AAC system: An integrated group of components, including the symbols, aids, strategies, and techniques used to enhance communication.

Action plan: This important component of the AAC decision-making process is developed by the AAC team and specifies who is going to do what and by when.

Aid: A physical object or device used to transmit or receive messages (communication book, chart, etc.).

Aided AAC systems: A symbol system employed by an AAC user that requires external assistance of either an aid or a device.

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC): An area of clinical practice that attempts to compensate either temporarily or permanently for the impairment and disability patterns of individuals with severe and expressive communication disorders.

Expectant waiting: Technique for interaction that allows the AAC user ample time to respond during communication.

Expressive communication disorder: Difficulty or inability to participate actively in communication within the natural environment due to a speech, language, and/or hearing impairment.

IEP: Acronym for Individualized Education Program mandated by IDEA; a plan that is developed for a student enrolled in a special education program by a team of professional educators, the student's parents, and, when appropriate, the student. The IEP must include a statement of the student's present levels of educational performance, annual goals, short-term objectives, specific services needed by the student (including assistive technology services or devices), dates when those services will begin and be in effect, and when the student will be reevaluated.

NIDRR: An acronym for a federal agency - National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

RESNA: An acronym used to stand for "Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America." It gives technical support to these agencies and projects. RESNA is funded by a grant from the federal agency, NIDRR.

SETT: An acronym that stands for: S=Student, E=Environment, T=Tasks, T=Tools used to name Zabala's(1997) data gathering model. The goal of the model is to guide teachers, specialists, clinicians, and parents to work together collaboratively selecting assistive technology for an individual student who has disabilities.

Symbols: Something that stands for or represents something else. The symbol may use visual, auditory and/or tactile representation of conventional concepts (gestures, photos, manual signs, picto-ideographs, printed words, objects, spoken words, Braille).

Synthesized speech output: Prerecorded verbal information that is produced by an electronic device when symbols are selected by the user to activate and create messages.

Technique: A method of transmitting messages (linear scanning, row-column scanning, encoding, signing, and natural gestures, etc.).

Unaided AAC system: Symbol systems that require only the use of the sender's face, head, arms or other body parts.

Voice output system: An AAC system in which a computer speaks the words electronically to communicate.