Tag Archive: visual supports

5 Great Tips, Tricks & Teaching Ideas- Fire Protection Week

October 8, 2012 by Robin Parker - Leave your thoughts

It is National Fire Protection Week October 7-13, 2012. Check Out These 5 Great Tips, Tricks, and Teaching Ideas: Sensory Breaks & Learning Activities Firefighters are being Educated in Auburn On-Line Fire Safety Games for Kids How To Teach and Present Information, Lesson Plans, and Visual Supports for children and adults with Intellectual Disabilities For Teachers and SLPS

Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking

3 Communication-Behavior Visual Support Power Tools!

October 3, 2012 by Robin Parker - Leave your thoughts

Behavior challenges tend to be a major concern of speech-language pathologists, parents, and educators alike. It is the area that is often most nerve wracking for many professionals and families. But once you get a set of strategies that help you have a plan, most challenging behaviors can be reduced. We like to think of challenging behaviors as opportunities 1: for the learner to practice understanding or expression of communication and language and 2: for facilitators/educators to use behavior strategies or learn new ones. So in order to be best prepared for challenging behaviors, start a Communication-Behavior Strategy Tool Kit. Here some powerful tools that will help ALL learners. 3 Power Tools for Communication & Behavior Choice Boards- helps give a learner power but under our guidelines and boundaries. With choice boards, a student learns more communication while having less power struggles/behavior challenges. Opportunity to teach choice making, expression... [Read More...]

Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking

Apps to Learn & Practice Talking About Pain, Illness, & Injury

September 15, 2012 by Robin Parker - 3 Comments

Apps to Learn How to Talk About Pain, Illness, & Injury

We were looking over the great hospital resources from Patient Provider Communication Forum, Central Coast Children’s Foundation, Dr. Bronwyn Hemsley, and Widgit Software that Carole wrote about and realized that not everyone automatically knows how to talk about pain, illness and injury. We often need to teach the expression of these concepts. We use various types of modeling and create Boxes or Drawers that have items (i.e., bandaids, antiseptic, washcloth, ice buddy, etc) to ‘help with Cuts/Scrapes’ (or any other illness). We have had some fun and lots of practice using these apps to also help the learning process. 5 Apps To Learn and Practice Talking About Pain, Illness, & Injury Don’t forget to model, play, and use the apps often in the teaching process so when they are really needed you will see spontaneous communication and language. Toca Doctor– learning about injury and sickness through fun noncompetitive challenges that involve ‘healing’ the damaged part.... [Read More...]

Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking

Beyond ‘Good’ and ‘Nothing’

August 27, 2012 by Carole Zangari - Leave your thoughts

“How was school?” (Good) “What did you do?” (Nothing) This scenario plays out in many cars and kitchens in the after school hours and it can be hard to know who is more frustrated: the kids for being asked or the parents for not getting satisfactory answers. And still, we repeat the process day after day. Of course, we want to know the fine details of what happened and how our children felt, but in some cases, we’d settle for ANY school-related conversation at all. I’ll be the first to admit that it took me way too long to get the hang of how to get information about my children’s school days, and it seemed like just when I did, pow! They were pre-teens and then teenagers. New rule book. Here are some ‘lessons learned’ along the way about those afterschool conversations and some suggestions for parents of the kids... [Read More...]

Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking

More Ideas for Using Visual Supports to Build Conversational Skills

August 5, 2012 by Carole Zangari - Leave your thoughts

Cohesion is a tough concept for many of our learners who are developing their AAC skills and struggling to build relationships. In this week’s featured video, Joel Shaul, from Autism Teaching Strategies, discusses how to use two metaphors for building cohesive conversations. One is the idea of links in a chain and the other is the girders of a building. Of course, we are big fans of the use of visual supports whenever we talk and teach. — Although the focus here is learners with ASD, we’ve used this and similar strategies many kinds of learners. Hope you enjoy this informative video. – – – –

Filed under: Video of the Week

Setting Clear Expectations

July 29, 2012 by Carole Zangari - Leave your thoughts

This week we return to the Geneva Centre for Autism for have two short videos from on strategies to support positive behavior. – Enjoy these explanatory videos on Clear Expectations With Visual Rules and Classroom Rules. –

Filed under: Video of the Week

PrAActical AAC Thoughts About Challenging Behavior

July 28, 2012 by Robin Parker - 1 Comment

Some PrAACtical AAC thoughts about challenging behavior: I wonder if it is ok to say that we love seeing challenging behavior during speech-language therapy sessions or observations. Well, I said it, both of us do, because if we really ‘listen’ then we can figure out what to teach that will really help our students. We tend to prioritize our goals into High Priority and General Priority. Challenging behavior and the communication message behind it, definitely falls into high priority. This is because challenging behavior in students limits experiences, limits interaction, and overall limits opportunities for people to get to know you. Consider Challenging Behavior through Communication Glasses Is it really Challenging Behavior? behavior that is or can be destructive or hurtful. Examples include but are not limited to: hitting, biting, spitting, throwing, pounding, etc. (Note: we are not talking about poor eye contact or poor attention to task or even laughing... [Read More...]

Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking

Self-Calming Strategies: 'Easier Seen'

July 28, 2012 by Robin Parker - 3 Comments

Throughout this month we focused on visual supports & strategies for positive behavior. We have discussed transition supports, environmental arrangements, and consequence mapping. As we wrap up, we don’t want to forget PrAACtical AAC strategies for self-calming. We like to think about self-calming like this- some weeks we need it more than others, some days we need it more than others. We all need self- calming strategies. Whether we vent to a friend, go for a run, knit, take deep breaths, or get a glass of wine (although we are not advocating this), we all use self-calming strategies. It makes a huge difference. Sometimes though helping our students self-calm at times may seem “easier said than done”, but we know it truly is ‘easier when SEEN‘. Self-calming strategies can help before, during, and after behavior challenges . We will often teach and use self calming strategies if we know a potentially stressful situation will... [Read More...]

Filed under: Strategy of the Month

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