Here, I am holding an AAC high-tech device.

Author: Mary Ratcliffe | Major: Communication Sciences and Disorders

Hello, name is MaryGrace Ratcliffe, I am in the College of Education and Health Professions, and I am studying Communication Sciences and Disorders, with a minor in Human Development and Family Sciences. Over the course of the spring and summer semesters, I have been working alongside my honors mentor, Dr. Rachel Glade, researching the use of Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) in both the public school and private practice settings. Individuals who are non-verbal or who have highly unintelligible speech can benefit from AAC devices to communicate with others. Communication with these devices can be seen through various levels of technology: high-tech, mid-tech, and low-tech. The most common form shown is a high-tech device that is usually on an iPad-type device. This project aims to promote the importance of AAC and to identify similarities and differences in the way public school and private practice speech-language pathologists teach and use AAC with the students with which they work.

Recently, I was given approval to observe Angela Kremer’s at Children’s Therapy Team located here in Fayetteville, Arkansas. There, I will be able to observe her trial various programs on AAC devices with several children. The programs trialed will range from vocabulary, display settings, and text-to-speech output. There will be three short term in-clinic trials that are completed over the course of four sessions, and we will then be able to see how the child responds and if they prefer one AAC program over the other. The trials will then allow the speech-language pathologist to request a long-term loan of the AAC device with the preferred program and we will be able to send it home with the child for everyday use. This is all part of speech-language pathology therapy sessions.

I am so excited to be able to observe in both private practice and school-based settings. I hope to gain new information and experiences that will allow me to recognize if there is a noticeable difference in the way public schools and private practices use AAC. I chose this topic because being able to communicate with the people around you is very important to me, especially when a person may not have the ability to use spoken language. This opportunity will allow me to learn so much more not only about speech-language pathology, but also about myself. This will allow me hands-on experience and I will be able to apply all of the information learned in my Honors project. It will also show me how rewarding the occupation of speech-language pathology can be. I will be able to see the progress that multiple students can make with the use of AAC. This opportunity will help me to grow stronger as a clinician. This will be a valuable experience that I cannot wait to apply to my future. For my future, I plan to use my research and present it at the Arkansas Speech Hearing Association in the fall of 2022 to share my findings. I hope to raise awareness on the importance of AAC and also identify resources that speech-language pathologists can use while working with children using AAC devices in the future.