QMG Speech Therapists Give Patients a Voice

Octo­ber is AAC Aware­ness Month, which stands for Aug­men­ta­tive and Alter­na­tive Communication.

AAC is any tool or strat­e­gy an indi­vid­ual uses to com­mu­ni­cate oth­er than ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion, such as writ­ten expres­sive, com­mu­ni­ca­tion boards, sign lan­guage, non-ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion such as ges­tures and facial expres­sions, and sign language.

Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) Pedi­atric Speech Lan­guage Pathol­o­gists Aman­da Wag­n­er and Megan Siemens spe­cial­ize in AAC. They say every­one deserves a voice and AAC pro­vides that for individuals.

Wag­n­er and Siemens said those who ben­e­fit from AAC are chil­dren who are non-ver­bal (unable to for­mu­late words), min­i­mal­ly ver­bal (may be able to say words but do not use for func­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion) or those that have severe speech sound dis­or­ders (may say word approx­i­ma­tions but are not able to be under­stood across all social envi­ron­ments). Chil­dren with a wide vari­ety of diag­noses may ben­e­fit from AAC such as Autism, Down syn­drome, Cere­bral Pal­sy, and Child­hood Aprax­ia of Speech.

“There are no pre­req­ui­sites skills need­ed to use AAC. Require­ments to receive an AAC device should not be based on motor abil­i­ties, cause and effect knowl­edge, cog­ni­tive lev­el, or recep­tive lan­guage skills,” explained Wagner.

One form of AAC that has been found to be extreme­ly effec­tive in has been using a com­put­er with a ​“voice,” called a speech-gen­er­at­ing device (SGD). This cus­tom tablet uti­lizes high­ly pre­dic­tive and researched pic­ture vocab­u­lary that when select­ed a speech out­put is generated.

“There are a wide vari­ety of speech gen­er­at­ing devices and researched vocab­u­lary sets such as Touch Chat Word Pow­er, Words for Life (LAMP), Tobii Dynavox Snap+core first, and Prologuo2Go, just to name a few,” said Siemens. ​“Each vocab­u­lary set has its strengths and weak­ness­es and can be cus­tomized to each indi­vid­ual com­mu­ni­ca­tion need.”

AAC inter­ven­tion uti­liz­ing a SGD has sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits in the devel­op­ment of com­mu­nica­tive com­pe­tence and lan­guage skills, it also has shown pos­i­tive ben­e­fits in the devel­op­ment of nat­ur­al speech production.

“Use of AAC gives chil­dren a con­sis­tent, uni­ver­sal and effec­tive way to com­mu­ni­cate, reduc­ing neg­a­tive behav­iors that are asso­ci­at­ed with com­mu­ni­ca­tion break­downs includ­ing tantrums, refusals, etc.,” Wag­n­er said. ​“It also helps alle­vi­ate stress among fam­i­lies and care­givers who were hav­ing to guess as wants/​needs and deal with behav­iors relat­ed to lack of communication.”

In addi­tion, Wag­n­er said giv­ing a child a way to com­mu­ni­cate also increas­es over­all inde­pen­dence through­out dai­ly social envi­ron­ments and increas­es con­fi­dence to inter­act with peers and adults.

A SGD is per­son­al­ized to the indi­vid­ual who uti­lized it to sup­port their needs.

“A SGD allows for the vocab­u­lary to be high­ly cus­tomiz­able with the patient’s pre­ferred activ­i­ties and items such as food, drinks, movies, books, toys, etc. and per­son­al infor­ma­tion such as birth­date, hob­bies, and excit­ing news in order to encour­age ini­ti­a­tion of social inter­ac­tions and con­ver­sa­tions per­tain­ing to their spe­cif­ic inter­ests,” said Siemens.

If you have con­cerns about your child’s speech, speak with your child’s health­care provider or call the QMG Pedi­atric Ther­a­py depart­ment at (217) 222‑6550, ext. 3418 or vis­it https://​quin​cymed​group​.com/med….