Social interaction with peers is important for all students. To ensure that students with complex communication needs have the same opportunities to participate and interact in the classroom, creating an AAC friendly environment is key. One way to implement this is to provide opportunities for all students to interact with AAC. Here are some ways to do so:

• Explore ways to introduce AAC to the class: Whether you create and hang up a large poster core board or handout a paper version of the AAC system to each student, utilizing forms of AAC helps normalize it as just another way to communicate. It also creates opportunities for modeling by the teacher and students.  

• Give a lesson on AAC: It’s likely that there will be students who have never seen an AAC device before. Presenting what AAC is will allow the class to have a better understanding of the different ways people communicate. The lesson should also include examples of people who use it, the importance of communication, and examples of AAC.  While your school SLP would love to help out with curating the presentation, it may be more impactful for the classroom teacher to present this lesson because of their familiarity to the students. And don’t forget to include the student(s) who use AAC in planning the presentation. 

• Recognize the AAC user as the expert: Give the student who uses an AAC device the opportunity to show off their device. This can look like many things, including participating in reading a story where the student reads repetitive lines (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? or If You Give a Mouse A Cookie) playing Simon Says, and showing off vocabulary being discussed in class. 

Written by Sarah Black (SLP Graduate Student)