5 Common Misconceptions of Using an AAC Device

By Michelle

Language is one of the most complex parts of the human brain. However, many do not know that language is broken into two parts. Receptive language (understanding) and spoken language (speech). Imagine yourself as someone with lots of ideas, suggestions, requests and complex feelings that you would like to convey to the world… except that you can’t. You have trouble forming speech. That’s exactly how it is for my son when he was diagnosed with Dyspraxia (also known as Apraxia of Speech), almost 3 years after his autism diagnosis. It wasn’t only his autism that made communication hard. As it turned out, Dyspraxia makes coordination of speech difficult because his brain isn’t communicating well with the mouth muscles.

“Imagine his frustration of knowing what to say to us, but is physically unable to do so. It is this frustration that has caused a lot of meltdowns in his early years. I knew I had to offer more ways for him to communicate to us, and hence our AAC journey began.”

What is an AAC device?

An augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device, is used to help non-verbal or minimally verbal people communicate. Augmentative means to add on to speech, while alternative means to be used instead of speech. In my son’s case, he only has a few words and it was very inconsistent. He is also prone to losing words (regression) and his verbal progress was the slowest compared to progress in other areas. It is these symptoms that led to his Dyspraxia diagnosis. Currently he uses his AAC to supplement all his communication methods which includes a combination of non-verbal gestures, some words here and there and visual helpers (pictures of highly requested items) in each room.

5 common misconceptions of using AAC

You are giving up on speech 

Just because we are using AAC, it does not mean we are giving up on our son. It is just something extra he can use to communicate. Everybody uses a few different methods of communication in our daily life. We use words, gestures, WhatsApp, emails, body language and so on. We should not limit our child’s communication options but seek to expand it instead. In fact, AAC will not stop a person from learning to speak. Read about it here.

They won’t want to speak if they use the device

For us, and many other autistic people, the opposite is true. We noticed how happy he was the first day we showed him the app! He started being so interested in learning words and started repeating some of the words I programmed in the app. When I’m busy, he is still able to access the app to learn, and the best part is, I can now hear him “talk” from another room. This increased his confidence level, reduced performance anxiety and in turn he started saying more words than usual. Even his therapists noticed this change!

You need to master PECs first before learning AAC

We were actually told this by one of his therapists two years back. They required him to learn PECs first before they consider introducing AAC. I remember they said it could take years before he is “ready” for AAC. However, in my research, this has actually been debunked by pro-AAC speech therapists overseas. You CAN go straight to AAC. There isn’t any prerequisite. The only thing that is required is that the child is able to press buttons on a device. If your child can’t, not to worry, this can be certainly be taught.

Young children cannot use AAC

Again, age has NOTHING to do with ability. You just need to try it out and see how the child responds. We tried AAC one year ago when he was 3 years plus, and he didn’t catch on as easily as now when he is almost 5. However, it was probably due to the fact that we didn’t have a dedicated iPad for his AAC then. It is important to have a dedicated device so the child can differentiate their communication device with their entertainment device. We also use guided access to lock the AAC app to the screen, so he can’t navigate out of the app and go to YouTube. In other countries like America, there are children as young as 3 years old who are taught to use AAC by their speech therapists.

You need a therapist to implement AAC and there is barely any in Malaysia

No, you don’t. I learnt it myself by following Instagram accounts of parents and therapists overseas who uses AAC for their kids. Plus, there is always Google and YouTube! Parents can absolutely take charge of their child’s intervention too, especially since not many therapists in Malaysia knows about AAC (sadly!). Here are some Instagram pages that I follow and find useful: The AAC Coach, A Friendly Lily Bug, Graciella Blooms, and Autismotherhood.

So, where do I start?

Since we are quite new to AAC, we started with a free app called GoTalk Now Lite which is only available on iPad. Some parents have recommended me to start with this as it is quite user friendly for younger kids. You could start with this to get a feel of how it is like for your child. However, there are a limited number of pages available for the free app. As our child grows and is able to handle more pages and buttons, we will make an upgrade.

There are a few different apps out there which you can research and see what suits your needs. One highly recommended app is called Proloquo2, which has a lot more functions and pages, but has to be purchased at a hefty RM1,000 price tag. If all goes well, we will definitely be upgrading to a higher functionally version for my son in future. Perhaps this is also something for policy makers to consider as part of the OKU subsidies? After all, giving a voice for the voiceless, should be made easily available to ease their struggles.