by modelling. This is where you use the system yourself while talking to your child. This way, your child learns how AAC can be used to communicate and that it’s ok to communicate in this way.

Modelling may sound simple, but it’s actually a skill adults need to learn and there are lots of different techniques you can use while modelling. Your Speech and Language Therapist will work with you and your child to find the best way to help them.

It’s important to remember that a child’s AAC is everyone’s responsibility. Because your child will be using their AAC all the time, it can’t just be up to parents or school or Speech and Language Therapy to help them to use it. Everyone needs to be involved.

I Think My Child Might Need AAC – What Next?

The first step would be to discuss AAC with your Speech and Language Therapist. If your child isn’t yet being seen by Speech and Language Therapy, you can make a Request for Assistance.

Your child might start out on a low-tech system such as a communication book or board. If your child needs a more complex AAC system your Speech and Language Therapist might ask for support from the local AAC specialist in our department. If more specialist support is needed, with your consent, we may ask for support from our colleagues in Glasgow’s Scottish Centre of Technology for the Communication Impaired (SCTCI).

It’s important that your child gets a proper assessment before we decide on an AAC system. Research shows that decisions made early on in a child’s AAC journey can be hard to go back on if they aren’t right. Giving your child a detailed assessment will help to get them off to the best possible start, so we’ll collect a lot of information before we try a device with them.

Your child will have the opportunity to trial a device for a few weeks and then a joint decision will be made about whether this will be the best fit for them long term or if we need to try a different device or some low-tech AAC. If the trial doesn’t work out, this just means we have more information to make better decisions about communication systems in the future.

If, following assessment we find a device that is a good fit for your child, we can make a request for funding for your own device. Your child has a legal right to government funding for a device, as long as the application is supported by a Speech and Language Therapist.