Tag Archive: Training

AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week #35: September 2019

September 1, 2019 by - Leave your thoughts

Decorative image reading AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week #35: Sept 2019

Happy Sunday, AAC friends. Here are some posts you may have missed in your busy week. Monday – How I Do It: Working with Multiple Symbol Sets Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Model as a MASTER PAL Thursday – PrAACtically September: AAC Resources for A Year of Core Vocabulary Words ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Here are a few more for your browsing pleasure. AAC and Visual Supports for Storms and Hurricanes: 10 Useful Resources How I Do It: Cooking in the Classroom with Carol Goossens’ How I Do It: Conversation Practice with Teens and Young Adults by Angela Adams On AAC Training: Skill Building for AAC Team Members PrAACtical Resources: AAC 101 Flipbook Handout

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Building AAC Facilitation Skills with Tabi Jones-Wohleber: MASTER PAL Training, Module 1

August 23, 2018 by - 13 Comments

Building AAC Facilitation Skills with Tabi Jones-Wohleber: MASTER PAL Training, Module 1

Are you… Hoping to train team members to be better communication partners for their AAC students/clients but overwhelmed by the thought of all the preparation? Relatively new to AAC and not sure what content to share in your training? Looking for additional resources to utilize in your existing training sessions? Good news, AAC friends! This post is for you. We’re so happy to have SLP Tabi Jones-Wohleber returning to the blog to share more of her wonderful AAC resources. Tabi works with young children at the West Virginia Birth to Three program and serves on the AT Team for Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland. Today, she launches a new series on partner training that focuses on the use of aided language input and other facilitative strategies. There are 11 modules in all (1 overview for administrative discussions and 10 for communication partners) and each one includes slides, handouts, discussion prompts, links... [Read More...]

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Video of the Week: Using Evidence to Improve our Professional Development

January 10, 2018 by - Leave your thoughts

Video of the Week: Using Evidence to Improve our Professional Development

Are you involved in training others on AAC content? Today, we share a video developed by the Virginia Early Intervention Professional Development Center for their Early Intervention-Early Childhood Professional Development Community of Practice. The video discusses an approach to using research evidence to improve the way we design and deliver professional development. You can see the article on which this model is based (Dunst, 2015) by clicking on the reference below the video. Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSnREyBWEEc ————————————————- Dunst, C. J. (2015). Improving the design and implementation of in-service professional development in early childhood intervention. Infants & Young Children: 258, 3, 210-219.      

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Administratively Speaking: 5 Considerations for Recruiting and Retaining AAC SLPs (Part 2)

June 19, 2017 by - 2 Comments

Administratively Speaking: 5 Considerations for Recruiting and Retaining AAC SLPs (Part 2)

Do any of these situations sound familiar? Janelle, an SLP in an urban elementary school, was flustered when the principal directed her to ensure that her students’ AAC devices didn’t go home on weekends or during school breaks. She hated to see the students lose access to communication during those times but, Janelle understood the principal’s logic. The device had been bought and paid for by the school, and they had to scrounge around to find the funding for it. If it were to get damaged or lost, the school would have to replace it, and there were no funds for that. It was unfortunate, Janelle felt, but, what could she do? Later in the year, when the results of a system-wide audit came out, Janelle’s students were some of the ones identified as having been denied their rights to a Free, Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). Had she known the... [Read More...]

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PrAACtical Resources: AAC 101 Flipbook Handout

June 5, 2017 by - 13 Comments

PrAACtical Resources: AAC 101 Flipbook Handout

Looking for a quick, easy-to-read resource to supplement your AAC trainings with colleagues and families? In today’s post we share a flipbook-style handout that might come in handy. It covers basic tips under these headings: AAC Near Me (See me, see my AAC) Speak AAC (Aided language input) Speaking Style (Descriptive talking) Expectations (Setting the bar high) Support (AAC facilitation strategies) FAQs (Q & A about implementation) Top 10 Tips You can download the file here. Edited: This was translated into Spanish as part of the Hablando PráctiCAAmente project, coordinated by Deanna Wagner. Dianna Angeles was the translator and Claudia Marimón assisted with the editing. You can access the Spanish edition here. Enjoy!  

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PrAACtical Ideas: AAC Core Vocabulary Practice for Workshops and Inservices

January 19, 2016 by - 4 Comments

PrAACtical Ideas: AAC Core Vocabulary Practice for Workshops and Inservices

Doing a training or workshop on core vocabulary? Looking to help a team get more fluent in AAC modeling? Teaching an AAC course to graduate students? There are lots of you out there spreading the word about AAC, core vocabulary, and aided language input. Whether you are doing an informal training, presenting a workshop or teaching a class, you may be interested in giving the participants some hands-on practice with core words. If so, here’s a fun activity to help get them engaged. Get ready for…Battleship, AAC Edition! Battleship is a barrier game in which two players cannot see each other’s game boards. The game boards consist of identical grids, labeled with players placing their battleships somewhere on the board. They take turns calling out coordinates to find and sink one another’s battleship. You can learn more about how to play the game and see the game boards here. Teachers have... [Read More...]

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How I Do it: AAC Inservices by Tabi Jones-Wohleber

August 6, 2015 by - 9 Comments

How I Do it: AAC Inservices by Tabi Jones-Wohleber

Many SLPs involved in AAC service provision are called upon to provide inservice training on implementation strategies. In this post, we are very fortunate to have Tabi Jones-Wohleber back to share both her thoughts and training materials. Tabi, an SLP on the AT Team for Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland, wrote two previous posts for us. In those posts, Tabi shared her All-in-One Visual Support Tool and Classroom CORE Tool. Today, we hear about her experiences with professional development for teachers, aides, and therapists who serve students with AAC needs. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::   Implementing AAC:  A Picture…AND…A Purpose   As I work with staff and students to support implementation of AAC, I’ve learned 2 important things about making it work: 1) Folks need to know what it looks like “in their classroom/life” AND 2) effective implementation does not emerge from directives, but rather evolves from understanding, engagement and ownership of the WHAT... [Read More...]

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5 Reasons to Put AAC Training for Staff and Parents into the IEP

March 5, 2014 by - 6 Comments

5 Reasons to Put AAC Training for Staff and Parents into the IEP

SLPs tend to love (good, relevant) professional development. We flock to conferences (15,000+ ASHA attendees this past November), sign up for workshops, and attend webinars. But for some reason, we are reluctant to request training as part of the IEP process, even when we’re not very confident in our work with the student. Maybe we don’t want to acknowledge our need for it, or admit that there is something we don’t know (gasp!). Perhaps we’d just rather not make waves. We may ask for training informally, but it doesn’t always get tied to specific students’ IEPs, and that may mean that our requests get overlooked. Here are a few reasons why you may want to put staff training into IEPs when needed. We need it.  The complexity of the AAC field, diversity of this clinical population, and the rapid pace of change in technology make it very unlikely that any... [Read More...]

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Did You Know: AADMD Offers Specialty Webinars for Working with Adults with Developmental Disabilities

July 10, 2013 by - Leave your thoughts

This month’s strategy is about AAC and older children. This topic happens to dovetail with some work I am doing regarding healthcare options for many of the children in our community who have quickly become adults.  It seems like so many families struggle to find physicians and dentists who have experience working with adults with autism spectrum disorder and/or developmental disabilities. It seems that as children become adults, their pediatric doctors and dentists say goodbye and families are left to fend for themselves.  A workgroup of parents and professionals are trying to change this trend by finding interested physicians and providing them with formal training options, introducing them to their personal adult children, and working with medical school and residency programs. As I was researching some healthcare training options, I came upon the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry (Thanks Deborah Chin). As I was reading through the website... [Read More...]

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