The Steers AAC Language & Speech, Inc. Philosophy and Approach to AAC is heavily influenced by our mentors, Linda Burkhart and Gayle Porter:

• Robust language is for everyone.

• The only prerequisite skills for developing communication are being awake and breathing.

• “To have a symbol talker you must be a symbol talker.”- Gayle Porter. A child only learns to speak using aided language if aided language is spoken to him/her.

• All individuals in a child’s life must use AAC to speak to him. The system child must see the value of the system as communicated intrinsically through other’s use of the system.

• When adult partners use the child’s system to speak throughout the day they are teaching the child the pragmatics of AAC or how to use symbols to communicate for genuine purposes.

• AAC is not an activity. It’s a lifestyle.

• A child should never be separated from his communication system. The AAC system should travel everywhere with the child.

• If a child is an AAC user, his language of instruction is AAC.

• A child should never be made to “use his AAC” to say anything other than what he/she chooses to say.

• A child’s ability to communicate should not be dependent upon him being optimally positioned in a particular chair where his system is available to him.

• Communication happens all day long, regardless of positioning. A child’s AAC system must be accessible in any position (lying down, in the bath, at the pool, in the rain, etc).

• We use a language-first approach to AAC intervention. AAC is language  (not a device, not a book, not a switch).

• The language of AAC and access to the language of AAC are skills that are learned in parallel, not simultaneously.

• Our goal is always autonomous communication. Choice making is not autonomous. Answering yes/no questions is agreeing or disagreeing with another’s ideas is not autonomous communication.

• What is autonomous is not necessarily independent. We embrace the use of a partner to turn a page, scan for a child, etc.

• For a child who lives in a complex body, the burden of access to language should not rest with the child. Just as every young child benefits from the presence of a smart partner who can read and interpret early communicative signals, AAC users should be provided these same accommodations when learning a symbol-based communication system.

• No child has to prove his/her intelligence in order to be provided a language system he/she has the potential to learn and access.

• A language organization should have capability to grow with the child as his/her language develops.

• Access to AAC must be taught, not “found.”