This page contains resources, announcements, guest blogs, essays, videos, and other stuff. Come back often!
If you are a researcher, an AAC user interested in research opportunities, or a person supporting an AAC user interested in these opportunities, learn about how we can best connect you!
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This resource includes quick tips written by AAC users on organizing and hosting online meetings with AAC users.
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Bob Williams’s Literacy and AAC presentation was first given at the Future of AAC Research Summit on May 14, 2024, in Arlington, Virginia.
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CommunicationFIRST held a brainstorming session to begin to identify some of the “good, bad, and ugly” ways technologies can uniquely impact people with speech-related disabilities.
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CommunicationFIRST publicly recruited a diverse group of AAC users who were willing to be interviewed on camera about their priorities for AAC research.
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In a first-of-its-kind event held May 13-14, 2024, people with speech-related disabilities from around the U.S. told senior federal officials and researchers how future research dollars should be prioritized.
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On December 19, 2023, CommunicationFIRST asked the US Census Bureau to begin formally counting the estimated 5 million people in the US who need and use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools and supports to be understood. The Census Bureau asked for comment about a proposed new speech-related question on…
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Last month, CommunicationFIRST submitted extensive input to one of the largest federal government funders of AAC-related research – the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) – on its proposed 2024-2028 Long Range Plan. In these comments, among other points, CommunicationFIRST shared the following: Flawed and Biased…
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Digital Accessibility for AAC Users is a Civil Rights Issue
Government websites and apps are a central lever for exercising our civic and constitutionally grounded rights and responsibilities of freedom of expression, assembly, grievance, petition, protest, jury duty, and the franchise. As a matter of right and necessity, people who need AAC must be afforded equally effective access to state and local government websites and apps that all others are afforded.
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