Tag Archive: Family support

How I Do It: Digital Connections With Families to Support AAC Users

March 26, 2020 by - Leave your thoughts

How I Do It: Digital Connections With Families to Support AAC Users

Staying connected with families is such an important aspect of being an effective AAC interventionist. In today’s post, we have a return visit from SLP Sarah Gregory, who shares the things that she is doing to maintain these connections as we learn to do this work from afar. You can read Sarah’s previous contribution here. Digital Connections With Families to Support AAC Users I hope this blog post finds everyone well! The COVID-19 virus has created an uncertain and unprecedented time for us all, but I have gotten so much comfort from the generosity and resource sharing in our AAC SLP community this week. As we get creative in supporting our AAC users remotely, the app SeeSaw has been a key to connecting with my students and families (I am not affiliated with this app in any way). I have used this free app to create a loop between home... [Read More...]

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PrAACtical Supports for Older Learners: AT Recipes for Success, Part 7

August 18, 2016 by - 2 Comments

PrAACtical Supports for Older Learners: AT Recipes for Success, Part 7

Welcome back to the PrAACtical Supports series, highlighting the work of the AT team at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU (CHoR). Meghan Reitz, an SLP who has worked at CHoR for over 3 years, returns to share activity ideas for older learners and downloadable handouts for their caregivers. She received her Master’s in SLP from the University of Virginia., which provides comprehensive services for pediatric healthcare. The CHoR AT Program is one of few comprehensive AT programs in Central Virginia, providing AT evaluations, equipment and training to people of all ages, enabling children and adults with disabilities to function more independently.  CHoR’s AT team consists of 4 SLPs, 2 OTs, a PT, and a Therapy Practice Assistant.  In addition to completing transdiciplinary evaluations and treatments, CHoR’s AT team is responsible for supporting staff and sharing AT information to five CHoR therapy centers throughout Central Virginia. Meghan has a passion for working... [Read More...]

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PrAACtical Supports for Older Learners: AT Recipes for Success, Part 5 – Let’s Cook!

August 4, 2016 by - 1 Comment

PrAACtical Supports for Older Learners: AT Recipes for Success - Let's Cook

Thanks to all of you who reached out with appreciation for the ideas and resources shared in last month’s PrAACtical Supports posts (you can see those here). We’re delighted to continue the series and grateful to the AT team at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU (CHoR), which provides comprehensive services for pediatric healthcare. The CHoR AT Program is one of few comprehensive AT programs in Central Virginia, providing AT evaluations, equipment and training to people of all ages, enabling children and adults with disabilities to function more independently.  CHoR’s AT team consists of 4 SLPs, 2 OTs, a PT, and a Therapy Practice Assistant.  In addition to completing transdiciplinary evaluations and treatments, CHoR’s AT team is responsible for supporting staff and sharing AT information to five CHoR therapy centers throughout Central Virginia. Today’s guest blogger is team member Meghan Reitz, an SLP who has worked at CHoR for the past... [Read More...]

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Resources for Families- PLN’s

May 26, 2014 by - 2 Comments

Resources for Families-PLN's

This month’s ‘Strategy of the Month’ has been focused on supporting families.  To fully support families, it is essential to provide family friendly resources that can aid in creating Personal Learning Networks (PLN’s).  The more families know and learn, the more likely the AAC learner will progress in their communication skills. Also, the more information families have, the better advocates they will become. And since families are one of the only constants in an AAC learner’s educational and life journey, the family is really the most important part the communication team.  About AAC About AAC- ASHA AAC Institute- Parent’s Corner Center for AAC & Autism AAC -Family Resources Assistive Technology Resources- Autism Speaks Communication Matters Communication Books & Boards ConnectAbility http://www.setbc.org/pictureset/ Pre-made Communication Boards Help Designing Communication Books  Free & Discounted AAC Apps Appy Malls Smart Apps for Kids Moms with Apps The iMums Apps Wheel *(categorized wheel of apps to... [Read More...]

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Home Programming with AAC

May 12, 2014 by - Leave your thoughts

Home Programming with AAC

As SLP’s we love to have families learn and carryover the work we do in speech-language treatment sessions.  This helps ensure carryover of progress and generalization of therapy success.  However, as Carole clearly illustrated last Monday, there are a lot of family dynamics, cultural issues, and family challenges that make adding extra work possibly burdensome. We really (really) do not want to burden families, but its beneficial to have AAC communication happen all day long. We once had a client who had a very huge house with lots of bedrooms, but mom chose to keep her children together in one bedroom.  This was just in case the AAC user woke in the middle of the night. Then she would have someone close by as a communication partner.  This was a family who took home programming to the max and expanded and modified it to fit their family. A main issue... [Read More...]

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