by Jo Ristow, SLP (speech-language pathologist); NWACS Board Member
reading time: 2 minutes
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: How ableism impacts people who need and use AAC by Alice Wong (2025)
The Impact of Ableism
Alice Wong is a well-known leader in disability justice. She was born with a neuromuscular disability. In 2022, she had a serious medical emergency that changed her life forever. She lost her ability to speak. She now uses AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) to communicate. However, she did not lose her sense of humor or her sharp understanding of how ableism affects disabled people’s lives. Ableism means unfair treatment or discrimination against disabled people.
Wong explains that the exclusion she faced as a child wasn’t just from a few people. It was part of larger systems that ignore and devalue disabled people. The world is mostly built for people without disabilities. That creates barriers for those who move, look, and communicate differently. As an AAC user, she now faces even more ableism. She also faces “speechism” which is bias against people who cannot speak. She even notes that she has her own internalized speechism to deal with.
Wong shares how it felt to go from being a speaking person to using AAC. She says,
“I am still a funny, witty person, but the way I express my personality through speech will never be the same.”
Her AAC device has become part of her body. Being separated from it feels painful, like losing an arm or a leg.
Wong describes a powerful example from a hospital stay. During an emergency, she was not allowed to bring her phone into the ICU because it wasn’t sterile. That meant she had no way to communicate while going through a painful procedure.
“I wanted to scream, beg, and wail and tell people how much pain I was in.”
Instead, she was largely ignored. Not being able to communicate caused her trauma. The hospital never responded to how serious that was.
There are also smaller, daily challenges. She can’t keep up with the fast pace of spoken conversation. She has to plan what she wants to say ahead of time. Her AAC voice doesn’t show tone or humor the same way, which makes it harder to express her personality.
In the end, Wong argues that we must change how we think about communication access. It’s not only about giving people devices or training. We also need to challenge deep social biases and learn from disabled nonspeakers. One idea she talks about is “crip time.” This means understanding that disabled people’s bodies and communication may move at a different pace. The world needs to slow down and adjust.
Alice Wong continues to remind us that inclusion is not just accepting difference. It’s embracing it. It means redesigning our systems, expectations, and ways of thinking so that everyone can take part fully.
Citation:
Wong, A. (2025). How ableism impacts people who need and use AAC. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 41(3), 203–206. https://doi.org/10.1080/07434618.2025.2489663
Access full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07434618.2025.2489663
