AAC needs to come first!

this is going to be short to get me into the swing of blogging again,
lately I have noticed a very upsetting pattern parents of autistic, in many cases non speaking autistic children don’t know what AAC is,

This is not ok!

This concerns me greatly! I suspect more often than not it is because “specialists,” hold off on mentioning it and or introducing it in hopes of pushing for mouth words, all to often we know that specialists will tell families to wait on aac, even though studies have shown aac help build languages and communication skills!


Here is the thing I’m going to lay it out short and sweet, AAC need to be the first step!

Right after diagnosis a child should immediately start the process of finding communication supports that help them and work for them as well as at least 2back ups! This needs to be the primary goal of any or all autism based services, to provide access to communication, also sensory supports, But I really can’t stress enough how critical aac services are!

Part of these services need to include teaching presumption of competence to family and all other support staff working with the autistic individual as well, and lessons on the importance of respecting their disabled child’s rights and dignity!

If your goal is to teach the client to stop stimming you are failing autistic clients

If your goal of to teach them to be indistinguishable from peers your failing autistic client

If your first and primary goal is not providing the autistic client with access to as much communication as possible then you are failing your autistic clients!