OpenAAC

For Everyone

Donate to OpenAAC We are a non-profit organization that is focused on expanding awareness, supports and efficacy of AAC worldwide. All donations help us pursue this goal by supporting the events, materials and research we pursue on behalf of AAC users and their teams.

Participate in research! We are always running information-gathering surveys, and the more data we collect from these surveys, the more useful they are. You can also share the survey links with others, recruit more participants, and help us even more! All research is released publicly so everyone can benefit.

For Individuals and Families

Contribute photos of AAC! We are collecting photos of AAC users, in various ages, backgrounds and settings. If you are willing to share some of your high-quality photos and release them with an open license, please check out and contribute to the AAC Photo Library.

Talk to your vendors! Tell them how important it is to you that you have the freedom to change providers based on the communicator's current needs. Tell them that it's your content that you've added and personalized over the years, and that you have the right to get it back out when the time comes. Send them a link to the Open Board Format and tell them you don't want to get burned next time a product gets cancelled or a company gets purchased.

For Practitioners and Aides

Share your ideas for supporting language learning in the Communication Workshop! All the activities are open for anyone to use, and are contributed by community members like you! When you talk to vendors, ask them if they are using oppen standards like the Open Board Format so your clients aren't getting locked in to a single vendor.

For Purchasing Decision-Makers

Make Open Access a requirement for your purchasing decisions. Tell vendors that you aren't interested in being locked into a single product forever, tell them how you've been burned by that in the past. Encourage them to look at the Open Board Format and implement it as an export option in their applications.

For Developers

Learn how developers can contribute to OpenAAC. Consider implementing an integration tool using the AAC Shim, or even just insert aac_shim.js in your web site code to add simple support for AAC users who can't touch buttons easily to access your web site. Check us out on Github or join our Slack channel to ask about specific projects or ideas you can contribute to.

For Designers

We are looking for designers to contribute to the library of open-licensed symbols that are currently available. Join our Slack channel to find out where you can best contribute.