Comprehensive Individualized Curriculum and Instructional Design

Communication and Language Communication is sending messages. Language is the coded system of symbols with agreed-upon patterns and rules that enables a community of people to interact and communicate with each other and to efficiently send messages (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013). There are important social purposes of communication such as (a) expressing needs and wants, (b) feeling social closeness, (c) sharing information, (d) fulfilling established conventions of social etiquette (Light, 1988) and (e) engaging with oneself in an internal dialogue (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013). Communicative competence is not necessarily an inherent trait, but something that must be learned and scaffolded. Communicative competence can be organized into linguistic, operational, social, and strategic domains (Light, 1989). AAC Intervention Resources Table 1 highlights a selection of important Internet resources for AAC. Resource Description Link AAC Kids The website provides step by step guidelines for early intervention specifically designed for children with complex communication needs. aackids.psu.edu PrAActical AAC Top blog in AAC provides practical resources for intervention. praacticalaac.org 26