Recently, a discussion among friends in our AAC community came up, about whether or not we should be customizing devices for AAC users to only include words they understand.  To clarify, “understand” seemed to refer to the user’s ability to fully comprehend the meaning of the word.  One school of thought was to remove words if the user did not have this “understanding.”  Our school of thought is absolutely not!  For example, Lauren and I have a context for the word “astrophysics” and might say it when talking about last night’s episode of “The Big Bang Theory;” but if you asked us to describe it or tell you about it… we couldn’t.  This does not mean that we can’t use the word.  Following this train of thought, we believe our AAC users have the right to say any word they want even if they don’t necessarily know the meaning of it.  This creates wonderful, unexpected teaching opportunities.

A point I’d like to make about these teaching opportunities is that they don’t necessarily mean the AAC user will walk away with an understanding of the word.  And that’s ok!  Their verbal peers might not understand your explanation either, but they can still say the word if they choose to!  My cousin recently used a swear word and when asked by her mother if she knew what that word meant, she said “no.”  Her mother’s reply was simply, don’t use that word again!  Verbal speakers use words they don’t understand, so AAC users can too!  There may also be times when you have to level your explanation for the user. For example, when young children ask “where do babies come from?” their parents and teachers don’t usually tell the whole story!  Depending on the child’s abilities, you may choose to provide a simplified explanation!

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