Assessment of communication needs.

A child with communication difficulties should have his/her communication needs assessed by an expert in AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) systems and interventions. This may be a member of the teaching staff at school or a speech therapist, if they have specialised in AAC, but if the local professionals do not have the necessary experience, it is recommended that the nearest regional expert centre be contacted. Most likely the local professionals will be working alongside regional and national experts anyway, especially since the Communication Aids Project, (April 2002-March 2006) funded by DfES and managed by BECTa, in their drive towards streamlining coordinating local provision.

The national charitable organisation whose membeship is made up of people from all areas of the field of AAC, all the AAC centres, the researchers, developers and manufacturers of communication hardware and software, teachers and speech therapists who specialise in AAC, and AAC users and their families, is Communication Matters, the UK chapter of ISAAC, International Society of Augmented and Alternative Communication.

ISAAC has recently been awarded consultative status as a Non-Govermental Office (NGO) member the United Nations.

Ace-Centre and Ace-North are Advisory Centres for Education for the north and south of England, most regional centres being satellites of one or the other.

Michael's AAC Assessment:

Michael was assessed locally in 1996-7, and his next assessment was arranged through the DfES CAP Project for 2003. School didn't invite Mum to Michael's CAP assessment in 2003.

Mum had proposed on the CAP referral form that Michael probably needed a newer Minspeak device to replace his old Delta Talker, and that we were interested in both a Pathfinder and a Vanguard. Both systems run the LLL communication software that Michael is familiar with, but where the Pathfinder has a static overlay with a finite set of 128 icons, the Vanguard, being PC-based, has the same icon set as well as the added option of customising pages with photographs and different symbols, for personal, topic-based and other extended vocabulary items. (I'm sure school would have had a much easier time with the Vanguargd than the Pathfinder because everyone understands pages and folders).

Mum had been looking forward to comparing these static and dynamic screen devices, and also hoped that some software solutions being authored by the man who wrote the LLL Application (Tony Jones) would be released in time for Michael's assessment, as this would open up the possibility of Michael having a device that was both communication aid and a PC. There was a delay, and Tony's software wasn't released in time. (The PC functions on the Vanguard are locked out so it can only be used as a dedicated communication aid, and Michael has to carry both Pathfinder and laptop).

School forgot to invite Mum to the CAP assessment, so Mum missed the opportunity of talking this out with experts and trying one then another of the devices, which was the promise of CAP, and she missed seeing just what an assessment entails. She had been looking forward for years to Michael having his language and communication abilities assessed by AAC experts. The lady who assessed Michael on behalf of CAP tells us she knows little about communication aids. Her specialty is special needs educational software like Clicker and Writing with Symbols.

Michael got a Pathfinder and a laptop from CAP. Thank you. This must have cost the government a very generous £8,000 - £9,000, and saved local resources by the same amount.

Eighteen months later, after Mum's personal campaigning at school re teacher training and involvement in using CAP equipment had yielded no results, Mum asked the County Advisory Teacher for Special Needs (the lady who had assessed Michael on behalf of CAP) to review the situation at school, which she did, in May 2004. She wrote a report to school recommending that use of Pathfinder should be increased to 50% of lessons. In November 2004 three staff were allowed one of the two free training sessions that came with the Pathfinder (received October 2003), but Advisory Support asked if Mum would let the teachers have this session to themselves, so they wouldn't feel intimidated by Mum's superior knowledge or guilty about when they realised what they could have been doing all along. Mum politely conceded, although she sorely missed this opportunity for shared input.

Use of Pathfinder did not increase and subsequently Mum asked CAP to review the situation, and representatives from Ace Oldham came to school in January 2005. Michael's language ability was not assessed at this time, so Mum is still a CAP virgin from the point of view of being present at a language development assessment. However, four dynamic screen tablet PC communication aids were assessed, by the various professionals and teachers present and Mum, and the testing consisted of us trying to say two sentences on each machine. Michael was then invited to join the meeting and try the same two sentences himself.

The sentences were 'Have you seen our brother today?' and 'Can I try your coat on?' We didn't get to the end of either sentence with any of the four devices, because they were all missing words like 'HAVE' 'SEEN' 'CAN' and 'TRY'!

Mum expressed concern about such essential core words being missing, and was told she could add them herself, but this concern remained in Mum's mind, as she has learned from Communication Matters seminars and her own research that there are different approaches to providing children with vocabulary on their AAC systems, and they don't all provide access to a core vocabulary of words stored as seperate items, which is necessary if a user is to say what they like and make it up as they go along.

Sometimes the main focus of a system is topic vocabulary, and/or the words are not stored individually but as parts of pre-stored phrases or complete sentences.

Only one of the devices had a screen that was clear enough to read in the normall lit room, and it was on this factor that it was chosen to be the device we would trial when one becomes available.

We didn't meet a proficient user (Role Model) of any of the devices, or test the devices' default memories against, e.g., a 300-most-common-words list, as is strongly recommended by experts in the field. None of the professionals present made any particular recommendations or offered extra information from their own previous experience with these devices, regarding the vocabulary content and its arrangement.

Tony Jones' software solutions, which provide access core vocabulary, like the Pathfinder does, and which would enable Michael to have a hybrid device that is both PC and communication aid, were not considered for trial because of their similarity to the Pathfinder.

Tony says his new software is NOTHING LIKE LLL, as most of core vocabulary can be accessed from his software with one keystroke. Minspeak requires two keystrokes per word. The professionals at the meeting must have presumed there would be some similarity between Tony's new software and LLL because it was Tony who authored the LLL package way back in the 1980's.

Tony's software generates the correctly modified form of a word on a user's behalf, by using what Tony calls 'Intelligent Grammar', i.e. the system refers to the previous word just generated, and then decides which form of a word should follow. It's all in the coding. That so many words can be accessed with one keystroke is exceptional, and because Tony is the author, all core words are present.

School told Communicate that the Pathfinder is to complex for Michael, just because he hasn't taught it to himself any faster than his teachers have taught it to themselves. I don't think this is a fair judgement, as most of the teaching resources I have placed in school for Minspeak LLL are really only adult friendly, and this gives Michael's teachers a head start over him. I mean, let's face it, most of us grown ups know what a verb or an adjective or a noun is, so we have a clue which folder to look in for a verb, an adjective...

The only teacher who uses Michael's communication aid with him reports regulary that he is making continual and brilliant progress. Michael's English teacher reported to Communicate that he knew 67 words off by heart during a test given him the previous May (2004). Communicate's report of the meeting states that that 'Michael curently only accesses 67 words'.

I know LLL pretty well now, but still make frequent errors when looking for a word, and have to resort to looking it up, by spelling it into the machine, which causes the device to print the file path component names onscreen, so you know it next time - or after you've used the word often enough to remember where it is.

I don't know how many words I know the locations to, or how many words I access, so I can't answer those questions about myself, let alone on behalf of Michael. I'll be able to analyse this sort of stuff as soon as meetings and letter writing allows me the time to study how to do it porperly.

We've been videoing Michael at home, using his Pathfinder to speak to Mum, to word process to our PC, to use it to check spellings so he can surf the Internet independently... And we are videoing his other uses of IT, e.g. video editing and creating PowerPoint presentations with video content. We need to prove his learning difficulties are not as severe as may be imagined and that he is worth teaching.

We hope this video evidence will be considered in any future assessment of Michael's needs and abilities. As well as being published to this site, these video clips have been given to school and SLT on CD.

AAC Provision, Ideally:

It is happening in some places! Good practice examples and success stories will go here, as well as Northants LEA's AAC Policy, published with kind pernmission of Douglas Spenceley, and which could be borrowed from by any County wishing to follow their light.

Michael's AAC Provision:

access to the same everyday words we all use to communicate, and not just lessons nouns and a few adjectives
a means of producing these words, e.g. his voice output communication aid, as well as other solutions
opportunities to practice everyday words in real and engineered situations
his teachers and carers to understand the importance of everyday vocabulary, and where it is stored on his (or any other) communication aid
mentoring, as nothing compares to meeting in person a proficient communication aid user, in demonstrating what can be done, and just who can do it.
support - Michael is not likely to find and learn all the words he needs to use throughout the day by himself. It would be nice if school/LEA would provide some support as per recommendations from Communicate (2001), Statement of Special Educational Needs, IEP, CAP Contract etc.
We feel Michael would also benefit from some catch-up lessons and some Personal Assistant and/or Community Service Volunteer hours, with someone who is prepared to undergo some Pathfinder and Core Vocabulary training, with an AAC expert and with his Mum.

Michael is currently the only communication aid user in a special school where none of his teachers know anything about it and the Head has strongly resisted allowing any inset training time for it. (Actually there is another little boy now, but the school is on three separate sites, one of which is a mile away from the others, and the kids are at different sites. We've visited him at his Gran's recently and are pushing for communication group meetings at school).

For years 7 - 11, 2001 - 2006, the machine was used only for reading Wellington Square books and answering simple questions about the stories, using a special dictionary, but since October 2003, more and more Michael and his English teacher are relying on the spelling and word prediction features on the device, rather than learning the icon sequences, or consulting Mum re programming new vocabulary and updating dictionaries, so Michael isn't being taught to use the language model on his talker at all really, and he hasn't got anyone at school who knows the first thing about it.

Most teachers report that Michael is reluctant to use his Pathfinder, even though they encourage him to, or that he just comes out with gobbleygook when he does use it.

The Head liaises with staff re providing lists of words for Mum to teach Michael on his Pathfinder. 3 words were collected for year 8 and none for year 9. Then the Math teacher gave us around 300 words all at once in year 10.

Michael has delivered a couple of short presentations on his Pathfinder for ASDAN challenges, and his lines for a play his class are currently working on in English, are programmed in.

It would help if all the many people involved in Michael's Placement and Provision had recourse to an AAC expert, which might give us a glimmer of what we should be doing....

Mum has spoken with several competent AAC users around the country, all of whom had a quota of

After six months of letter-writing and meetings last year's SLT agreed that Michael should be given access to a core vocabulary and has agreed to advise school that three teachers (we hoped all) should:

Communication attempts / interpretations and target vocabulary to be recorded daily in a home / school liaison book.

It hasn't started happening yet. Summer term some members of staff used the liaison book to record all Michael's utterances in class (which mostly amounted to either nothing at all, Yes/No, or asking about vacuums cleaners and Christmas lights like he would do at home). At other times no-one uses the book at all.

The only member of staff assigned to attend recent meetings with SLT and Mum says she has had less than any other teacher to do with Michael and his talker, has had no training, and stresses that other children have needs too and so there really isn't any time...

How many teachers don't have to manage a bundle of folders on behalf of their students these days?

only requires that Michael accesses 6 different folders: Root Verb (Come, Need, Help, Talk), Little words (To, At), Place (School), Time words (Tomorrow, O'clock), Family words (Mum), People words (Friends).

This year's SLT has reduced communication targets to the use of just four phrases to keep it manageable for school. New tutor says the April training amounted to 15 minutes and she doesn't know how to help Michael.

AAC Assessment and Provision - right and wrong

Assessment, Generally:

Michael's AAC Assessment:

AAC Provision, Ideally:

Michael's AAC Provision: