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by Martine Smith
In Ireland, a small country of slightly more than 4 million, most health and education services are publicly funded. The majority of SLPs work in the public health system, providing services to children attending mainstream and special schools, but they are not formally linked to the Department of Education and Science. The separation can be difficult, particularly for complex educational challenges such as with children using AAC.
Complicating service provision is the seismic shift in the country's population size and demographics over the past 10 years, fueled by an economic boom. In 2006, the population reached the highest recorded level since 1861, and immigration accounted for almost 15% of that increase. The boom presents significant challenges for all health and education services, including services for individuals who use AAC. Language and literacy learning are socio-cultural processes, embedded in interaction contexts that may differ significantly across different ethnic groups (Harrison-Harris, 2002). Understanding and adapting to the diversity of philosophies surrounding these processes, as well as to socially modulated concepts of disability, will be key challenges to all working in this area in the coming years.
AAC is well-established in Ireland. In the late 1980s, clinicians and teachers established a special interest group, which became a chapter of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) in 1996; Ireland hosted ISAAC's biennial conference in Dublin in 1998. ISAAC-Ireland continues to offer support through mini-conferences, seminars, and a range of educational activities.
Concurrent with Ireland's significant growth in ethnic and cultural diversity are ongoing and exciting developments in AAC, including two related to literacy. In 2006 SLPs and educators came together to review the National Primary School Curriculum and explore how it could be adapted to meet the needs of children using AAC.
The curriculum is divided into three strands: oral language, reading, and writing. Each strand is subdivided into four units:
- Receptiveness to language
- Confidence and competence in using language
- Developing cognitive abilities through language
- Emotional and imaginative development through language
The group identified the barriers and facilitators in each of these strands, and developed educational and intervention strategies to promote access to the curriculum for children using AAC. This ongoing project represents a significant step in collaboration across traditional administrative boundaries.
A second collaborative project, launched in 2006 with the National Adult Literacy Association, focuses on training literacy tutors to work with adults who use AAC. A series of workshops developed by Trinity College Dublin and Enable Ireland services promoted skill development for interested volunteers. In 2007 programs were initiated to support two adults who use AAC in acquiring literacy skills, within mainstream adult education services.
Both these initiatives reflect a firmly held philosophy—that children and adults who use AAC should be supported to develop literacy skills across the lifespan, in contexts that are as close as possible to those of their peers without disabilities. Accommodations are necessary for this integration to be successful—and that is the challenge we all face, whatever our location.
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