ABSTRACT
The individual Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) user may follow a modified curriculum. There may be a number of therapeutic interventions. All children benefit from visual support. In fact, all adults benefit from visual supports. Children with processing, memory, or motor planning or behaviour difficulties tend to benefit from visual supports the most. There is no doubt that having a student in the class who uses AAC requires extra skills from the teaching staff. Some basic awareness training from the Hub or Spoke AAC Service is recommended. Basic conversation partner training might be offered to all members of the teaching team. Some children may be at an early stage of language learning, and therefore will need differentiated language input. Children need a critical mass of vocabulary on their AAC system before they can start to combine symbols. They need multiple exposures to a new sentence structure, and multiple opportunities to combine words.
