Episode 279: Recast: Shaun Pearson & Chris Chicoskikelly: The AAC Agreements

In this “Recast” episode of Talking with Tech, we share a remastered episode that was previously aired on the podcast. This episode includes Chris Bugaj’s interview with Shaun Pearson and Chris Chichoskikelly about the AAC Agreements, a set of “better” practices around AAC that were crowd sourced from stakeholders in the area of AAC at the ATIA conference in 2016 and 2018. You can learn more about the AAC Agreements here!

Before the interview, Chris Bugaj, Rachel Madel, and Lucas Steuber discuss some of the key beliefs that they have around AAC and how they try and follow these guidelines within their own practices.

During the interview, Chris, Chris, and Shaun discuss the following "AAC Agreements":

1. The student should have access to their communication system even while engaging in academic or leisure activities.

2. Everyone is a multi-modal communicator. A communication system should include multiple modalities.

3. There should always be a light tech option as part of an AAC system.

4. Motor planning is an important consideration of an organizational structure of an AAC system.

5. The communication system should allow for multiple pragmatic functions.

6. Core vocabulary should be taught.

7. Modeling (aided language stimulation) all day, every day is desired in AAC, with no requirement of a response.

8. Modeling should allow for growth in the individual's communication.

9. Modeling should be used to facilitate growth in communication.

10. Accept any mode of communication as valid, as long as your communication partner understands what it means. Don't require individuals to repeat themselves in another modality. Do model the response in the modality you are trying to teach.

11. The AAC system should always be immediately accessible to the user.

12. The AAC system should never be removed for disciplinary reasons.