As part of the Radiowaves Street Life project, funded by Youth In Action for the British Council, and with additional funding from Co Durham Youth Opportunity Scheme, animator Vivien Peach working with us at Henderson House, Chilton. We made Language Stealers to promote our ‘Equality Without Words?’ campaign and the language boards of core words we are making.
Language Stealers is a story of attribution, exposing the real barriers to communication for students with speech and motor impairments as being more to do with the situation they find themselves in than anything to do with their disposition. If nobody gives us a way to say or write the core words, or only gives us lesson nouns to go on class worksheets but no literacy instruction, then how dare they attribute our language delay to lack of ability?
AAC and literacy specialists around the world are teaching learners with the most severe physical and cognitive disabilities to read and write and it’s about time it was happening for everybody.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states equal education, accessible information, freedom of expression, and the facilitation of communication by any method(s) of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) of a person’s choosing is a legal right.
Please read Articles 2, 21 and 24 of the Convention http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=150
AAC & Literacy specialists:
Penn State story http://live.psu.edu/story/44035 about two new sites from Janice Light and David McNaughton
Literacy http://aacliteracy.psu.edu/ (see the results http://aacliteracy.psu.edu/ResearchResults.html) and
Language and Communication http://aackids.psu.edu/index.php/page/show/id/1
The Center for Literacy and Disability Studies http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds/projects/project-converge
Comprehensive Literacy Instruction for Older Students by Karen Erickson, David Koppenhaver, Penny Hatch, ISAAC 2006 Pre-conference http://www.aacawareness.org/ISAAC06PreconferenceHandout.pdf
AAC RERC Webcast Series, Reading and AAC, Janice Light and David McNaughton, Pennsylvania State University http://aac-rerc.psu.edu/index_literacy.html
Caroline Musselwhite http://www.aacintervention.com/index.htm
Gail Van Tatenhove www.vantatenhove.com
The National Literacy Trust: Campaign for Reading Rights http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/campaigns
Scope Freedom of Expression campaign No Voice, No Choice
TASH Resolution: AAC and the Right to Communicate http://www.tash.org/IRR/resolutions/res02communication.htm
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Michael Brian Reed
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