ACT'S PRINCIPLES OF ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION
Assessment and intervention techniques aimed at developing the individual's ability to use alternate forms of communication ACT's Principles of Assessment and Intervention are quite different from traditional speech-language evaluation and therapy techniques.
ACT believes that appropriate AAC assessment and intervention must take into account the following seven principles: 1) focus on the individual's strengths, not weaknesses; 2) AAC assessment and intervention should be multi modal, since communication is multi modal in nature; 3) focus must be on today and tomorrow; 4) both contextual and specific skills need to be identified; 5) cognitive, linguistic, sensory and motor demands need to be identified and recognized; 6) it is critical to identify and utilize the support systems available to the AAC user, their communication partners, and their facilitators to build communicative competence; and, 7) meaningful communication is a shared responsibility.
All too frequently, AAC assessment and intervention focuses on the individual's ability to "work" the communication system but not on the individual's ability to "use" the system in a functional and effective manner. ACT provides a well-rounded approach by identifying Light's 4 competency areas. These are Operational Competence, Linguistic Competence, Social Competence and Strategic Competence. Without including all four competencies, independent communicative competence cannot be achieved.