Tag Archive: scripting

AAC and ASD: Beyond Scripting

November 3, 2016 by - 7 Comments

AAC and ASD: Beyond Scripting

Today, we welcome Dr. Kimberly Ho, SLP and Director of Speech, Language and AAC Services at Confidence Connection in Needham, Massachusetts. In this post, she discusses how professionals in her organization are supporting AAC learners with autism on the journey toward flexible, generative language. I am the Director of Speech, Language and AAC Services at an ABA clinic, so naturally we serve many individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) of all ages.  A vast number of learners with ASD can speak, but their speech is not functional to meet their communication needs. We have begun to provide word-based AAC systems for these students to move beyond scripting. Many individuals with ASD “script.”  That is, they may not produce novel utterances, but rather chunks of phrases and sometimes entire sentences they have memorized.  Sometimes this scripting is based on a character from a TV show or movie. Other times the script has been memorized in... [Read More...]

Filed under: ,

Tagged With: ,

5 Thoughts on Using Scripts in AAC Therapy

September 7, 2015 by - 3 Comments

5 Thoughts on Using Scripts in AAC Therapy

As we all know, it’s a big leap from having an AAC system to being able to use it functionally. For many of our prAACtical friends, one of the areas in which they struggle is conversation. It is no easy thing to have even a brief social interaction. We’ve written before about the use of scripting, a powerful strategy that we can use to help learners build conversational skills.` Scripts provide structure. As clinicians and educators, we understand that many of our learners do best when there is a clear beginning, middle, and end to an activity. For many people learning to use AAC, conversation is a VERY challenging thing because it can be quite amorphous. Scripting gives the learner practice getting comfortable with some of the skills that they need to use in conversation by adding the element of structure. The script has a clear starting point (e.g., “Look... [Read More...]

Filed under:

Tagged With: , ,