Professional Development Plan

Recently, a story went viral about Ahmed Ali, a student who is nonverbal and utilizes an

augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device. Ali used this device to give an

inspiring graduation speech for his fellow classmates in the Minneapolis Transitions Program.

Ali beamed with pride as he gave his speech and demonstrated his thankfulness for his device

by saying, “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me a voice I can use. It impacted

me to make a difference in my life and the lives of people looking up to me” (Hahn, 2019). This

story emulates why I am so fascinated by AAC, it allows one to have a voice through the use of

technology so that one can participate in life’s greatest experiences, such as giving a graduation

speech. The confidence and excitement that radiated off of Ali were infectious and I want to be

able to give that opportunity to other individuals who are nonverbal. In my clinic experience this

past year, I had the pleasure of working with children who were nonverbal in Early Intervention. I

loved working with them to assist them in finding a means of communicating and saw firsthand

the joy families have seeing their loved one be able to express themselves. I plan to continue to

seek out opportunities to work with nonverbal clients in Early Intervention as a way to learn

more about AAC in graduate school. My hope in the future is to do more work with various

communication modalities while either working within the Early Intervention system or in a

medical setting. In this reflection, I will first discuss the knowledge and skills necessary to

competently provide AAC services and then steps I will employ in both graduate school and in

the first ten years of practice to reach this level of competency.

In reviewing the article titled AAC Knowledge and Skills by Stephen Calculator, I gained

insight into the basic knowledge and skills necessary for AAC evaluation and intervention. I

learned that both AAC evaluation and intervention need to utilize a transdisciplinary approach,

which allows for integration of the perspectives of professionals from multiple disciplines. To

carry this out, collaboration is key. As a speech-language pathologist, I would not only be
working with professionals from other disciplines, such as occupational or physical therapists,

but I would also be collaborating with the individual who will be using the device, their families,

and other frequent communication partners . This collaboration will assist me in identifying what

the individual’s communication needs and goals are and give me a comprehensive view of their

strengths and abilities during evaluation, which will guide how I provide intervention.

Additionally, Calculator notes that this collaboration with other professionals, the AAC user, and

family members is how we maximize the quantity and quality of interactions between the

individual who uses the device and persons who are important in their lives (Calculator, 2002).

In completing the Strengths Survey during out CSD 530 course, I learned that three of

my top strengths are consistency, harmony, and responsibility, which I can utilize to effectively

carry out collaboration when providing AAC services. In being consistent, my colleagues will

know that they can expect high quality work each time I collaborate with them and they will

know that I will continue to abide by the rules, regulations, and evidence-based practices that

the field outlines for providing AAC services. In being responsible, they know I will get my work

done on time as I take ownership of following through with the tasks I commit to completing. In

being harmonious, I will seek to find agreement with my colleagues; and thereby minimize

interprofessional conflict.

In regards to knowledge and skills specific to evaluation, Calcuator notes that AAC

assessment must be comprehensive, taking into account various environments where the

individual will be communicating, all aspects of language, including form, content, and use in

terms of both expression and comprehension, all aspects of the individual’s skills and abilities in

the areas of sensory, perceptual, motor, cognitive, and social functioning, and disease

progression if applicable. This information combined will allow the speech-language pathologists

to begin brainstorming devices that best match the individual’s capabilities (Calculator, 2002).

In regards to knowledge and skills specific to treatment, Calculator states that the

speech-language pathologist should be well versed in helping the family to locate and secure
funding for the device and educate them on their loved one’s legal right to have a device.

Additionally, the speech-language pathologist should implement goals for intervention that are

functional across everyday settings in which the individual will be communicating, including

within the home, classroom, workplace, and community. Then, in targeting these goals, we must

find ways to integrate everyday communication partners so that they can also have exposure to

the device. Lastly, Calculator stated that criteria for measuring clinical gains should be

measured in terms of increased participation in the specified context through the use of their

AAC device (Calculator, 2002).

Next, I reviewed an article specific to cultural competence as once I become well versed

in basic AAC evaluation and treatment, my goal is to be able to modify those evaluation and

treatment techniques to competently serve other cultures. I’d always had a strong love for other

languages, especially Spanish, and I hope to incorporate this passion into AAC practice.

In reviewing the article titled Project Building Bridges: Training Speech-Language Pathologists

to Provide Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Augmentative and Alternative

Communication Services to School-Age Children With Diverse Backgrounds by Patti Solomon-

Rice and colleagues, I learned about how to include culturally and linguistically diverse families

in the AAC process and how to modify traditional intervention for culturally and linguistically

diverse families. Solomon-Rice and colleagues state that to carry out these tasks, one must

engage in self-assessment to understand one’s own beliefs and biases and how these may

influence how one provides services. Additionally, Solomon-Rice and colleagues note that this

self-assessment can assist the clinician in identifying what knowledge he or she has about a

particular culture and what aspects of that culture need further research by the clinician prior to

providing services for an individual from that culture. Lastly, the clinician will need to be trained

in how to access and use interpreter services in order to engage the family in therapy

procedures (Solomon-Rice, Soto, & Robinson, 2018).

 In regards to Including culturally and linguistically diverse families into the AAC process,

Solomon-Rice and colleagues say speech-language pathologists must utilize interpreters when

providing services. In speaking with the family through the interpreter, the speech-language

pathologist can find out how family’s culture views disability and what the family’s unique

preferences are. Additionally, when forming goals, the family can assist in identifying the level of

mastery necessary for both the first and second language, if applicable (Solomon-Rice, Soto, &

Robinson, 2018).

In regards to programming of the AAC device and providing intervention for culturally

and linguistically diverse individuals, Solomon-Rice and colleagues explain that the speech

pathologist should program words from both the individual’s first and second language and

utilize these words in therapy if the family notes that their loved one being able to communicate

in both languages is important to them. For culturally and lingisticallly diverse school-aged

students who use an AAC device, Solomon and colleagues note that the speech-language

pathologist must find ways to support their client’s language and literacy development in both

their first and second language. Solomon-Rice gave an example of modifying books for

individuals who use low tech, picture-based communication to include linguistic information from

both languages. In all, we must work to ensure students who use AAC devices are working

towards meeting language and literacy academic standards (Solomon-Rice, Soto, & Robinson,

2018).

In addition to treatment and assessment procedures, I plan to apply this acquired

knowledge and skills to become an effective advocate for persons who are nonverbal or use

AAC devices by sharing my knowledge with the public. In completing our three minute

presentations in our CSD 530 class, I learned the basics of engaging a specified group in a

topic we are passionate about. The best presentations were ones on topics we had a clear

baseline knowledge about, which added credibility to our purpose of the presentation.

Additionally, this knowledge was on a topic that were passionate about, making our presentation
more lively and engaging, leading to better attention on the part of the listeners. I plan to use

this knowledge base and passion in the future as I advocate for this population.

Now that I understand what knowledge and skills I need to possess to competently

provide AAC services, I’d like to discuss steps I will take to obtain this expertise in my first ten

years of practice, with specific markers at three and six years in the field. To begin, by my third

year of practice, my goal is to be well-versed in a wide variety of AAC devices and resources for

the family to obtain these devices. To become well-versed in a variety of AAC devices and how

families can obtain these devices, I will utilize the National Assistive Technology Act Technical

Assistance and Training Center as a means to get connected with state-level AT programs. This

resource has information for providers regarding device demos, device loans, device

reutilization, financial loans, and state financing along with a point of contact listed for each of

these topics by state that I can reach out to for information or questions I have. Additionally,

they hold statewide assistive technology events that I plan to participate in as a means of

staying current on new technology and devices along with ways individuals pay for these

devices (National Assistive Technology Act Technical Assistance and Training (AT3) Center,

2018). A second resource I plan to utilize is the AAC Institute, as they provide continuing

education hours and conferences pertaining to AAC, many of which are led or co-led by speech-

language pathologists, that I can utilize (AAC Institute, 2019). Overall, my goals for my first

three years of practice come down to learning all I can about current available AAC devices and

how I can assist families in obtaining them, as I believe this is the first step I want to take

towards competency in serving this population.

By my sixth year of practice, my goal is to refine my knowledge of treatment procedures

that engage families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds into AAC assessment

and intervention procedures. I chose the sixth year mark as by this point, I will have become

competent in basic AAC services, both assessment and intervention, and can build upon that

skill to include persons from other cultures. To reach this goal, I know that I must fully
understand my own beliefs and biases and their effect on the services I provide, which is I why I

plan to complete self-assessments twice a year. In this way, by my sixth year of practice, I will

not only have a good understanding of my beliefs but also how my beliefs have evolved over

time. I believe this will lead me to be more compassionate and empathetic to clients who have

varying cultures and beliefs and will make it easier for them to open up about how they view

disability and what their goals for therapy are based on their specific beliefs and values. There

are several organizations that provide comprehensive self-assessments related to culture and

beliefs including the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (n.d.) and Georgetown

University’s National Center for Cultural Competence (n.d.). I chose these two organizations as I

felt their assessments were comprehensive and ask specific questions related to knowledge of

how one’s culture will have implications on one’s activities of daily living, roles of family

members, they way in which they choose to raise their child, and social norms. Additionally, at

this point in my career, I will want to seek out first hand experiences with coworkers and friends

of different cultures and beliefs so that I can continue to grow in my knowledge along with

joining ASHA’s special interest group on cultural and linguistic diversity. In all, by my sixth year

of practice, I want to refine my knowledge of culture so that I can better integrate it into AAC

assessment and treatment practices in which I will have already become well versed.

In conclusion, I found the knowledge and skills necessary to provide competent AAC

services came down to knowing how to match a device to an individual based on their needs

and capabilities, assist families on working with the device, and be able to integrate the family’s

culture and beliefs into assessment and treatment practices. To achieve this identified

knowledge and skills, I will utilize state personnel for learning about and obtaining AAC devices,

continuing education, conferences, interpersonal connections, self-assessment, and interpreters

as a means of obtaining competency. Therefore, by the ten year mark of my clinical practice, I

will be a speech-language pathologist competent in providing AAC services to families of

varying cultures. Additionally, this knowledge and skills will assist me in becoming an effective
advocate for persons who are nonverbal or use AAC devices by sharing my knowledge with the

public. In all, I feel inspired to be a part of a profession that is skilled in giving others a voice

through various communication modalities.

References

AAC Institute. (2019). Online courses and CEUs. Retrieved from https://aacinstitute.org/

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.) Self-assessment for

cultural competence. Retrieved from https://www.asha.org/practice/multicultural/self/

Calculator, S. (2002). AAC knowledge and skills. Perspectives

on Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 11 (3).
Retrieved from https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/aac11.3.17

Georgetown University. (n.d.) Self-assessment. National Center for Cultural

Competence.Retrieved from https://nccc.georgetown.edu/assessments/

Hahn, J. (2019). Nonverbal student gives inspiring graduation speech via voice
software. People Magazine. Retrieved from https://people.com/human-interes
t/nonverbal-student-gives-inspiring-graduation-speech-voice-software/

National Assistive Technology Act Technical Assistance and Training (AT3) Center.
(2016). Program directory. Retrieved from https://www.at3center.net/stateprogram

Solomon-Rice, P., Soto, P., & Robinson, N. (2018). Project Building Bridges:
Training Speech-Language Pathologists to Provide Culturally and Linguistically
Responsive Augmentative and Alternative Communication Services to School-Age
Children With Diverse Backgrounds. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest
Groups,12 (3). Retrieved from https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/persp3.SIG12.186