To investigate how people who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) integrate their devices into their daily lives and occupations, focusing on the facilitators and barriers.

This paper explores augmentative and alternative communication (AAC); AAC is a form of communication support for individuals with communication impairments. There has been much research documenting AAC users discarding their devices. It has been found that this is due to multifactorial reasons. Therefore, this paper aims to understand the barriers and supportive factors which leads AAC users being able to integrate their AAC device into their daily life and occupations. AAC provision involves a multi-disciplinary team; however, this paper will explore the current role of the occupational therapist within the provision of AAC. It will also consider the core skills of the occupational therapist and postulate that there are potential areas of role development for occupational therapists working with users of AAC. There has been much debate about the importance of service user involvement and the need for services to consider the needs of the stakeholder. Therefore, the research proposal will utilise an action research design which will recruit a service user and an occupational therapist to be co-researchers. Through this process the service user will be able to directly influence how service provision is organised and provided. It is hoped that the findings will support the need for service provision change and provide an evidence base for occupational therapists working within the field of AAC provision.bsc_occunpub1711_ethesesunpu