Response to Johnson (2020), A voice for research and a voice for life. Providing participant communication supports. Commentary on Dee-Price (2020)

Johnson (2020) outlines common viewpoints and gives life to an important debate. Unfortunately, the tyranny of space allows only a response to points of debate. Johnson disputes deviation from the term “complex communication needs” to that of “complex communication ‘access’ needs” on the basis of my perceptions of the term as a deficit. The term “complex communication needs” was developed by the field of augmentative and alternative communication, a specialised area of research and provision (Schlosser, 2003), described by Hodge (2007) as largely the professional domain of speech pathology. Johnson pointed to Iacono’s (2014) defence of the term we all have complex communication needs but in the absence of discourse ascribing needs to anyone other than persons with impairments, this argument kindles platitude.