Ms ?ine Lawlor:

We know as a profession that there are access issues for children and families to appropriate technology. We now know from an evidence base that there is not a prerequisite to giving somebody technology, either to support their communication or for people who are non-speaking. That can be to support to communicate but it can also be to help people develop a means of access to language and literacy. Access is difficult. That feeds into the lack of funding for devices for people, the difficulties without specialised pathways for augmentative and alternative communication, AAC, and we see that AAC has been a greatly changing arena in the past number of years. That is why clinical specialist posts for AAC are so important to allow and to direct clinical excellence in delivering those services.

When we look at somebody becoming a competent user of AAC, that is not just about giving them a device. It is not just about giving somebody an alphabet board or an iPad. It requires a great amount of support to implement it, both with the person themselves, within their environment - whether that is school or at home - and that is the focus that very much needs to happen on intervention. Most people who use AAC will use a whole array of methods to communicate. That is what we advocate and there is a very in-depth assessment to support people doing that. There are many different types of AAC out there for people which are effective and it is a great resource to get somebody supported to use AAC effectively.

When we look at the evidence internationally, our recommendation, as a professional body, is that we look at other methods of AAC support for people, and that we look at a funding mechanism which people can get easy access to, in order to try to use it much faster to find the right method and mode for them.