Top Lang Disorders Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 199–209 c  2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc. Development of a Communication Training Program to Improve Access to Legal Services for People With Complex Communication Needs Leanne Togher, PhD; Susan Balandin, PhD; Katherine Young, BAppl, Hlth Sci; Fiona Given; Michael Canty People with communication disabilities experience problems in accessing the justice system. In this article we describe the development of a multimedia package designed to train legal person- nel to identify and reduce communication barriers to their services. The training package is being developed collaboratively by a diverse team that included researchers, a clinician, legal person- nel, and people who use augmentative and alternative communication. The focus of the training is to improve the knowledge and skills of legal personnel regarding how to communicate effec- tively with people who use augmentative and alternative communication, thus enabling greater access to the legal system for such individuals. In this article, development of training vignettes is described. The next step will be to evaluate the effectiveness of the training materials. Sugges- tions are offered for conducting this evaluation and future research in this important area. Key words: augmentative and alternative communication, communication disability, legal issues, complex communication needs, training program A NECDOTAL reports from people with disability and complex communication needs (CCN) are filled with stories about how unsatisfactory their interactions with le- gal personnel and access to the legal system have been. Access is required for a wide range From the University of Sydney (Drs Togher and Balandin and Ms Young) and Crown Solicitor’s Office (Ms Given), Sydney; and The Spastic Centre, New South Wales (Mr Canty), Australia. This project was funded jointly by the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW and the Attorney General’s Depart- ment of NSW. We thank Julia Haraskin and her staff at the Attorney General’s Department for their insightful comments and enthusiastic support of the development of this package. Corresponding author: Dr Leanne Togher, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, PO Box 170, E St, Lidcombe, NSW 1825, Australia (e-mail: L.Togher@fhs.usyd.edu.au). of communicative events within the legal sys- tem, including reporting crimes, acting as a witness in official proceedings, or perform- ing jury duty. Drivers with cerebral palsy and severe dysarthria have reported being taken for alcohol blood testing after police have as- sumed that their slurred speech resulted from drinking. Other individuals report being re- fused the opportunity to witness in court be- cause of their communication impairment. Borthwick (1998), a lawyer, suggested that those with CCN either are not taken seriously when they make a complaint or may be un- able to complain in the first place as they do not have a communication system to facili- tate this. Despite reports that people, particu- larly women, with a disability are at a greater risk for abuse than their nondisabled peers (Sobsey, 1994; Tamura & Webber, 1992), there are few records of individuals with CCN ap- pearing in court or accessing legal services 199