5 AAC Competencies

1. Operational Competence – The technical skills required to use the AAC system or device. This includes powering the device on and off, navigation between pages, volume control, etc.
2. Social Competence – Pragmatic language skills, such as initiating, maintaining, and terminating communicative interactions in a socially, culturally, and contextually appropriate manner.
3. Linguistic Competence – Expressive and receptive language skills, including grammar, syntax, and the linguistic codes of AAC systems.
4. Strategic Competence – Adaptive strategies unique to AAC-based communication, such as using device features to convey a message as quickly as possible, identifying and repairing communicative breakdowns, and using compensatory skills.
5. Emotional / Psychosocial Competence – Motivation to communicate via AAC, resilience and persistence during communicative exchanges, the use of emotional vocabulary for empathy, self-regulation, & self-advocacy.

VCU-RRTC-ACE, Virginia Commonwealth University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center’s Autism Center for Education, contract # 881-APE61184-H173A220112