Beth Moulam and Helen Hewson are both board members of Communication Matters (ISAAC UK) and use AAC. At the Communication Matters 2023 conference they created and led 2 workshops for AAC users to understand what AAC users wanted for their futures.
Workshop 1:
AAC users were asked to individually to share their thoughts around their future education and training.
The questions included:
Question 1: What education and training might help you in the short term
Question 2: What other training might help in the future?
Question 3: How would you like any training to be delivered?
Each AAC user was asked to have an assistant with them who could help them share their thoughts by writing down their contributions during the session. All AAC users who were registered conference attendees were contacted beforehand with details of the sessions, the questions, and given the opportunity to think about what they wanted to share.
Overnight all the contributions were collated by Beth, themed and prepared to share back in the second session. No judgements were made on the content and no contribution was excluded. This first set of themes included
Workshop 2:
The findings of Workshop 1 were shared back with AAC users which promoted discussion and agreed priorities.
Question 1 responses were themed as:
Fundamental skills and education, life skills, career development, leadership, AAC and technology and relationships.
Questions 2 responses were themed as:
Career development, leadership, AAC and technology, relationships and personal development (including funding, rights and mental health).
Question 3: varied dependent on training type from on-line events to residential courses.
These included:
1= Career development and workplace
1= Leadership topics
3rd Promoting greater AAC user self-knowledge of their own resources including hardware capabilities and software utilisation.
The fundamental skills and life skills topics were agreed as being best addressed by individuals and work is being done on signposting via the website. The remaining 2 topics; relationships and personal development were not forgotten, these are being addressed via one off activities.
This information has been instrumental in focusing the Trustees on the future needs of all membership groups, including AAC users, and resulted in:
* Developing the conference theme of Empowerment for All for 2024.
* Setting up a new Trustees sub-group to promote the different community groups within the membership.
* Informing the Communication Matters strategic plan.
At the Communication Matters conference in 2024 a further activity was introduced for all delegates to conference around the Our Futures project. The 5 themes identified were split into their component parts based on the original inputs in 2023 and on arrival at registration everyone was asked to prioritise what they thought was important for AAC users. The responses were collected anonymously but could be identified as different contributor groups; AAC users, personal assistants, family members, suppliers and professionals.
The responses to the 2024 activity were collated overnight and used to present back to conference delegates at a session on the first day. There were a variety of observations:
* The AAC users were not necessarily the same as those from the previous year.
* Personal assistants and family members are likely to have answered based on someone they support.
* It was unknown if suppliers and professionals were voting with a specific person or group in mind, or from a generalised perspective.
The AAC users responses in 2024 were overall consistent, with voting prioritisation slightly.
1. Career development and workplace
2= Leadership topics
2= Promoting greater AAC user self-knowledge of their own resources including hardware capabilities and software utilisation.
However, the priorities set by other groups for AAC users were different, and did not reflect always what AAC users wanted for themselves. Further analysis and development of the data has led to 5 key take aways for mentors and those working with AC users which will be discussed in the session.
1. Small scale studies cannot be generalised but the themes were consistent.
2. The importance of personalisation, everyone is an individual and what AAC users want may not be what others think they want or need.
3. Perspective matters, looking forward to the future is not always the same as reflecting back with hindsight.
4. The importance of being open minded to understand an AAC user’s viewpoint.
5. Recognise solutions may not be ready made and creativity may be needed.
This work is now being shared at events in the UK and continues to impact the Communication Matters ongoing agenda.
The session will share fuller details and provide an opportunity to discuss findings.
