ConnectAAC
ConnectAAC is an AI-powered augmentative and alternative communication app designed to help nonspeaking and minimally speaking individuals communicate more efficiently and independently. The app combines visual communication cards, personalized user profiles, text-to-speech, and context-relevant word and sentence suggestions.
Instead of requiring users to navigate through numerous menus to locate individual words, ConnectAAC suggests language that may be relevant to the user’s current situation. It can support communication across everyday settings such as home, school, healthcare, recreation, and the community.
ConnectAAC may also be relevant to some people with aphasia or other acquired communication difficulties who benefit from visual supports, word-retrieval assistance, sentence suggestions, and spoken output.
ConnectAAC was created through Equal Speaks, a youth-led nonprofit focused on making communication more inclusive and accessible. It is available through a web application and on Android.
About the Creator:
Ayana Singh is the 16-year-old founder of Equal Speaks, a youth-led nonprofit dedicated to inclusive and accessible communication. She created ConnectAAC after witnessing a family member experience communication barriers and recognizing the need for communication technology that is more personalized, context-aware, and accessible.
Through Equal Speaks, Ayana works with disability organizations, families, educators, speech-language professionals, and assistive-technology programs to expand awareness of AAC resources. ConnectAAC reflects both lived-experience inspiration and Ayana’s interest in using technology to help people communicate their needs, ideas, feelings, and personalities. The app is an emerging supplementary resource and is not intended to replace individualized clinical evaluation, speech-language therapy, or an established AAC system.
