Life notebooks, life story books and AAC.
A lifelong project.
People who communicate with the support of AAC — both adults and children — are just like us. They need to remember what they have done and to be able to share it with others. They need to know their history to understand who they are. And this is true from early childhood until the end of their lives. They need records, photos and stories, just like us.
AAC in isolation from life makes no sense. AAC anchors us in life : we need something to say ( a life to share) , a way to say it ( the AAC approach and other tools ) and someone to say it to.
When we have difficulty recovering our memories, when we have difficulty telling our stories, when others have difficulty understanding us, we need support: memory support, connection support, and identity support. And the person must be able to understand its content, have access to it , and be able to share it.
Our presentation is like a plea for professionals and families to understand the importance of providing AAC users with a record of their lives. For example, how can we talk about self-determination if we don’t know who we are, if we don’t know our history?
During this hour, we will analyse together, first based on the experience of a mother who has been keeping notebooks and lifebooks for 30 years, their fundamental importance for the points we discussed above,. This importance for the individual, for their family, for their friends, and for the professionals who support them. We will address too the issue of content.
Then, we will present this approach in concrete terms for children, with a speech therapist, by an AAC user who has written her life book, and by a biographer who has written the life story of someone with a communication disability.
