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Systemic social isolation of AAC users (Blasko, 2024)

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Grant Blasko

Grant Blasko is a young adult nonspeaking autistic student and part of the Summit’s Organizing Committee. He is a University of Washington DO-IT Scholar, an active member of TASH’s National Communication Access Workgroup, and a CommunicationFIRST Advisory Council member. He has served as a stakeholder on panels guiding autism professionals at the American Occupational Therapy Association, CAST, and the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR).

Webcast Description

This presentation was first made at the Future of AAC Research Summit on May 13, 2024.

Please cite as
Blasko, G. (2024, May 13). Systemic social isolation of AAC users. [Conference session]. Future of AAC Research Summit, Arlington, VA. https://tinyurl.com/AAC-Blasko-2024

Video production by Rylie Mueller (Penn State University)

Additional Resources

Blasko, G. (2025). Unveiling underlying systemic isolation challenges for AAC users. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/07434618.2025.2515279

Blasko, G. (2022). Thoughts from an Autistic AAC User After the April 2022 Meeting of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. https://communicationfirst.org/thoughts-from-an-autistic-aac-user-after-the-april-2022-meeting-of-the-interagency-autism-coordinating-committee/

Blasko, G. (2022). Autism Acceptance … of Communication Stress? https://communicationfirst.org/autism-acceptance–of-communication-stress/

Chris Klein: Building Relationships through the Tools of Communication

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Webcast description

Chris Klein is a graduate of Hope College, and is an active advocate and educator in the field of AAC. Chris was born with cerebral palsy, and uses augmentative communication to help support his work with BeCOME AAC, (Building Connections through Mentoring and Educating about AAC), be a motivational speaker, and be an active member of his community and local church. Chris strives to live his life to the fullest.

This video was produced by Chris Klein and David McNaughton as part of the work of the AAC-RERC. The AAC-RERC was funded by NIDRR under grant #H133E080011.

Additional resources

BeCOME AAC

The contents of this website are a joint offering of Penn State University and the RERC on AAC. They were developed, in part, under a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant number 90REGE0014) to the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (RERC on AAC). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this website do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.