A Lesson in Autism and AACBy Zelko, Gail Robin; Advance for
Speech-Language Pathologists & Audiologists, Publication Date:
March 16, 2009 Account by a speech-language pathologist of an
evaluation for an augmentative and alternative communication
(AAC) device conducted with a profoundly autistic teenaged girl.
The evaluation came at the request of the girl’s family. School-
based speech-language pathologists consulted found the girl to
be completely unaware of others, demonstrating no language use
or reading or writing ability. The author describes how the girl
showed no interest in simple AAC devices consisting of buttons
with prerecorded messages. However at the insistence of her
mother, who explained that she had taught her daughter to type,
a highly computerized, complex AAC device was set up for the
girl, who immediately typed a simple request to be taken to a
promised playdate. Not only could the autistic girl type a
sentence, but she demonstrated the ability to communicate about
an abstract event taking