​Every Youngster Can Read and Compose: AAC and Literacy

Our company believe, as a matter of faith, that of the end-points of AAC(Augmentative and Alternative Interaction) is the development of literacy, i.e. the capability for a non-verbal kid to write and check out.

Properly designed AAC is more than an assistive innovation - it is also an educational innovation. Simply puts, AAC can (and need to) provide a way for a child to change from being a picture-user to being a text-user.

Some parents, and even a couple of therapists, occasionally question the presumption that a non-verbal youngster is capable of literacy. We take inspiration from David Yoder's quote - "no youngster is too anything to be able to write and read". Both systematic research as well as anecdotal proof has actually revealed that even youngsters with really high levels of special needs can be taught literacy.

Teaching literacy is extremely important, because it is the entrance to education and work; and is the crucial to addition.

For some reason, individuals believe a youngster must begin learning how to check out and compose just after they have actually learnt to speak and listen. It is true that for a lot of kids who are generally establishing, speech establishes at the age of around 2, perhaps 3. And they start to check out and write when they are 4, possibly 5 - in kindergarten. This staging is not so much a function of language ability as it is of, possibly, motor capability and other mental and physical functions. In other words, there are so many things occurring simultaneously as the brain of a typically developing kid develops, that it appears incorrect to state that the ability to read and compose is in some way based on the capability to talk.

In the case of youngsters with unique needs, the scenario is entirely various. Some children with autism spectrum disorders just get formally detected when they are getting in kindergarten - at 4 or 5. And this is the age at which AAC intervention might begin. It's important for us to presume - whether it's true or not - that at this age, the kid is capable of learning how to interact both in-conversation (speaking/listening) however also offline (reading/writing). At an age when normally developing children are being taught literacy, it is very important that youngsters with unique requirements are also taught the exact same thing.

We have no data to indicate that this would be an overload for them in any method - in truth, all data shows the opposite, which is that they can attain practical literacy much faster and at a greater level than their caretakers often think.

That's why literacy education is a crucial part of communication and language advancement. And because AAC is the most prevalent tool that we use for interaction training, it is extremely important to find ways to include AAC into literacy training, too.