December 2, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Happy December, AAC friends! If you are as busy as we think you are, you probably missed some of last week’s posts. Here’s a recap. Monday – PrAACtical Resources: Teachers’ Toolkit For Students With Little Or No Speech Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Transitioning Students Using AAC: Strategies to Promote Full Inclusion Thursday – PrAACtically December: AAC Resources for A Year of Core Vocabulary Still have time for a little more AAC? Here are some of our suggestions. 10 Apps to Gift an AAC SLP Helping Beginning Communicators Expand Their Sentence Length 5 Ways to Make Semantic Maps More Effective in AAC Therapy PrAACtically Reading with Karen Natoci: The Family Book How I Do It: A Year of Core Words in Action Have a great week, everyone!
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: language therapy, sentence length, summary post
November 29, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
With Thanksgiving behind us, it’s time to look ahead to the month of December. A few years ago, we suggested that one way to help strengthen learners’ abilities with core words is to take a different set of 12-20 core words each month and focus on them for a few weeks. How? By modeling those words, making resource materials (like word cards with the symbols), creating activities in which those words figure prominently, posting them in the classroom/therapy room, reading books that have heavy use of these words, sharing them with families, write stories using them, etc. Core words are a great addition to the highly motivating, learner-specific words that many AAC users start with. If you are looking to expand to more robust language, this approach may be of interest. Here are the specific words we are focusing on in December. Set 1 (2013): ask, favorite, goodbye, hear, of,... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: A Year of Core Words, Another Year of Core Words
November 27, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Tuesday, AAC friends! Once a week, we invite you to share your own AAC-related content, product news, or anything else that you’d like others in the AAC community to know about. It may be a recent post you’ve written, a slide deck from your AAC presentation, a handout, video, or meme that you’ve posted online, an AAC product you’ve created, an announcement for an AAC camp or conference, or any other prAACtical content you developed and want to share with the AAC community. To post your own link, scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post and complete the form. Enter the URL and the name/title in the boxes provided below. If you are on a mobile device, click over to the full website version to do this. The AAC Link Up is moderated to keep us from being spammed, so it may take a little while... [Read More...]
Filed under: AAC Link Up, Featured Posts
Tagged With: preschool AAC
November 26, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Looking for resources that promote successful school experiences? Need tools that support inclusive educational practices? Developed by Communication Rights Australia, the Teachers’ Toolkit for Students with Little or No Speech is a website that school personnel can use to identify effective strategies and supports for students with complex communication needs. Their Teachers’ Checklist contains a series of questions that are linked to topics on a range of supports and strategies that can make a big difference in the lives of AAC learners. There are also helpful forms for teams to develop a Student Profile and Individual Learning Plan. You can begin to explore their AAC resources here.
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: classroom, Inclusive Education, school
November 25, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Hope you had a wonderful week, AAC friends. Here are some posts you may want to browse. Monday – 5 Kinds of Pre-stored Messages That Put the AAC Learner in Control Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Alphabet Books and AAC Implementation Thursday – Gratitude and Thanksgiving ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Looking for a few other AAC articles to read? We’ve got plenty for you to choose from. It’s PrAACtically Chanukkah! PrAACtical Guessing: 5 Apps for Interactive Inferencing Supporting Children in the Pediatric ICU 5+ Things to Do to Help AAC Learners Communicate About Illness or Injury “What’s Wrong?” AAC Messages for Negative Emotions and Feelings
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: illness, inference, prestored messages, sick, Thanksgiving
November 22, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
grat·i·tude /ˈɡradəˌt(y)o͞od/ noun the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness In the spirit of our American tradition of Thanksgiving, we pause to reflect on our blessings and offer thanks. We’re grateful for: The people who use AAC and their families for all they do to help us get better at this business of supporting communication Service providers in homes, schools, clinics, hospitals, and community agencies The university programs that have a dedicated AAC class, especially if they have a permanent faculty member with expertise in this area Bonus thanks to those that also offer supervised clinical or student teaching experiences with AAC mentorship opportunities or an AAC lab with SGDs, AAC apps, switches, and mounts. The professional and service organizations that support AAC through professional development opportunities, grants, mentorship programs The power of e-communication platforms for the AAC support on listservs, blogs, groups, threaded... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: gratitude, Thanksgiving
November 19, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Here’s a conundrum. Personal autonomy is an important component of happiness and well-being, yet it may be hard to come by for people who use AAC. How can we give some power back to our AAC learners so that they have more control of their own circumstances? One way is to provide them with the language that enables them to push back on us and/or assert their own influence on situations. Some individuals have the language in their AAC system already but need instruction and support in learning to say the kinds of things that allow them to advocate for themselves. We can also provide AAC learners with prestored messages that help them stick up for themselves, and teach them when and how to use those. Here are some examples to consider. Take a look and see if there are any that may help your AAC learners achieve more personal... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: control, prestored messages, self-advocacy, self-determination
November 18, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. It’s been a busy week of AAC here at the ASHA Convention. Here are some posts you may have missed. Monday – AAC at the Table: 5 Tips for Building Social Communication at Mealtimes Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – AAC Video of the Week: The Folly of Fortune Telling Thursday – Letters from Camp, Part 2 (Working with Words) :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: If you’re interested in a bit more AAC reading, check out some of these past posts. Breaking Down Barriers to AAC Implementation AAC and Emergent Literacy: 5 Posts with Implementation Ideas AAC Intervention That Teaches More and Tests Less: Thoughts on Implementation AAC in the Classroom for Students with Significant Disabilities – Implementation & Data Collection Three Ways to Use AAC Goals to Strengthen Implementation
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: implementation ideas, summary post
November 15, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
The weather is nippy here in Boston where 12,000+ professionals are gathered for the annual ASHA Convention, and the blustery wind makes us think back longingly to the warmer days of summer. Today. Ohio-based SLP Tina Moreno helps us do just that as she returns to share more information on the reading and writing activities that AAC learners in Camp ALEC experienced. In today’s post, she shares some of the details about Working with Words. If you missed it the first time, you can visit Tina’s earlier post here. Many thank to AAC mom and SLP Tina Moreno for giving us a peek into the wonderful instruction provided to these AAC learners! ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Working with Words at Camp ALEC At Camp ALEC in August, our literacy counselors planned fun, motivating activities that helped our campers learn to read and write new words. In another setting, we might refer to these... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Camp ALEC, literacy, phonic, Tina Moreno, working with words
November 13, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Tuesday, AAC friends! Once a week, we invite you to share your own AAC-related content, product news, or anything else that you’d like others in the AAC community to know about. It may be a recent post you’ve written, a slide deck from your AAC presentation, a handout, video, or meme that you’ve posted online, an AAC product you’ve created, an announcement for an AAC camp or conference, or any other prAACtical content you developed and want to share with the AAC community. To post your own link, scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post and complete the form. Enter the URL and the name/title in the boxes provided below. If you are on a mobile device, click over to the full website version to do this. The AAC Link Up is moderated to keep us from being spammed, so it may take a little while... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: preschool