“The goal of AAC should be to say anything that you want to say. It isn’t about telling a person what you need and/or want. It’s about becoming an effective communicator, so you can build relationships.” – Chris Klein (AAC Communicator)
Interactive communication enables connection and participation.
Interactive communication needs access to a rich and useful (robust) vocabulary.
Interactive communication must be authentic and self-determined (autonomous).
For most AAC users, the most effective “interactive communication” is through spontaneous novel utterance generation or SNUG. This means access to individual words that the communicator can combine in any way they wish.
SNUG is achieved through:
- access to a large vocabulary
- understanding of and access to grammatical markers
- at least basic spelling skills
SNUG leads to:
- language development
- relationship development
- conversation skills
- the ability to say anything they want, to anyone they want, at anytime they want
The opposite of SNUG is pre-stored messages. While there is a place and time for pre-stored messages, they do not effectively meet the AAC communication needs of the communicator most of the time.
Many experienced AAC communicators use a combination of pre-stored messages, a large vocabulary of single words, and spelling/word prediction for their daily communication.
In order to achieve SNUG, the AAC user needs all the words!
Reference
“SNUG”/spontaneous novel utterance generation is a concept first introduce by Dr. Katya Hill
- Achieving Success in AAC: Assessment and Intervention by Katya Hill, PhD, CCC-SLP
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