As a part of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s 2024 gala, we have the honor to share and uplift our remarkable awardees’ words and their service to the self-advocacy and disability community. We will be sharing their remarks for the first few months of 2025.
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Five years ago, we created CommunicationFIRST to secure the universal human and civil rights of those who have little to no understandable speech and must rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools and support to make ourselves understood. While much has been done to achieve our goal of communication equity for all, we have so much more to do! We fight to ensure freedom of expression for people who need AAC to be heard and to live full, self-determined, and autonomous lives and futures.
Here is just some of our work from the past year:
- We created a guide with tips for hosting and attending accessible Online Meetings with AAC Users, by AAC Users.
- Together with the Oregon Health & Science University, we are leading a federally funded effort to create an AAC user-led National Consortium to Advance Peer Support Models for AAC Users.
- We have worked to convince the US Census Bureau that counting people who need and use AAC is a critical data equity issue.
- We filed an amicus brief in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which issued a favorable decision on the rights of AAC-using students to enforce their ADA communication access right.
- With the support of the Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy, we published a white paper on the “good, bad, and ugly” impacts of technology on AAC users.
We also released the third film in our See Us. Hear Us. series, which tells the life story of our co-Founder and Policy Director Bob Williams. It also tells the stories of the lives of other individuals with disabilities who have shaped his life and the times in which we live. By sharing and becoming part of each others’ stories, we create a better, more just future.
“Communication for, by, and of all people is a basic right that we cannot take for granted,” said Judy Heumann while serving on our Board. “CommunicationFIRST is loudly and proudly fighting to empower people who must rely on AAC to be heard and understood to become their own advocates fiercely fighting for their rights.”
We are proud of the gains CommunicationFIRST has made to date and equally aware of the work we must continue to do. We are currently working on:
- A revamp of our website to make our resources easier to find
- A position statement and resources about the harms of IQ tests for people who need (but don’t yet have) AAC
- A white paper on why Medicaid must include communication as an “activity of daily living” that qualifies for support
- Resources for both AAC users (and their family members) and the legal system, as part of our Accessing Justice Project
To receive updates on our work, you can follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletter.
We at CommunicationFIRST would like to extend our gratitude to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network for its efforts to champion the work that we and our fellow awardees are doing. We are humbled and honored to be recognized with ASAN’s 2024 Nothing About Us Without Us Award. CommunicationFIRST will continue to fight and live up to that ever-important mantra, Nothing About Us Without Us!