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The Boston Children’s Hospital Augmentative Communication Program is internationally acclaimed for its work with children and adults who are non-speaking or whose speech is severely impaired. Our team is dedicated to achieving the best possible communication outcomes for every patient — and providing support for families, caregivers, community clinicians, school teams, and other stakeholders. Our team treats patients with complex communication needs, including the rarest and most complex diagnoses.

Our patients range from young babies to adults. They seek out Boston Children’s from across the U.S. and the world, pursuing care that offers:

  • Specialization in augmentative and alternative communication
  • Holistic, patient-centered feature matching
  • Collaborative relationships with teams and local care providers

Why choose Boston Children’s Augmentative Communication Program?

With a comprehensive team of speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists specialized in augmentative and alternative communication, the Boston Children’s ACP is recognized worldwide as a leader in aided communication. The ACP offers state-of-the-art services for children and adults with wide-ranging needs in the areas of expressive communication, assistive technology integration, language comprehension, and access to communication.

Our specialization allows us to achieve functional clinical outcomes for our patients.

  • Our team members have dedicated their careers to focus on individuals with complex communication needs, and who may require alternative access to communication.
  • We serve as an educational hub for graduate and professional training related to augmentative and alternative communication.
  • We strive to support patient- and family-centered care, evidence-based practice, collaboration across hospital departments, innovations in clinical practice for AAC and AT services, community partnerships, and clinical research.

Our individualized approach to care

Feature matching, the process of matching one’s unique skills and needs to communication systems, tools, and strategies, is a tenet of our practice. Our team believes that communication should be available to all. Rather than a one-method-fits-all approach, we consider the whole patient when determining appropriate, individualized communication systems. This includes:

  • Speech skills
  • Language skills
  • Physical access
  • Vision, hearing, and sensory needs
  • Medical status
  • Literacy skills
  • Cognition
  • Academic and vocational considerations
  • Seating and positioning
  • Caregivers and stakeholders
  • Patient and family preferences
  • Environment
  • And more