UPDATE 11/5/21: We have turned this blog post into an expanded resource on our website. Check it out HERE!

Welcome back to Let's Talk AAC - a series of questions and topics for discussion that we hope will be another useful resource. NWACS will occasionally post a question or topic along with some related information. We hope that you will join in the conversation by adding your experiences, resources, related research, etc. in comments so that we can all learn and benefit from each other's knowledge and experience.

Let’s continue discussing this question seen frequently in SLP/AAC social media groups:

What tool(s) do you use to assess [description of an individual with intellectual/developmental disabilities and complex communication needs]?

Here is a list of PAID tools that may be helpful when evaluating early/emerging communicators with complex communication needs (if you haven’t already, check out part 1 with a list of free tools). We encourage you to explore and judge for yourself which to add to your toolbox.

• AAC Evaluation Genie (iOS app) – AAC Evaluation Genie is an informal diagnostic tool that is intended to assist with identifying skill areas that relate specifically to the language representation methods commonly found on augmentative communication systems. There are 13 subtests that can be administered with screening options available for each subtest.

• AAC Language Stages Chart (available as part of AAC Language Lab subscription, currently $19.95 per year) - includes charts for parts of speech, pragmatics, morphology, AAC language stages, and sentence types.; also check out their Evaluation Tool tab

• Achieving Communication Competence - Details a three-step process for creating an effective plan for people with severe communication disabilities. “Can be effective with all individuals who have severe communication disabilities regardless of their age, nature of their disability or their use of augmentative communication.”

• Augmentative & Alternative Communication Profile: A Continuum of Learning (AACP) – “The AACP allows you to assess communication skills and design intervention for the ever-changing needs of people who use AAC systems. It has two functions: (1) Measures subjective, functional skills for developing communicative competence using AAC systems, retests skill level, and monitors progress, and (2) Guides intervention to help clients who use any type of speech-generating AAC system.”

• Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales (CSBS) – “CSBS consists of 22 communication and symbolic rating scales grouped into seven “clusters”: communicative functions, gestural communicative means, vocal communicative means, verbal communicative means, reciprocity, social-affective signaling, and symbolic behavior. Designed to be used with infants and toddlers whose functional communication age is between 6 and 24 months and for children up to 72 months who exhibit atypical development.

• Early Functional Communication Profile (EFCP) – The EFCP “assesses pivotal preverbal communication skills that children need to develop functional communication. This measure is sensitive to small, subtle changes in joint attention, social interaction, and communicative intent and is appropriate for students with moderate to severe disabilities (autism spectrum disorders, cognitive impairments, coexisting disorders, and augmentative/alternative communication systems).” Ages 2 – 10yrs

• Evaluating Acquired Skills in Communication - Third Edition (EASIC-3) - “The EASIC-3 is a five-level inventory developed for use with children who are developmentally disabled, have autism, or have moderate to severe cognitive and language disorders. Examiners can use the EASIC-3 to evaluate students communication skills, record their performance, or translate assessment data into appropriate IEP goals.” It provides assessment items in the areas of prelinguistic skills, semantics, syntax, morphology, and pragmatics. For students functioning under the language and cognitive levels of the average 6-year-old.

• Every Move Counts, Clicks and Chats (EMC3) – “A sensory based approach to communication and assistive technology for individuals with significant sensory motor differences, developmental differences and autism.”

• Functional Communication Profile-Revised (FCP-R) – “The FCP-R yields an overall inventory of the individual's communication abilities, mode of communication (e.g. verbal, sign, nonverbal, augmentative),and degree of independence. Clients are assessed and rated in the major skills categories of communication through direct observation, teacher and caregiver reports and one on one testing. The FCP-R is appropriate for individuals who range between mild and profound deficits. Ages 3 - adult”

• MacArthur-Bates CDI - “The goal of the CDIs is to yield reliable information on the course of language development from children’s early signs of comprehension, to their first nonverbal gestural signals, to the expansion of early vocabulary and the beginnings of grammar.” The inventories are parent report instruments. Age range: 8–37 months (may also be used with older children who have developmental delays)

  More information can be found here (including information about adaptations for a number of other languages.)

• Social Networks Inventory – “An assessment and intervention planning tool designed to help individuals, their families and professionals determine the most appropriate technologies and communication strategies for people with complex communication needs. Social Networks enables practitioners and researchers to collect information from individuals (children or adults with developmental and acquired disabilities), as well as their families and involved practitioners, about their communication partners and current modes of expression in a way that is both more systematic and more prescriptively helpful than the available alternatives. Firmly grounded in the principles of functional goal-setting and person-centered planning, Social Networks can help practitioners guide and refine the intervention process over time.”

• Test of Aided-Communication Symbol Performance (TASP) – “TASP helps assess symbolic skills quickly and easily. It provides a starting point for designing or selecting an appropriate AAC device page set. TASP uses results to design communication boards and establish appropriate AAC intervention goals and strategies targeting symbolic and syntactic development.”

• Test of Early Communication and Emerging Language (TECEL) - “assesses the earliest communication behaviors and emerging language abilities in infants and toddlers up to 24 months old.” Ages: 2 weeks to 24 months (standard scores, percentiles, and age equivalents); older children, adolescents and adults who have language delays (age equivalents only)

• Triple C - “The Triple C is a valid and reliable tool that makes it possible to assess skills that are observable, focus on functional skills and assess early communication skills.” It is designed to use with teenagers or adults with little or no speech.

Do you know of other assessment resources/tools? What do you use when evaluating emerging/early communicators (of any age)?

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