engleski

Experiences of implementation of AAC in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Croatia

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) encompasses a wide range of social communication deficits, and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities. It is also characterized as a heterogeneous group in the domain of language, with difficulties in language comprehension and/or language production. Consequently, all individuals with ASD should be considered as potential candidates for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC, Wegner, 2012). AAC use has been shown to have positive effects for people with ASD in different developmental areas, including social interaction, communication skills (Cafiero, 2001), language comprehension and language production (Millar, 2009). Thanks to established cooperation between education, research, development and innovation sectors in Croatia, different AAC approaches have been used with individuals with ASD. In the recent decade, the technology made its breakthrough in clinical and family settings of young children with ASD (and other developmental difficulties). Combination of high-tech and low-tech strategies in enhancing communication and language skills, as well as organization of predictable environment with clear expectations for child showed to be effective. Most of the principles and strategies used in AAC settings are incorporated in evidence-based intervention, supported by the results of scientific research (social stories, video modeling, social communication intervention, schedules, support language expression, etc. ; National Autism Center, 2015). The experiences from the Center for Rehabilitation at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences will be elaborated and shared through poster presentation. Despite theoretical and empirical basis of positive effects of AAC for persons with ASD, implementation of AAC in services for children with ASD is still emerging in Croatia. Existing barriers refer to the lack of knowledge among professionals that will be discussed. These barriers are numerous: 1) AAC is used primarily for replacing speech, and not for enhancing the understanding of the language, 2) AAC stands for requesting, neglecting other communication functions, 3) communication partner rarely uses the AAC system to provide an input and a model for use in a meaningful context, 4) the focus is on the use of a device rather than on the communication, 5) insufficient understanding of the multimodal approach, 6) myths among families and society about AAC (ie. fear that AAC will impede speech development), and 7) limitations in practical requirements (lack of collaborative team effort and inadequate work organization in providing time and labour intensive AAC interventions).

Augmentative and Alternation Communiction ; Autism Spectrum Disorder

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