Designing Lessons for All Voices: Planning for Learner Variability and AAC Users
- Jennifer Wright
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Every classroom includes a range of learners, each with their own ways of engaging, understanding, and expressing themselves. For students who are non-speaking or minimally speaking, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems may be used as part of their receptive and expressive language system. Supporting AAC users goes beyond ensuring they have tools and strategies available; it’s about designing learning experiences that honor and include all voices from the start.
Using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, we can intentionally plan lessons that reduce barriers, increase opportunities, and promote meaningful participation for every student. When we design with learner variability in mind, we don’t just accommodate differences; we celebrate them.
Planning with Learner Variability in Mind
Learner variability recognizes that students bring diverse strengths, preferences, and needs to the classroom. Rather than waiting to modify lessons for a few students after the fact, UDL invites us to plan proactively for diversity.
For AAC users, this means anticipating and designing for differences in motor skills, communication access, comprehension, and interaction styles. Thoughtful lesson planning helps ensure that every student, whether speaking or using AAC, can engage, learn, and express themselves meaningfully.
Before planning, pause and ask:
What might make this activity engaging for all my learners?
What communication functions will my AAC users need to experience (e.g., commenting, requesting, sharing opinions)?
What core and fringe vocabulary should be available for this activity?
How can peers support communication and participation?
These reflection questions ground our planning in access and belonging.
Using the UDL Framework to Support AAC Users
The CAST UDL Guidelines 3.0 provides a roadmap for designing lessons that meet every learner’s needs through three guiding principles: Engagement, Representation, and Action & Expression.
Multiple Means of Engagement: Welcoming Interests and Identities
Engagement is about connection and how students find purpose and joy in learning. For AAC users, access to engagement means more than simply being present; it means being invited to participate in meaningful ways.
The UDL guidelines provide us with ideas to support building engagement. These ideas are taken directly from the Access band of the UDL 3.0 Guidelines.
Some ideas for welcoming interests and identities:
Offer students choices in materials, partners, or topics. Even simple choices like which color marker to use or which question to answer promote ownership and motivation.
Link lessons to students’ lived experiences and interests. Personalizing content makes learning more meaningful.
Build in play, humor, and creativity. AAC users thrive in environments that celebrate interaction and exploration.
Create a communication-positive classroom culture where AAC use is valued as an equal, respected form of expression.
Ask yourself: What strategies can help my AAC users feel welcomed, included, and motivated to participate?
Multiple Means of Representation: Supporting Access to Information
Representation is about how information is presented and understood. For AAC users, reception and comprehension often depend on having materials that match their communication and learning needs.
Some ideas for perception:
Use visuals, symbols, or simplified text. Present key concepts on core boards, posters, or slides that include both text and images.
Pair spoken language with visuals, gestures, or real objects. AAC users benefit when information is multi-modal.
Include stories, characters, and examples that reflect the diverse ways people communicate and learn, including those who use AAC.
Ask yourself: What vocabulary, both core and fringe, will my AAC users need for this lesson? Can I pre-teach or model it during a morning meeting or small group activity?
Multiple Means of Action & Expression: Empowering Communication and Participation
This UDL principle focuses on how learners show what they know and interact with the world. For AAC users, access means having the tools, time, and support to communicate in their preferred ways.
Plan intentionally to:
Allow multiple ways to participate using a multimodal approach. Accept all forms of communication, including vocalizations/verbalizations, gestures, facial expression, eye gaze, body language, and technology (no tech-high tech). Remember, every form of communication counts.
Ensure AAC devices are charged, vocabularies are up to date, and tools are ready before instruction begins.
Ask yourself: Can I build a simple participation script for my AAC users? For example, during a discussion, they might use phrases like “I think…,” “I agree,” or “I like that.” How will students interact peer-to-peer? Could a partner prompt, “What do you think?”
Planning in Action: A Lesson Example
Imagine a shared reading activity using The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
Before reading, the teacher selects target core words (“look,” “eat,” “more,” “different”) and fringe vocabulary (foods, days of the week) and ensures they are available on each AAC system or a shared classroom board.
During the story, students use their AAC tools and strategies to comment (“yummy!” “no more!”), make choices (“Which fruit should we eat next?”), and predict (“What happens tomorrow?”). Peers are encouraged to use the same core words to respond and model.
After reading, students create their own “hungry caterpillar” art, choosing materials and colors using their AAC tools and strategies.
The result? Every student contributes, communicates, and connects through words, pictures, or symbols, ensuring that each voice is heard and valued.
Planning for Possibility
Designing lessons with learner variability in mind ensures that every student, speaking or non-speaking, can access, engage, and express themselves meaningfully.
When we plan for inclusion from the start, we move from “making accommodations” to creating classrooms where all voices are expected, respected, and celebrated.
The next time you sit down to plan a lesson, remember: You’re not just planning for what students will learn, you are planning for how they will belong.
References:
Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. World Publishing Company, 1969.
(CAST (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org)
