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Posted By Outdoor Living Direct Pty Ltd on 27/08/2021 in News

Communication Partner Training

There are several advantages to having a friend, partner or family member go through aac training or communication training. AAC means Augmentative and Alternative Communication. It means the person with a speech problem has other ways they can communicate with someone close to them, and then in turn this means they can better communicate with other people in their surroundings, health care included. These strategies can also be carried into other settings and in real-life situations. 

 

Understanding AAC

Tools, devices, systems and methods used to support speech or replace it are referred to as Augmentative and Alternative Communication or AAC. Anyone who has difficulty communicating with speech for various reasons can use these methods in any combination to make it easier. Having a partner trained in these methods is very beneficial. Augmentative means when you augment the speech, so you add something in to supplement it. Examples would be a letter board, sign language or the use of images as you talk.

 

The next A, Alternative Communication means tools and systems that can be used to replace or act as an alternative to speech. Sometimes people do not have the ability to speak at all and in these cases, tools can be used to communicate for them. Children might be delayed in their speech, a person might have had an accident and lost the ability to talk, or maybe you have a disease that means you can speak but you cannot rely on it. AAC training can help.

 

Many people have communication difficulties

As mentioned there are a lot of ways a person can lose their speech or might not have developed it. There are a number of disorders that can affect speech, there are speech impediments, developmental disabilities, diseases due to age and more. What a lot of people do not understand is how hard it is to communicate when speech is not possible, and there is no training to help, and how hard on the person it is to not be able to communicate with people. It is a frustrating time and many speaking people make judgements that without competent speech there is a lack of mental competence which is not the case at all. With partner training, they have someone they can express their needs, ideas and opinions to.

 

Types of AAC

When speech is an issue the people dealing with this learn there are some things that are easy to communicate non-verbally, and there are some things that are very frustrating. Yes/no questions are easy but you cant express much beyond that, you can indicate the remote if you want to change the TV channel, but what about expressing an opinion about what you are watching? There are two types of AAC, unaided and aided. Unaided are ways to communicate where you do not need a physical tool or item, so you can use gestures, facial expressions, sign language, and body language for example. Aided ways are those that do use materials and tools, picture cards, symbol boards, mobile devices, keyboards are examples.

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