The II Brazilian Alternative Communication Conference – ISAAC BRASIL 2007 will be held at UNICAMP – The State University of Campinas, in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil from May 15th to 19th. This is a positive result from Natal 2004 ISAAC Conference and Rio 2005 ISAAC Brazil Conference. These events have shown that the number of professionals (clinicians and researchers) involved in AAC is increasing yearly, and that the need to share experiences and positive results is paramount.
Two international speakers have been invited to come to Brazil: Gloria Soto and Deanna Wagner. There will also be presentations by Brazilian Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Educators, Psychologists, parents and AAC users.
The main aims of the II Brazilian Alternative Communication Conference – ISAAC BRASIL 2007, are to:
Provide a venue for researchers, education and health professionals, family members and AAC users to meet and map what is being done in Brazil in the field of AAC, so as to design common aims.
Divulge AAC among university students in the fields of health and education as well as to educators from the regular school systems.
Encourage full participation of AAC user and their families throughout the conference presentations.
Continue discussions and procedures to implement the foundation of an ISAAC Chapter Brazil.
When the call for papers was announced, we were glad to see papers come in from all over the country discussing issues and presenting reports on the following topics:
- Language Clinical Practice
- Inclusion
- Acquired Communication Disorders
- Literacy
- Family
- Technology and Accessibility
- Theoretical and methodological models
- Art & Expressions
Of the 120 papers sent in, 78 oral and poster presentations were approved. We are very excited that people are coming from as far away as the Amazon. We expect to have around 450 conference participants.
The conference logo of a cat’s cradle, included above, was designed to represent the idea of communication as interaction, involving multiple partners in dynamic process where exchanges are always taking place. But most of all, we wanted to express that AAC can be fun.