OpenAAC

Finding any percentages to do with our community is hard, but especially to do with education. I had an idea to write an open letter to the secretary of education to try to change this, because we should know how many students are using AAC, what placements they are in most of the day, who are instructing them, and what are some of the biggest challenges facing families and school professionals. Now, sadly Open AAC don’t have the email address of the secretary of education. This is where you can help us. Share this letter on your social media, email a copy to your legislators in Washington, D. C. with the ask to forward it on, and look up the address of the secretary of education. I think if we all mail this letter, someone might see it and consider the changes. Let’s hope this works.

We will be trying to put this in newspapers across the country too.

Dear Mrs. McMahon, I hope you are well. My name is Mike Hipple and I work for Open AAC organization. It is a think tank founded by a father of an AAC communicator. We care about issues to do with the AAC community including education. AAC mean Augmentative Alternative Communication. I have been using AAC for 25 years. I was able to go through school with typical peers and finished on time thanks to my communication device. I have a job and volunteer in my community. Sadly, this isn’t true for everyone who uses AAC. I lost count how many families that I ran into that they tried AAC once, but it didn’t work out for their child. That always make me sad and frustrated with the system.

Yes, we have the IDEA act, but to my knowledge they don’t talk about AAC Communicators. I want to tell you about a family that I know. Their son is three years older than me, but the school district that we went through said he wouldn’t be able to use AAC. I think that is an error by the school district, because we don’t know what a student can be if they get the chance to communicate. Maybe he would have been a pastor or a librarian. I know this is happening everywhere and I ask you to look at the big picture and wonder how we can improve the situation.

Another challenge to do with AAC and education is placement. I see smart students in a cognitive disabilities classroom or life skills classroom from when they enter school to when they leave school. I understand that we have some students who use a communication device who can benefit from these classrooms, but I believe that some of these students they don’t need to be in there. My friend Chris he likes to say I hope I can retire sometime soon, but we need to find some good AAC communicators to take my place.

This summer I talked with a mother of a teenager who has been using AAC for a few years. He started middle school this past year, he is an excellent speller and he love to look up sports games. His new speech therapist wanted him to change his communication device to something she knows. His mother advocated for him, but to me she didn’t need to advocate because the choice of what communication app he wants to be using is his and his family’s. I hear something like this happening many times, I think this is unprofessional. I know that school professionals are busy, but I believe that the choosing of what communication device that the student is using should be a team discussion. Parents and the student should always be on this team, because they are the ones who will use the device and support their child using it. If you can support this effort that will be good.

I just read your letter to parents on June 16th and I am happy to hear an increase of funds for special education is coming. A huge thank you to you for doing this! What I would really appreciate that 10% of the billion dollars go to track the placements and education of students who are using AAC. This will help people and organizations such as our to know where are we at with educating the students who count on us the most.

Now, the last change I would like to see is more AAC Communicators working. I like to tell you about my mentors Jon and Stacy. Both have and had cerebral palsy and use a device. They went through school before IDEA act was passed. It was hard for both of them to get through school, but they did it and college to get jobs. Jon founded a camp for teenagers who used AAC and Stacy makes websites. They believed that being able to give back to the community is so meaningful. My last ask is to work together with the secretary of health to make a way for more AAC communicators have a job if they want to and does not affect their benefits. I only can work five hours during a week on the clock. I ask you to work on these issues during the next few years and Open AAC would like to help.

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