Assistive technologies and AAC for students with complex communication needs.

The use of Assistive Technologies, combined with specific Alternative Augmentative Communication systems (AAC), can facilitate the participation of students with complex communication needs and represent, in educational-didactic interventions, an opportunity both for acquiring communication and relational skills and for learning. The aim of this report is to present the main communication aids that can be used in school settings and to highlight the inclusive potential of the AAC approach, aimed at the participation of the subject with disabilities and the improvement of their living conditions in formal and non-formal contexts. Where verbal language is absent, indeed, AAC can increase existing communication skills and provide for the use of strategies, tools and aids in educational environments, in which the active role of the various communication partners is recognized: the teacher, the therapist or the adult of reference in the family context will have to start from the understanding of the expressive possibilities offered by unaided communication and support the student with a specific tool or aid.