This module helps SLPs better support AAC users’ full participation in society. It includes four readings written or co-written by AAC users, and addresses four key areas of adult life: safe housing, relationships, service access,…
“Nonspeaking people belong in public, holding court in conversations, doing our thing, our access needs respected, and being our full selves unapologetically”
(Wong, 2025, p.203)
Webcasts by AAC users, AAC researchers, and Advocates are available
Twenty-one papers from the Future of AAC Research Summit are now freely available as a special issue in the AAC journal.
“Many, if not most, people who need AAC are still denied effective language-based AAC; assumed illiterate for life; and subjected to extreme isolation and violence. We must secure fundamental fairness and mitigate the multiple and compounding biases and discrimination that those who require AAC endure. We must envisage ways in which people who use AAC can be better heard and live in community with all others.”
This presentation was first made at the Future of AAC Research Summit on May 13, 2024.
Grant Blasko Grant Blasko is a young adult nonspeaking autistic student and part of the Summit’s Organizing Committee. He is a University of Washington DO-IT Scholar, an active member of TASH’s National Communication Access Workgroup,…
endever* corbin endever* corbin is a multiply disabled semispeaking autistic self-advocate. Their life has improved so markedly since getting access to AAC that they now spend a lot of their time on research, presentations, consulting,…
Kevin Williams and Christine Holyfield describe key principles in the development of new AAC technologies
This presentation was first made at the Future of AAC Research Summit on May 13, 2024.
Melissa Crisp-Cooper Melissa Crisp-Cooper is a writer, adventure seeker, and advocate. She uses many forms of AAC. Melissa is the Associate Director of Participant Experience at The Arc San Francisco. Before joining The Arc,…
Webcast Description
Ren Koloni provides their perspective on priorities for the field of AAC. This presentation was first made at the Future of AAC Research Summit on May 13, 2024.
by Patrick Regan Patrick Regan Patrick Regan has been an AAC user for more than 27 years. He experiences Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2, and he received his first speech-generating device a few…
Holyfield and colleagues present current research, and identify needed technical development, for supporting individuals who need AAC in learning language and literacy
Anjali Forber-Pratt Anjali J. Forber-Pratt, Ph.D. is a disability activist, former faculty member, 2-time Paralympic medalist and the Director of Research at the American Association on Health & Disability. Dr. Forber-Pratt was formerly the…
Pancho Ramirez Pancho Ramirez is the current Vice Chair of CommunicationFIRST’s Board of Directors. As a Mexican immigrant farmworker, he acquired his speech disability in 2003 at age 20 from a brain stem stroke after…
Tim Jin Tim Jin is a Communication Expert and Advocate who serves on several boards, government taskforces. and committees, and routinely speaks professionally at conferences and training seminars about his passion to expand communication access…