It is a Tuesday morning and the college’s pop-up AAC Cafe is up and running.
Around the table, students gather with their AAC devices, choosing what they would like to eat and drink.
Navigating the touchscreen, a student selects the words to order their favourite snack, identifying the colour of the packaging to indicate the flavour of crisps she would like.
The AAC Cafe gives students the opportunity to practise key social and communication skills. Learning unfolds naturally with students taking turns, role playing and ordering food and drinks.
The speech and language therapy team listen, model, and respond to all forms of communication whether it is spoken, signed, pointed, gestured, or shown on visual aids as part of the college’s total communication approach.
Speech and language therapist Dr Tara Mayhew explains: “It’s an opportunity for students who are power-based AAC users to socialise and practise skills for being in a café environment. They choose what they want to eat or drink, order using their devices, and wait their turn.
“Students also help serve drinks and snacks. For those who aren’t eating or drinking, it means everyone can be involved.”
Building confidence, one order at a time
Although it has only been running a few weeks, the cafe’s impact is already evident. Students are becoming more confident using their AAC and developing their social communication skills to interact with staff and peers.
The café also serves as a learning space for staff. Modelling AAC is essential for students to see it as a normal and valid form of communication, and the café encourages staff to practise and build their confidence using these tools alongside students.
“It is really important that AAC is modelled and normalised because everyone here is using it as part of their communication,” says Tara.
“The cafe setting makes communication fun, as well as functional. It provides a familiar space where students can communicate in their own way, and practise skills they can use outside college.”
Opening doors to learning
The AAC Café not only supports communication it is also creating wider learning opportunities.
Involving students in creating menus for the cafe is one idea the speech and language therapy team is keen to develop, as well as adding different snack options to introduce new vocabulary over time.