Legal Considerations
Last updated
Last updated
Many of the team were not aware of the legal considerations involved with AAC and the need for freedom of speech. Some of the team felt passionately that this should be shared with the wider team and families to stress the importance of AAC.
Below are examples of the legal considerations which highlight the need to ensure AAC use that you may want to use within your AAC policy.
The right to freedom of speech is protected under common law in the UK. It is also guaranteed under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), where “everyone has the right to freedom of expression”.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (Articles 12 and 13) states ‘Children have a right to receive and impart information, to express an opinion and to have that opinion taken into account in any matters affecting them from the early years. Their views should be given due weight according to their age, maturity and capability.’
The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Article 24 – Education provides the clearest guidance on the legal requirements of schools.
3. States Parties shall enable persons with disabilities to learn life and social development skills to facilitate their full and equal participation in education and as members of the community. To this end, States Parties shall take appropriate measures, including:
a) Facilitating the learning of Braille, alternative script, augmentative and alternative modes, means and formats of communication and orientation and mobility skills, and facilitating peer support and mentoring;
b) Facilitating the learning of sign language and the promotion of the linguistic identity of the deaf community;
c) Ensuring that the education of persons, and in particular children, who are blind, deaf or deafblind, is delivered in the most appropriate languages and modes and means of communication for the individual, and in environments which maximize academic and social development.
Communication Bill of Rights
The freedom to communicate is a basic equal opportunities human right. As the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Communication Bill of Rights says, “All people with a disability of any extent or severity have a basic right to affect, through communication, the conditions of their existence.” The inability to communicate impacts adversely on social, emotional, cognitive and language development, and wellbeing.
The Communication Bill of Rights states 15 fundamental rights which should be accessible to everyone to enable them to participate fully in communication interactions. To see the Communication Bill of Rights click or go to
Many organisations use adapt the Communication Bill of Rights, click to see an example from Oxfordshire Total Communication or go to
What are ways your educational setting could share the Communication Bill of Rights with staff, parents and learners? Will you use them as they are or do you feel a need to make them accessible to all stakeholders?
The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Article 24 – Education provides the clearest guidance on the legal requirements of schools. It states that parties shall enable persons with disabilities to learn life and social development skills to facilitate their full and equal participation in education and as members of the community. To this end, it states parties shall take appropriate measures, including:
a) Facilitating the learning of Braille, alternative script, augmentative and alternative modes, means and formats of communication and orientation and mobility skills, and facilitating peer support and mentoring;
b) Facilitating the learning of sign language and the promotion of the linguistic identity of the deaf community;
c) Ensuring that the education of persons, and in particular children, who are blind, deaf or deafblind, is delivered in the most appropriate languages and modes and means of communication for the individual, and in environments which maximize academic and social development.
