Condition-Specific · Communication & AAC

IEP for a Nonverbal Child: Communication, AAC, and What a Strong Program Includes

For a child who is nonverbal or minimally verbal, communication is the foundation that every other learning goal rests on. An IEP that doesn’t aggressively address communication access, including augmentative and alternative communication, is building on sand.

Communication Is the First Priority

When a child cannot communicate verbally, the IEP team’s first obligation is to ensure that child has access to a functional communication system. This is not a secondary concern, it is the prerequisite for everything else in the IEP. A child who cannot express needs, make choices, protest, and interact with peers and adults is not accessing a free appropriate public education, regardless of what their academic goals say.

IDEA requires that the IEP team consider, for every child with a disability, whether the student needs assistive technology devices and services. For a nonverbal child, this isn’t a checkbox, it’s a substantive question that demands a real answer.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

Augmentative and alternative communication encompasses all of the tools and strategies a person uses to supplement or replace verbal speech. AAC includes:

• High-tech AAC devices, dedicated speech-generating devices (SGDs) and AAC apps on tablets (e.g., Proloquo2Go, TouchChat, LAMP Words for Life)
• Low-tech systems, picture exchange systems (PECS), communication boards, choice boards, visual schedules
• Sign language and gesture systems, as functional communication supports
• Core vocabulary systems, vocabulary organized to support generative communication, not just requesting

The goal of AAC is not to replace speech development, research consistently shows that AAC use does not inhibit speech and often facilitates it. The goal is to give the child a robust, functional communication system right now, regardless of what speech development may follow.

Requesting an AAC Evaluation

If your child is nonverbal and the school has not conducted an AAC evaluation, request one in writing immediately. The evaluation should be conducted by a speech-language pathologist with AAC expertise, not just any SLP. Specifically ask:

• Does the evaluator have specific training and experience in AAC assessment?
• Will the evaluation include feature matching, systematically assessing which AAC system best fits your child’s motor, cognitive, language, and sensory profile?
• Will multiple AAC systems be trialed before a recommendation is made?
• Will the evaluation assess the child’s current communication functions and potential, not just their current skills?

A superficial AAC “evaluation” that results in a PECS binder for a child who needs a high-tech device is not an adequate evaluation. Push for specificity and expertise.

What Strong AAC Goals Look Like

Once an AAC system is in place, IEP communication goals should target:

• Spontaneous initiations, not just responding to prompts, but independently starting communication
• Expanding vocabulary and language complexity over time
• Functional communication for a variety of purposes: requesting, commenting, protesting, asking questions, sharing information
• Communication with unfamiliar partners, not just familiar people
• Reducing communication breakdowns and repairing them when they occur

Watch for goals that focus only on requesting or choosing between two pictures. Requesting is important, but a robust communication system allows for much more. The goal is generative, flexible language, not a menu of pre-programmed responses.

The “Presume Competence” Standard

A principle that should guide every nonverbal child’s IEP: presume competence. This means approaching the child as a capable learner whose communication and cognition have not yet been fully accessed, not as a child whose cognitive capacity has been established as limited simply because they can’t speak.

Many children who were assumed to have significant intellectual limitations have demonstrated far greater understanding once they had access to a robust AAC system. The IEP should be planned with the assumption that the child has more to say and understand than current tools allow them to show.

This principle also matters for academic IEP goals. Don’t accept a curriculum that is far below what the child might access if communication wasn’t the bottleneck. See our article on what good IEP goals look like for more on setting ambitious, appropriate goals.

Consistent AAC Access Across the School Day

One of the most common and damaging IEP implementation failures for nonverbal children: the AAC device is used during speech therapy and then put away for the rest of the day. The IEP must specify that the child has access to their AAC system throughout the entire school day, in class, at lunch, at recess, during transitions. All staff who interact with the child must be trained to support AAC use, not just the SLP.