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What is AAC / AT?

Assistive Technology is all about making life easier and helping people to be more independent

What is AAC / AT?

Well we do all love a good acronym! AT stands for Assistive Technology and AAC stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication. They are basically what Ace Centre is all about.

AT (Assistive Technology) is all about making life easier and helping people to be more independent. It is any form of software, hardware or system that helps a person to maintain, improve or increase their capabilities.

AT covers a really broad range of things. It might help someone to continue to work by providing an alternative way of controlling their computer, or it might enable someone to open the windows and doors in their own home.

AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) is one, very important, type of AT. AAC is there to help people with communication challenges. It is all about providing strategies and communication aids that support or replace someone’s speech when they can’t rely upon it to communicate. Communication aids that ‘talk’ are sometimes called Voice Output Communication Aids (VOCAs) or Speech Output Devices.

"I like my new machine because it is easy to use and has a button that sounds like a car horn that’s fun to press when I want mum and dad to get me things."

Glyn

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