Augmentative Communication Strategies for Adults with Acute or Chronic Medical Conditions

2007

Augmentative Communication Strategies for Adults with Acute and Chronic Medical Conditions focuses on the communication needs of people with acquired medical conditions that result in severe speech and language limitations. Expert clinicians wrote about and compiled assessment and treatment resources for a variety of medical conditions, including spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, locked-in syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ASL), dementia, aphasia, head and neck cancer, multiple-sclerosis, Huntington?s disease, Parkinson?s disease, and acute respiratory illness. In addition, one chapter focuses on meeting communication needs of people in intensive care settings. Each of the authors in this book knows someone who has been relegated to an extremely restricted life because of an acquired medical condition. Many of these individuals are or have been underserved because the expertise and services required to help them communicate have not been available. Therefore, the authors designed their chapters to give practicing clinicians and pre-professional graduate students the knowledge and resources needed to provide augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) services as an integrated aspect of intervention. AAC services should no longer be considered out of the ordinary or investigational for people with acquired medical conditions but should be part of every clinician?s scope of practice (American Speech-Language-hearing Association, 2004).

Book

Consumers/Families, Professionals, Students

N/A