Celebrate AAC Awareness Month This Year

by Karen Baca

October will be here before you know it, and so will another AAC Awareness Month. It’s time to start thinking about activities to boost awareness of AAC. If you are interested in applying for an Amplifying AAC Voices Mini-Grant as part of your plans, now is the time to start working on the application. (E-mail minigrants@ussaac.org for an application!)

Last October, Cristian Rosas and I ran a successful AAC Awareness Campaign with the support of an Amplifying AAC Voices Mini-Grant. We were able to raise awareness of AAC throughout Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) in California. Some of the activities included: 

• Curated a lending library of AAC books 
• Purchased tags for AAC devices 
• Provided a copy of “A Day With No Words” to each elementary school
• Wear Your Words Day by AAC Specialists and SLPs 
• Created an AAC Awareness Poster with a QR code and distributed it to all schools
• Supported Read Alouds of “A Day With No Words” 
• AAC Presentation by Cristian Rosas to all SLPs in BUSD 

As part of the campaign, each of the eleven elementary school libraries were provided with a copy of the Book “A Day With No Words” to promote district-wide read alouds. The AAC specialists joined the librarian professional development session in early October to educate librarians on AAC, fostering communication partners, and how to present the book. Librarians expressed gratitude for such a beautiful picture book, and all of them expressed that the presentation increased their knowledge of AAC. The books were used by 9 of 11 librarians for read alouds in October. One librarian reported that the book was checked by 3 different teachers in the first month of adding it to the library. At one read aloud site, students made connections to peers in their classes that use AAC. 

One unique approach to raising awareness was the creation of an AAC poster with a QR code. The QR code was linked to a calendar of news, updates, and information. The poster announced the celebration of AAC Awareness month, and the QR link allowed adults to scan the code to see a variety of visuals, short videos, and interesting facts about AAC that were updated daily. The poster was printed and distributed to all of the school site throughout Berkeley Unified School District. 

Of all the activities, the most impactful was the presentation by Cristian to the speech language pathologists. Cristian presented on his life experiences, and gave advice on how to support emergent AAC users. When asked if his presentation improved their understanding of AAC, these were some of the responses: 

• I enjoyed hearing about Cristian’s trouble-making personality when he was in school 🙂 It’s one thing to know AAC user kids, and one thing to know AAC user adults, but I find it so eye-opening to see the change and growth across a person’s life.
• Yes! Especially when students are first learning how to use AAC and their device, it can be hard to see the long-term picture– and even harder to imagine since we often don’t get to follow our students across their life through elementary, middle, and high school and beyond. I love that Cristian is empowered by his device and I hope that my students can also feel empowered by their devices. 
• I loved how effectively Cristian uses his AAC to express his wants, needs, and interests. And I loved the tips to anyone who sees his presentation about how to communicate with someone using AAC. I hope many people see this so that more and more people have this important information. 
• Yes, it was great to see how Cristian was able to advocate for his health and safety through AAC, as well as connect to his faith. The focus is very often about requesting to get basic needs met, when we know there is so much beyond that. 

Given the impact of the campaign, I feel our efforts were successful in raising awareness of AAC in Berkeley Unified School District. If you are considering activities for AAC Awareness Month, I highly encourage you to start planning now. Don’t forget to include an AAC user in your planning and consider using the AAC Speaker Connection to find a speaker to talk to your groups. 

Have a happy AAC Awareness Month!

About the Author

Karen Baca is an Assistive Technology Specialist and has worked in the field of AT/AAC for 39 years. She has presented at conferences on topics of literacy and AAC, and is passionate about supporting emergent AAC users.