Communications of the ACM
Technical Perspective: The User as a Key Ingredient in AAC Design
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Communication is the essence of being human. We interact with one another using body language, gesture, and speech. The way in which we dress and adorn ourselves enables us to share our personality and mood with others. But it is our ability to use complex language that enables us to communicate our thoughts, ideas, emotions, and personality in depth.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) describes methods and strategies used to augment unintelligible natural speech or to provide alternative solutions for individuals with little or no functional speech due to physical and/or intellectual disabilities. AAC ranges from unaided methods in the form of gesture or sign language through to symbol and word boards. The advent of text-to-speech technology in the 1980s revolutionized the field. Today, speech-generation apps can be downloaded onto a range of mobile devices, including smartphone technology, and offer a variety of accents and age ranges. Individuals who lose their voices can even 'bank' their voices for future use.
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