Alphabet Soup: Acronyms for AAC Practitioners

We’re excited about the passion and enthusiasm for AAC shown by many new SLPs and graduate student clinicians. One of the things they sometimes struggle with in reading and writing reports is the number of acronyms that we tend to use. This is always a problem in clinical and scholarly writing, but when the field is incredibly diverse and transdisciplinary, the challenges multiply.

Here’s a starter list of acronyms* and their meanings. Many, MANY thanks to those who helped us create this list on the PrAACtical AAC Facebook page.

• AAC-RERC – AAC Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center
• ACOLUG – Augmentative Communication Online Users’ Group
• AiLS, ALgS, and ALs – Aided language stimulation
• ALI – Aided language input
• ALS – Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
• AOTA – American Occupational Therapy Association
• APTA – American Physical Therapy Association
• ASD – Autism spectrum disorder
• ASHA – American Speech Language Hearing Association
• AT – Assistive technology
• ATIA – Assistive Technology Industry Association
• ATP – Assistive technology professional
• CCN – Complex communication needs
• CEC – Council for Exceptional Children
• CM – Communication Matters (UK chapter of ISAAC)
• CP – Cerebral palsy
• CTG – Closing the Gap
• DD – Developmental disabilities
• DME – Durable medical equipment
• ETRAN – Eye transfer (eye gaze)
• FP – Full prompt
• ID – Intellectual disability
• ISAAC – International Society for AAC
• LAMP – Language acquisition through motor planning
• MCB – Manual communication board
• MR – Not a term that is currently used but does appear in literature; Mental retardation
• NJC – National Joint Committee on the Communication Needs of People with Severe Disabilities
• P2G – Proloquo to Go
• PAS – Partner assisted scanning
• PCS – Picture Communication Symbols
• PD – Parkinson Disease or professional development
• PECS – Picture Exchange Communication System
• PHI – Protected health information
• PODD – Pragmatic Organization Dynamic Display
• PND – Progressive neurological disorder/disease
• PP – Partial prompt
• PPA – Primary progressive aphasia
• PRC – Prentke Romich Company
• PWA – People with aphasia
• PWUAAC – People who use AAC
• RESNA – Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America
• SGD – Speech generating device
• SM – Social media
• SNUG – Spontaneous novel utterance generation
• SFY – Speak for Yourself app
• TASH – Formerly The Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps; Now called TASH
• TC – Touch Chat app
• TTS – Text-to-speech
• USSAAC – United States Society for AAC (US Chapter of ISAAC)
• VOCA – Voice output communication aid
• WNL – Within normal limits
• WP – Word prediction

Did we miss any acronyms that people new to AAC need to know? Please help us out in the comments below.

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*As an aside, we’re not big fans of using acronyms to refer to people. We included some here because our students are running into them and need help understanding what they mean.