Her story highlights for us developments in the hardware, software, and speech output options available to an AAC user from the 1980s to the present. The capabilities of devices have become more sophisticated, and as Rackensperger indicates, the intelligibility of the accompanying voice output has improved substantially. Along with the technological advances that support AAC, there have been developments in the empirical knowledge base that support new approaches in clinical assessment and intervention decision making.
Recent research suggests just the opposite.
Depending on the individual's communication needs, AAC can be used to supplement existing speech, as Rackensperger has indicated, and replace speech that is not functional. Research has also shown that AAC can be employed as part of language intervention strategies to develop children's speech and language skills. AAC incorporates the individual's full communication abilities and may include any existing speech or vocalizations, gestures, manual signs, and aided communication. AAC is truly multimodal, permitting individuals to use every mode possible to communicate. The ability to use AAC devices may change over time, although sometimes very slowly, and as Rackensperger so clearly illustrates, the AAC system chosen today may not be the best system tomorrow.