by Eunsey (Sarah) Lee, MS, SLP (speech-language pathologist), NWACS guest blogger (she/her)

reading time: 3 minutes

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of NWACS. No endorsement by NWACS is implied regarding any device, manufacturer, resource, or strategy mentioned.

In January 2024, I had the opportunity to attend the KSAAC conference. It featured presenters from China, Korea, Mongolia, Thailand, Singapore, and more! The conference gave me new insight into East Asia’s AAC research and intervention interests. It also gave me a renewed perspective on culturally responsive practices. These are my quick 3 takeaways.

1. PECS and lite-tech systems

I noticed most of the presentations focused on the use of Picture Exchange Communication and ABA practices. Pat Mirenda presented at the conference virtually! I wonder if this focus is due to limited exposure to neurodiversity and disability culture. There was very little to no discussion on modeling and language intervention. This could be due to the many languages present at the conference making it difficult to discuss intervention strategies or vocabulary and syntax growth. Many of the presenters highlighted low-tech systems. This could be due to the lack of overall funding options Asia has in procuring a device. Funding a device in America is already a difficult process. But for the most part, there are multiple funding sources

• schools,

• private insurance,

• Medicaid/Medicare,

• grants,

• AT rehabilitation centers.

In speaking with the SLPs from different East Asian countries, a high-tech device is an out-of-pocket expense that may not be an available option for many. More about high-tech devices below!

2. High-tech device language organization through a cultural lens

Presenters and vendors were showcasing the use of high-tech systems. What was most notable about the East Asia conference, personally, was the development of specific Korean AAC devices. Korean software developers/professors, linguistics professors, and SLPs were all present and explained how they organized the high-tech devices. Many of the devices are not yet public and are presently in beta testing. If devices were app-based, they were often available on Android platforms over iOS (Apple). The vocabulary layouts were contextually-based phrases over individual parts of speech as we are familiar with (pronouns, verbs, nouns, etc.). The Korean language does not follow the same morphosyntactic structure as English. So a phrase-based system organized through a schematic layout makes the most logical sense. Tobii Dynavox was a vendor and demonstrated their TD Snap and Dagg-3. It was clear that their systems were a direct translation of English. They were not as accurate, meaningful, or user-friendly as the Korean-produced AAC devices present at the conference. They did have some awesome high-quality symbol rings in Chinese that I got to snag, though.

3. Symbol sets through a cultural lens

I deeply appreciated the differences in symbol sets. They were not the typical symbol sets we see in America (SymbolStix, PCS, etc), which are transparent and clear to people from Western countries and societies. The Korean symbol sets were culturally specific and even had the artistic style commonly used in East Asia/Korea. Korea has a symbol set database similar to Boardmaker found here: aacexchange.net. This requires a login and subscription. In the below example, “O” is “yes” and the “X” is “no”. In America, the “yes” would have been either a smiling face or a face with a nodding head gesture.

This conference was an amazing and unforgettable experience for me. It was a time to connect with fellow SLPs globally and to hear how AAC is developing outside of the US. It was refreshing to see the way Korea drew from current AAC literature and then applied it to be uniquely Korean. This shows that foundational AAC concepts are universally applicable. Perhaps we should be learning from the global AAC community when considering culturally responsive practices. Rather than recreating one through systems built for monolingual English speakers. I also wonder: how can we support the greater international AAC community to continue centering and promoting AAC users?