It’s ridiculous if you think about it. In schools around the world, children with complex communication needs (CCN) are being asked to prove that they can communicate before they are given access to language. How can students show they have the ability without the words they need? NO ONE can prove he/she can communicate without being given the language to do it. Here…you try it. You can only use this board to answer the question, “What did you have for lunch today?”
How did you do? Did anyone have a cookie for lunch? That’s the only way you would be able to answer that question. If you had sushi or a sandwich, well, you’re out of luck. You’ll never be able to demonstrate your skills. People around you will say you must not be intelligent enough. After all, it’s likely that they’ll have the data from your cognitive and language tests to prove it. New people who meet you may not realize that the system is failing you. They’ve been told that you’re “low functioning” and they press their lips together and nod with a silent understanding to “not expect much.”
Let’s consider this because I used the second person pronoun (you) intentionally. At any moment, any one of us could suffer an injury or illness that takes away our ability to speak. What if you knew everything you know right now and had the same beautiful mind, but you couldn’t tell anyone? Everyday, children are in that exact situation. It kind of turns your stomach, doesn’t it?
If someone isn’t given an opportunity to express knowledge, and the words or pre-programmed sentences that are handed to a child aren’t the ones that match what she wants to say, there’s a limited number of times she’s going to tolerate being compliant. These limited systems are compliance-based. If someone asked “typical” speaking children to say “I want a cookie” and gave them a crumb each time, how many times do you think they would comply? How long do you think it would take for them to walk away…to object and say, “This is stupid.” It’s likely that the many children who are handed limited systems do not have the ability to say “This is stupid.”
Students with CCN often aren’t given an opportunity to explore a comprehensive vocabulary to find the words they have been wanting to say. In many cases, they are given a system to participate in scripted academic programs, but with no room for actual language development or communication.
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) will say they are working on PECs (Picture Exchange Communication System) and when the student get to a certain level, then maybe they’ll consider using high-tech AAC. The challenge with PECs is that once students make a basic request, they’ve outgrown that system. Technically, the actual PECs protocol is supposed to be done with two adults, one prompting the child and the other acting as the communication partner. Most of the time, it’s not followed and students are using a communication book with Velcro pictures or symbols. There are some professionals who hold strong to using icon exchange and some who say, “Well, it’s good for some kids.”
But I disagree. Maybe it’s a better-than-nothing system, but it’s not a long term communication solution. Very rarely does a PECs user get beyond, “I want____” (with “I want” being a single icon) and it certainly doesn’t provide a robust vocabulary that includes access to core vocabulary. There is no voice output, so the student doesn’t get the auditory feedback or the experience of having his or her own voice. Pulling icons out of a book, placing them on a sentence strip and handing them to a communication partner doesn’t prepare a student to access a dynamic display device. There are no pre-requisite skills for successful use of a high-tech AAC device.
Proponents of PECs will say that it encourages social engagement and the idea that they have to get someone’s attention. That is also achieved by responding to a child who uses a high tech device with voice output. Children learn language because we assign a shared meaning to words. We communicate with them to teach them communication. So if PECs is “good for some kids,” the kids they’re talking about are assumed to be “low functioning,” uninterested in communication or incapable of using high-tech AAC. They’re the kids that get stuck in the AAC Catch 22.
Notice that there are only two ways out of that system.
One is that everyone completely gives up on that student’s ability to communicate. The team decides that the student is not interested in communicating. They check it off the list of obligations or write it in the “options considered and rejected” section of the IEP (Individualized Education Program) that they “tried AAC but it didn’t work.” Unfortunately, I’ve seen that rationale carry on for years and years. Adults who tried AAC 25 years ago are still not using AAC because – back before the internet, cell phones, or plasma televisions – they tried some type of technology that “didn’t work.”
The other way out is through presuming competence and having high expectations that a student will learn to communicate beyond a basic request. Children’s paths can be changed because one person believes in their ability and models across functions of language and topics. (Modeling is evidence-based practice, by the way.) That one person can model with the expectation that the child is learning and absorbing, even when it may not feel like he/she is paying attention. That one person can put the language in a child’s hands that allows the child to say anything, and sends the message that he is competent and capable. That one person can be the difference between a child being the casualty of a limited system or a child with a limitless future. That one person can be you.
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