Reconnecting Indigenous Language for a Child Using Augmentative and Alternative Communication

The purpose of this article is to describe a grassroots project to develop an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system for a child who is learning to speak the Native American Lakota language. The project began as a part of a homeschool curriculum to address the foreign language requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Initially, the mother of the child, who is enrolled in the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, located a list of the 1,000 most frequently used words in Lakota and a Level 1 textbook and began programming vocabulary by word class in her child's electronic speech-generating AAC system (i.e., the CoughDrop app on an iPad). The programming has grown to include more than 1,600 vocabulary items, and the work continues. A need for symbols that are culturally and linguistically appropriate soon surfaced. Following that, the lack of a synthesized voice that accurately captures the prosody of spoken Lakota became apparent. The development of both has been added to project goals. Eventually, the goal is to have an AAC system that may be used for other speakers of Lakota and, potentially, programming protocols that will lead to the development of similar systems for other Indigenous languages.