This is a plain-language summary of a journal article. The article is one of 21 articles in a special issue of the AAC journal (Volume 41, Issue 3, 2025). All the articles are written or co-written by AAC users. The articles are free to read. Plain-language summaries of research are important for accessibility. Providing summaries in plain language helps make complex information easier to read. This helps to better understand and put the research into practice.
Summary of: Supporting meaningful participation in society by adults with developmental disabilities who need and use AAC: lived experiences, key research findings, and future directions by McNaughton et al. (2025)
This article focuses on supporting adults with developmental disabilities who need AAC. Adults who need AAC face many new communication opportunities and challenges once they leave school-based services. Not having communication supports in adulthood has negative effects of all kinds.
Areas to Address
The authors look at four areas important to address:
- having a safe place to live
- participating in meaningful activities
- accessing needed services
- developing friendships and meaningful relationships
First, having a safe and supportive home:
Some AAC users live in institutions. Others live in the community. Either way, most AAC users have lots of interactions with paid staff such as caregivers. Thus, it is incredibly important to train caregivers to understand, value, and use AAC supports specific to the client. But that can be difficult with staff turnover. Supports for new caregivers and other unfamiliar communication partners must be a priority. A good example of this is Barton-Hulsey et al. 2024. They worked with AAC users to create a disaster and emergency toolkit to support AAC users and emergency personnel.
Second, participating meaningfully in the community:
AAC tools and supports need to be flexible to make them useful across activities. Activities like post-secondary education, employment, recreation, and volunteering. Things like using videos to communicate can be an option. Another critical part of success in the community is changing attitudes and expectations around what AAC users can do. AAC users are more isolated and less likely to work or engage in other community activities. This can change with support and creativity.
Third, accessing needed services and healthcare:
Communicating about health and during health appointments is critical. AAC users are 3 times more likely to experience preventable healthcare errors than speaking people. AAC technology AND healthcare professionals (e.g. doctors and nurses) need to be ready to support discussions about health.
More broadly, community sites need to be more “communication accessible” overall. An example is a project in Australia called the Communication Access project. A team helped businesses make plans and have standards around engaging people who use AAC.
Finally, friendships and meaningful relationships:
AAC users experience isolation in many ways. AAC tools need to better support connection. There also needs to be more focus on training communication partners about how to support AAC users. Maybe most of all, there needs to be real progress made in reducing societal and system-wide barriers for those who communicate with AAC.
Takeaways
Overall, the biggest takeaways are that future support and research needs to focus on how to:
- make AAC easier to use
- make AAC better reflect personal differences and uniqueness
- support many ways to communicate (videos, scenes, low tech and high tech AAC) rather than focusing on one tool
- support reading, writing and literacy for AAC users and
- include AAC users in decision-making and research
Citation:
McNaughton, D., Rackensperger, T., & McLemore, L. (2025). Supporting meaningful participation in society by adults with developmental disabilities who need and use AAC: lived experiences, key research findings, and future directions. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 41(3), 250–263.
Access the full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07434618.2025.2504497
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