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)

The path to interactive communication is SNUG (Spontaneous Novel Utterance Generation)

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 individuals, the most effective “interactive communication” is through spontaneous novel utterance generation or SNUG. This means access to individual words available to be combined by the communicator in any way they wish. In addition to a large vocabulary, understanding of and access to grammatical markers and at least basic spelling skills contribute to SNUG.

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 competent 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 communicator 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