Our goal for AAC users is SNUG* (Spontaneous, Novel, Utterance Generation). SNUG is when the AAC user is able to say whatever they want to say, whenever they want to say it! Spontaneous: Being able to initiate saying something, and not being reliant on a partner to initiate the conversation or decide the choices available. Novel Utterance: Something new that the AAC user has generated/ composed themselves, rather than from a limited page of options.
To do this requires having access to a broad vocabulary, regardless of what activity they may currently be involved in. For example, we may chat about a host of things while on the way to the shops, but not necessarily talk about the shops at all! Being able to compose their own messages is important because it will often not be what a partner might have predicted. The account below demonstrates how a PODD book facilitated exactly this.
S is a 14 year old who uses eye tracking and Grid 3 with PODD to communicate with a printed PODD book for when her device is unavailable. Whilst waiting for her software to update, S indicated that she wanted her book - she couldn't wait to start talking.
She used a combination of partner assisted scanning and eye pointing to point to the following language pathway ' More to say’ then ‘I'm asking a question’ then ‘why?’ then ‘Categories’ then ‘Special events’ then ‘Birthday' (coupled with her own sad face.)
I knew exactly what she wanted to say! She was asking why I did not send her a message on her birthday as I hadn’t seen her through the holidays. Despite having to apologize profusely, I was delighted that S initiated this conversation and got to ask me something that was important to her, not directed by me, or relating to our therapy session. That is autonomous communication!
This story reminds us why PODD is such a great tool. It really facilitates communicating about anything, anytime and anywhere. If the only message available to S at the start of her therapy session was a pre-programmed greeting, she would not have been able to get her message across. If she only had access to the symbol for birthday, she may have pointed to it but the therapist would have needed to guess what aspect of her birthday she wanted to discuss and would most likely have guessed the topic to be cake or gifts.
This story also demonstrates the importance of having a paper-based system as a back-up for when the device is unavailable, S was able to communicate immediately without needing to wait for her computer to start up.
*Adapted from a paper by Kataya Hill, MA., CCC-SLP, Assistant Professor, Speech-Language Pathology, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.