AAC stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication and they are systems designed and developed to assist people with speech, language and communication disabilities. AAC range from direct and interactive methods such as sign languages to writing methods (Bliss, Braille) or pictographic systems such as SPC or ARASAAC.
Before we go into which AAC systems could be applied into our foreign language lessons, it will be useful to understand their main components and objectives. Their three main characteristics are the 3 P's: Purpose, Potential and Physical support.
Based on their Purpose, AAC can be Augmentative if it complements speech (cued speech) or Alternative if it substitutes speech (sign language).
Depending on their Potential they can be classified as Dependent if the student needs the help of an interpreter or Independent if the student can communicate without assistance.
And lastly, based on the Physical Support/Help, they can be divided into AAC With Support when students need to use external elements or help from others to form their messages or AAC Without Support when our students can produce their messages autonomously.
Thanks to these classifications we can conclude that AAC Systems can be the one communicative tool to grant universal access to information and they could be the greatest support for our teaching materials to reach a higher number of students.
Pictograms and communication
Considering the context of our lessons, there are several AAC's we won't be applying to our teaching, since regular high school EFL students will be autonomous and they won't need any kind of support. However, it is important to keep in mind the possibility of applying and/or adapting any other type of AAC whenever necessary.
Needless to say, the most advantageous AAC we could apply to our EFL lessons are pictograms. They offer a great visual support and when they are properly and precisely chosen they can even work as our students' visual dictionary. This will help those students who are visual learners by creating a connection between the words, their meanings and their visual tokens (image representations). A great example of this is the linguistic sign and how the visual token of the word "tree" is common for most English and Spanish speakers (while it may vary in other languages due to cultural and geographic backgrounds).
Knowing this, we could build a solid tool by applying those pictographic images that fit the semiotic characteristics of the visual tokens of linguistic concepts into our teaching materials. By doing so we could build a corpus of visual tokens applied to one particular language and/or culture.
Thankfully, there is already a pictographic system in development with this aim in mind: ARASAAC, a pictographic system designed to be understood by as many individuals as possible, independently of their cognitive capabilities. Thanks to the options programmed in its system, we can select a pictogram based on a linguistic search (several languages available) and decide whether we want to keep its meaning as a written text or edit it to fit our needs, as well as whether to keep, change or eliminate the colors of the pictogram, among several other options.
Why using AAC pictographic systems
By applying pictograms to our teaching materials and lessons we can create a loop in which we contribute to making information universally accessible and where we promote the development of a system adapted to everybody's needs by its own users. This would be a probable consequence of increasing the use of AAC, since more users will have the chance to participate in its development by editing and changing the AAC elements and by having the opportunity to find new ways of further developing new AAC systems.
Let's ensure a universal and more democratic access to information.
References and further reading
ARASAAC: Centro Aragonés para la Comunicación Alternativa y Aumentativa. https://arasaac.org/ Retrieved Date Accessed: 02/11/2022
Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC). ASHA: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Retrieved Date Accessed: 02/11/2022 https://www.asha.org/njc/aac/#:~:text=Augmentative%20and%20alternative%20communication%20(AAC)%20describes%20multiple%20ways%20to%20communicate,with%20severe%20expressive%20communication%20disorders.
An introduction to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). What is AAC and who is it for? What are the different types of AAC? What are the benefits of AAC? Assistive Ware. Retrieved Date Accessed: 06/11/2022 https://www.assistiveware.com/learn-aac/what-is-aac
The Linguistic Sign. ELLO. Retrieved Date Accessed: 06/11/2022 http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Semantics/Thelinguisticsign
Semetsky, Inna (2010). Information and Signs: The Language of Images. Retrieved Date Accessed: 06/11/2022 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/42539538_Information_and_Signs_The_Language_of_Images
Veysel, K; Zekiye, S (2016). What Do Images Mean in Visual Semiotics?. Aydın Sanat 2, Issue 3. Retrieved Date Accessed: 06/11/2022 https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/357993
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