Page 25 - SEN113 SEN Magazine July-August 2021-V3

Communication About the author Jenny Herd Communication Matters Trustee and parent of 23-year-old AAC user, who has completed all his education in mainstream school and is now at university. “There are many myths when it comes to a child’s speech and using AAC.” opens up vast areas of control for someone who may otherwise have very little. I have seen children (and adults) who use variants of sign language to indicate this, or who nod or shake their head, or who smile for yes and stick their tongue out for no. It can be anything at all as long as it is consistent. Another no-tech method that we were shown when my son was about 18 months old (he has athetoid cerebral palsy and no speech) is simply that you can “label” (verbally) each of your hands and hold them apart for the child to either point or look at. So one hand might be “milk” and the other “juice” and so the child can make an active choice. If the child can cope with more choice, you can label the fingers of one hand and the child can reach out and touch the selected option. Very young children seem quite able to deal with this apparently very abstract process and therefore the hands or fingers can be whatever you need them to be, wherever you need them! This has been absolutely invaluable over the years and we still use it now when necessary, and he’s 23 and at university. Moving on from yes and no (which are responses to someone else’s question) very young children can become active communicators by having, for example, photos of family members and everyday items put on cards so that the child can point at them or look at them if finger or fist pointing is not possible, to indicate choice. If they can use their hands then introducing some signs (Makaton, British Sign Language, baby sign, sing and sign etc.) is a very useful addition to a child’s communication methods. Symbols from a proprietary set, with or without words alongside, can also be used in this way. Introducing other forms of AAC Children can very quickly progress onto communication books such as PODD, with pages of symbols, and then on to computer-based devices which “speak” when buttons are activated, which can be by direct touch, switch scanning, eye gaze etc depending on what method is assessed as being best for the individual child. Even where symbols are used, they are almost always displayed with the written word, to aid literacy development (though there is now some emerging research to indicate that words alone may be sufficient for many AAC users to become literate). If/once a child can spell, they may well choose word prediction as their favoured method of communicating but it is entirely possible to use symbol-based systems right up to and through adulthood too, if that works best for the individual. Literacy for AAC users is, however. not as straightforward as just learning to read and spell. This is a whole topic on its own, but in short, many people without speech report that they have no “inner voice” and so sounding out words in order to spell or read them can be very difficult and the current emphasis on synthetic phonics often does not work. However, with the right specialist input children who use AAC can learn to read, but some (like my son) may always have difficulties with spelling words that they cannot “sound out” for themselves, which can make word prediction entertaining! AAC myths There are many myths when it comes to a child’s speech and using AAC. I’ve outlined five key myths I’ve come across below: Myth 1: “Oh just wait and see, they are still young...” No, it is never really too early to start introducing alternatives to speech if you have any concerns at all about a child’s language development, do something! Myth 2: Introducing AAC will hinder speech development Absolutely not, in fact quite the opposite. Having some means of communicating, even if it is very simplistic to start with, is better than having none and actually takes away some of the stress of the pressure to “speak”; a situation which can leave families and children feeling hopeless, upset and demoralised. If a child is able to develop speech, they will, and the introduction of some AAC to assist with frustration will not hinder that, but similarly if the child does appear to have more significant speech delay or absence then all the better that AAC has been introduced at an early stage. senmagazine.co.uk SEN113 25