The first annual International AAC Awareness Month was a Community and Class Room School Event, held during the month of October 2007 and the international participation was strong. It was also very diverse as each event represented the culture and met the unique needs of the community. Some of the countries held conferences, AAC users going to schools and sharing their knowledge, bringing in the best speakers in the field, having tea, people had opened houses so, and people who use AAC demonstrated their devices and classrooms made PowerPoint presentations.  The goal of the event was to get the entire world talking, not only with AAC, but about AAC. Thirteen countries participated in the ISAAC’s inaugural AAC Awareness Month. Countries wrote a summary of their events and submitted it to the task force along with photographs. The photographs truly capture the success of this project. We received hundreds of photographs of beautiful children, caring support persons and lots and lots of interactive communication.

Below are summaries of the various events held around the world.

Eva Peron asked us not to cry for her. We won’t but we certainly applaud the efforts in Buenos Aires Argentina. AAC Awareness events were organized in several schools and in a Church.  Nearly 200 students were involved in school-based activities. Several hundred people attended a Mass and followed with a visual schedule board. 

Let’s visit down under, mates. Friends in Australia held events in Adelaide, Queensland and Victoria. In Adelaide, at the Flinders University, School of Education, ISAAC members organized a tea and invited the Mayor. During the tea, guests were introduced to AAC. At the Kidman Primary school, students attended a silent tea, rotated through AAC “centres”, experienced AAC hands-on with devices and communication boards and the students who use AAC demonstrated their skills.

Oh, Canada organized many events across the vast country. In British Columbia, the Premier of the province made an official proclamation announcing Oct. 4th as “International Awareness Day for Augmentative and Alternative Communication.  Canadian AAC leaders, created a PowerPoint slide show and graphic displays to share with the country’s schools and treatment centers. Articles ran newsletters and local newspapers. In Ontario, Canada event organizers adopted the slogan, “speech is not the only way to communicate.” They created a bulletin board with that slogan, a definition of AAC and took pictures of various children from the school using their AAC system. They set up an open house and invited all of their private donors, the media and colleagues for coffee and snacks. The organizers presented the ISAAC PowerPoint and set up various stations with writing aids and face to face communication equipment.  The food table was set up with single message devices to comment about and request the food. Clinic members floated about the group explaining the various devices and answering question. Several of the students from the school came to speak about their systems and also mingle with the guests.

The 3rd largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, Cyprus celebrated ISAAC’s International AAC Awareness month with a classroom event. The students discussed AAC and created a PowerPoint presentation of their impressions.

Ancient civilizations. The Sahara desert. The Nile and the Great Sphinx. Egypt is home to these and a member of ISAAC’s Board of Directors. AAC has a tough road to plow because historically, Egyptian speech therapists believe in using the traditional speech training, imitating sounds and stimulating speech but no alternatives to it. In Cairo, students went out shopping together with the nonverbal students with AAC shopping lists complete with symbols for all their needs and the home needs. They got around the market, retrieving their items, paid the cashier and having a great time.  The market staff welcomed the students. After shopping the students bought some sweets at the café and sat down to enjoy them.

Finland had two events on October 6th, in Helsinki and in Tampere. Both events involved approximately 30 people. The Helsinki event was the main event including a 30 year Anniversary Jubilee of Bliss language. The Tampere event was more like an arena for partners who work at AAC field. Let’s just take a minute to make sure everyone knows something about the Bliss language. Bliss was created as an ideographic writing system. It consists of several hundred basic symbols, each representing a concept. Bliss is unlike any of the world’s major writing systems because Bliss symbols do not correspond to sounds of a spoken language.

On October 4th, the ISAAC Francophone chapter held a day-long regional conference in Paris, France entitled, “Construire un projet de communication avec signes ET picots”. (Building Communication Supports Using Signs and Pictures) More than 100 people attended who provide services for children and adults who have communication difficulties. Five parents attended, and three of these presented sessions.  Topics focused on using various signing methods, gestures, pictures and symbols to build communication systems tailored to the strengths, desires and needs of each person.  A major question discussed was how various communication partners will understand these systems as the person changes environments. The sessions were rich in information and inspiration.  Each was followed by a substantial time for questions and discussion.  The audience was engaged, looking for ideas, answers and support.  Some of the words participants used to describe the day are: rich, optimistic, coherent, varied, concrete, and practical.

In India, ISAAC’s 2007 International AAC Month was celebrated by Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP) from October 1-8. IICP and ISAAC have had a long and close, two-decade partnership and Dr. Sudha Kaul is President of ISAAC. The events took place in several well reputed educational institutions and included a group of young men and woman who use AAC conducting interactive activities with students. Here are some of the student’s words:   

“When we met first Putul and Madhuri, we had an idea they would not be able to communicate. But our ideas changed when they communicated with us so wonderfully. It reminded us of the proverb: ‘Where there is a will there is a way’. ”

“We did not feel sympathetic - instead we were happy and contented that people with disabilities could communicate with us. We were privileged to have them with us and we look forward to meeting them in

“We have experienced a new world. We have just met two girls from IICP who made us realize that all of us have some disability or the other. They interacted with a system called VOCA (Voice Output Communication AID). They taught us an important lesson. But we were sad to know that society does not accept them as they are. We learnt a lot and want more interactive sessions like this. Thank you, Barsha and Shraddha and IICP.”

“We would like to thank all the members of IICP who have made it possible for us to make new friends. They are very good, talented and communicative. It is the first time in our life, this programme helps us to innovate and in our communication skills. We communicated with them, we sang songs. We discussed sports.”

“We thought we would have a problem in interacting with them. But after meeting them we found we were wrong. We could easily interact with no problem. We discussed sports, music, their likings, so many things. They communicated with alphabets. We really enjoyed this.”

In Chennai, India three AAC Awareness activities were held: a two-day workshop on AAC for professionals in the field of disability; a resource exhibition on communication and launch of indigenous communication devices; awareness programs in schools and colleges about AAC. The training program for professionals reached out to 25 participants from various community based rehabilitation organizations and also other special schools across 3 states.  The participants were given theoretical inputs and also hands on experience on different communication devices. The resource exhibition was held to display the various communications devises both from India and abroad.  Apart from awareness among parents and specialists, it created awareness about AAC in various sections of society.  Indigenous communication aids – Aditi – a non contact switch and Kavi – a voice output communication device were launched.

The AAC awareness programs in schools and colleges were conducted by teams of rehabilitation professionals and people who use AAC and occurred over two days. The objective was to create awareness about AAC in educational institutions.  Their learning’s were and experiences were then presented in the form of plays, music, poems and dance.  Students learning classical dance from a nationally well known organization called Kalakshetra.

On October 1st, South Africa kicked off ISAAC’s AAC Awareness month with an event involving Communication Pathology students and primary school students at the NPS Primary School in Durban KwaZulu-Natal. The future Communication Pathology teachers used video and a PowerPoint presentation of a young adult who uses AAC. The video featured an eleven year old boy using AAC in his mainstream class and the reflections of a young adult who uses AAC, Dan Ngcobo, on his school experiences. The students then engaged the learners in activities to increase their awareness of AAC. These included learning the international finger spelling alphabet as well as some manual (hand) signs and gestures. Learners were then divided into small groups to design a picture symbol communication board for a specific context, like going to the movies.  Learners were also given the opportunity to ask questions and at the end of the session expressed their gratitude to the students and said they had learnt from the experience. 

In Sweden, an AAC awareness event was held in an 8th grade classroom where the students learned general information about AAC including a short introduction to Blissymbols. The students used communication displays to ask one another questions and discuss the season of fall. There was a visit from the local newspaper reporter, who wrote an article on the event and took pictures.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain came up with creative ways to celebrate ISAAC’s 2007 International AAC Awareness Month. One that stands tall is from a group of disabled young people who have severe communication impairments have come up with their Top Tips on how to make sure they are listened to and consulted with. The teenagers, who use alternative ways of communicating, worked closely with a team of facilitators to write the lyrics to what is a cool musical DVD. 'LISTEN TO ME' - 1Voice Communicating Together Teenage Project is an extraordinarily strong media message

USSAAC put together a committee led by USSAAC Board of Director, Tom Reed. The USA committee selected five states to hold school-based AAC Awareness Events: Arizona, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. USSAAC provided funding for t-shirts and a small stipend for each participating classroom.  The committee compiled resources for the USSAAC website which included a video, list of 10 activities for celebrating AAC Awareness, a .PDF formatted for business cards that share AAC information, as well as a suggested curriculum for classrooms.

As is clear, by all accounts, ISAAC’s inaugural International AAC Awareness month was a great success. The original objectives to increase public awareness of AAC and to provide leadership experiences to school-aged children who use AAC were met and exceeded.