Introduction

[Amy Waller]

Hello --

My name is Amy Waller and I am a speech-language pathologist specializing
in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).  AAC refers to
communication techniques that people who do not have functional natural
speech use to augment or replace natural speech.  Techniques include high
tech options such as computers and communication devices, low tech options
such as symbol boards and books, and tech-less options such as gestures and
manual signs.  People who use these AAC techniques include people with
congenital disorders such as cerebral palsy and autism and acquired
disorders such as ALS and traumatic brain injury.  The need for AAC might
be temporary (such as during a hospital stay for a procedure that
temporarily impairs a person's ability to speak) or permanent.  Stephen
Hawking, the British physicist who has ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's Disease) and
uses an adapted laptop computer to communicate, is one famous AAC user.

I am interested in the discourse of people who use AAC techniques and their
communication partners.  The communication of AAC users tends to be very
slow (a small number of letters or words per minute) and communication
partners, particularly unfamiliar partners, often don't have adequate time
to talk to AAC users.  In addition, discourse is frequently lopsided as AAC
users are often passive (for example, they may not initiate conversations)
and they may limit their utterances to a few words at a time.  I am
interested in spoken as well as written discourse, in particular email and
internet chat.  Spoken communication between an AAC user and a typically
speaking person actually seems to be a blend of spoken and written
communication as the AAC user "types" his or her message which is then
spoken by the device or read by the typically speaking partner.  The
situation can be further complicated by the many different symbol systems
that AAC users use to compose their messages (these include commercially
available symbol systems created for AAC users and home-made symbols
created for a particular AAC user).   Face-to-face communication is very
different from phone communication.  Not surprisingly, many AAC users find
that email levels the playing field as far as communication goes because
they can take as long as they want to compose a message.  Unfortunately,
not all AAC users have adequate literacy skills to use these electronic
communication methods.

AAC is a very young field and we don't know a lot how competent AAC users
communicate competently let alone how to help less competent AAC users
become more competent.  (Sorry for the overuse of the word "competent"!)

I live in sunny Florida, USA, and I'm looking forward to participating in
this list --

Amy Waller

________________________
Amy Waller
awaller at earthlink.net
Sarasota, FL