Who Uses AAC?
Those who
encounter difficulty communicating via speech cross the life
span from the young child to the older adult. Children who
cannot use speech are either born with some type of congenital
disability that hinders their development of speech (i.e.,
autism, cerebral palsy, dual sensory impairments, genetic
syndromes, mental retardation, multiple disabilities, hearing
impairment, or a stroke at or near birth) or sustain an injury or
illness that substantially limits their extant speech and
language abilities (i.e., a traumatic brain injury caused by
an accident, stroke, or, in a rare instance, severe
psychological trauma). Some children's difficulty with speech
remains over the course of their life, and thus some adults
who use AAC, like Rackensperger, were once children who used
AAC.
Adults may
also become non-speaking due to a wide range of causes, including
a stroke that results in aphasia, cancer that affects the
vocal mechanism, traumatic brain injury, or a progressive
neurological disease (e.g., Parkinsonism, Multiple Sclerosis,
or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Not every child or
adult who presents with one of these disorders is, or will be,
unable to speak. Some adult-onset disorders that are
progressive in nature may result in significant difficulty
with speech later rather than earlier in the course of the
disorder. As with all abilities and disabilities, there are
individual differences in communication patterns.
