Augmentative and alternative communication in South Africa: Accessibility and implementation

The paper deals with the development of a community-based service for the implementation of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies for people with severely limited verbal expression. The concept of community-based intervention is explained and the process of training as done in the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication(CAAC), is described. Data of pre- and post-training evaluations is discussed as well as follow-up data obtained in the various training contexts. Finally, critical issues related to the follow-up data are discussed.