Speaking up and Spelling It Out : Personal Essays on Augmentative and Alternative Communication

Going beyond the typical augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) issues explored in most textbooks, this essential collection gives readers the opportunity to hear AAC users talk about their lives. Twenty-eight diverse individuals who use AAC, from teens to senior citizens, give first-person accounts of how living with AAC has affected them. Through their personal essays, poems, and interviews, readers will hear their perspectives on the issues that matter most to them, including education, employment, technology, and family. The contributors reveal what using AAC is all about and what works (and doesn't work) for them as they face the daily challenges of communication. These touching and humorous stories will give everyone - particularly AAC professionals, speech-language pathologists, therapists, educators, families, and friends of AAC users - insight into how to improve communication supports for the people they care for, from AAC users themselves. And all