Literacy in AAC: What should be written on the envelope we push?

Abstract

This paper is the text of the Don Johnston, Inc. Distinguished Lecture that was presented by the author at the Biennial ISAAC Conference in Dublin, Ireland in August 1998. In the lecture, the author makes the case that literacy is integral to the augmentative and alternative communication endeavor for people with severe speech and physical impairments, rather than a separate entity or an “add on.” He emphasizes that emergent literacy is necessary but not sufficient for intervention and that intervention research and program development must seek to achieve and measure conventional literacy outcomes.

• emergent literacy
• literacy
• reading
• writing