April 17, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
What’s new and interesting in your world of AAC? Each Tuesday, we invite you to share your own AAC-related goodness so that others may benefit from your efforts. 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. The AAC Link Up is moderated to keep us from being spammed, so it may take a little while for your link to show up. Note: If you receive this post in your email inbox, you are probably getting it before anyone has had a chance to add their links. Check back... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC Link Up
April 16, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Work with students who are reluctant to use their AAC in front of others? Sometimes students become self-conscious and hesitate to use SGDs or other forms of AAC out of the fear that it will make them stick out. Of course, we do our best to encourage them but what else can we do? Here are a few things to try. Normalize AAC use: When lots of people use AAC, it reduces the student’s feeling that they stick out. Be relentless in your own modeling, and help others to build the habit of using AAC when they speak. Connect them with an AAC mentor: Role models can have a powerful influence on our perception of our world and ourselves. Connect students to others who use AAC successfully. If there aren’t older students or adults in your community, consider making online connections using social media. There are quite a few people... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: emotional competence, emotional support, peer supports, reluctant communicator, self-esteem
April 15, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. Here are some posts from the week gone by. Monday – PrAACtical Resources: Structured Play Groups Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Aided Language Input – How Much Language Should We Model? Thursday – “We don’t ‘do’ AAC.” :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Have time for a little more AAC reading? Here are a handful of posts to browse. How I Do It: Writing IEP Goals for Students Who Use AAC with Lauren Enders Documenting AT in the IEP 5 Reasons to Put AAC Training for Staff and Parents into the IEP AAC and the IEP: 5 Resources to Explore PrAACtical Resources: AT in the IEP Have a wonderful week!
Filed under: Featured Posts
Tagged With: IEP, school, summary post
April 12, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Armando’s parents were so disappointed when they inquired about AAC supports for their son during a recent visit to his classroom. “We don’t ‘do’ AAC,” they were told. “We’d love to, but we just don’t have the resources.” When Mia’s family moved to a new school district, they were expecting her to be able to continue using the Minspeak-based device that Mia had been learning to use in her previous school. Instead, they were told that this school uses ‘other’ kinds of AAC and that Mia would be provided with one of the AAC apps used by some of her new classmates. After all the time and effort of an AAC evaluation, and then struggling to learn the basics when Mia first got her device, it seemed unreasonable to start over with a new AAC system. But, Mia’s parents were told, ‘once she gets used to it, she’ll be able to... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Barriers, policy, practice, schools
April 10, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
What’s new and interesting in your world of AAC? Each Tuesday, we invite you to share your own AAC-related goodness so that others may benefit from your efforts. 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. The AAC Link Up is moderated to keep us from being spammed, so it may take a little while for your link to show up. Note: If you receive this post in your email inbox, you are probably getting it before anyone has had a chance to add their links. Check back... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC Link Up
April 9, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
In today’s post, we visit an online module for helping children with autism learn to better interact with their peers using a structured play group methodology. Structured play groups are among the evidence-based practices that professionals can use to support young children with significant communication challenges. This online module was developed as a part of the Autism Focused Intervention Resources and Modules (AFIRM), a project of the National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Enjoy! If you enjoy this module and its accompanying resources, please consider supporting AFIRM.
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AFIRM, EBP, play, Structured Play Groups
April 5, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Do you work with AAC learners who demonstrate their communication skills in therapy or instructional lessons, but not elsewhere? In this post, we review some things we can do to make it easier for AAC learners to generalize their newly-developed skills and use them in a variety of places with a range of communication partners. Part of the solution to this problem lies in collaborating with the communication partners in other settings. In doing that, we want to be sure that the partners use good communication facilitation strategies, such as these. Partner skills are something we’ve covered here on several occasions. Today, we’ll focus on changes we can make within our direct intervention or instructional lessons with AAC learners. Initially, we may control some of the instructional variables, such as materials and cues, rather tightly. Keeping things consistent is great for the initial teaching of new skills because it allows... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC intervention, generalization, loose training
April 2, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Happy World Autism Day! April has evolved from the original concept of raising awareness to include much more, but it still gives us an opportunity to learn, improve, and celebrate. Why learn more about working with people who have autism? There are lots of reasons, but here’s one for my fellow SLPs. If you are a school-based clinician, there is an excellent chance that you have these students on your caseload. According to the 2014 SLP Schools Survey Caseload Report, 90% of the school SLPs serve kids with ASD. Whether you are a teacher, therapist, family member, paraprofessional or just a curious person, understanding more about autism, especially from people WITH autism, will be an enriching experience. Whether you #LightItUpBlue or choose to #WalkInRed with #RedInstead, let’s renew our efforts to provide better communication supports to people with autism. Today, we share some ideas both for increasing our own understanding of... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: ASD, Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month
March 29, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Looking for a learning resource that goes beyond a quick overview and covers some of the details about providing AAC to school-aged children? Today, we visit an online learning site by the UK Department for Education called Communication-Augmentative and Assistive Strategies. It has wonderful information on a variety of AAC topics and downloadable resources for topics such as low tech AAC, vocabulary selection, and becoming a good communication partner. Take your time to explore this learning module and all of the resources it has to offer.
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: downloads, education, resources, school
March 26, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
It’s almost time to turn the calendar to a new page and that gives us the opportunity to highlight a new set of core words. Whether you are following along with the Set 1 (12 words/month) or the Set 2 words (16 words/month; Different than the previous core words), or are just getting started, this post has some helpful resources. We’re grateful to Nancy Inman, Brian Whitmer, Tina Lombardi, Barbara Fernandes, Russell Cross, Gail Van Tatenhove, Allison Wade, Eric Sailers, Bill and Lori Binko, Heidi LoStracco, Rachael Langley, and all the others who have contributed to this effort. Our words for this month are as follows. Set 1 List: big, busy, do, drink, feel, he, in, make, out, some, tell, who Set 2 List: blue, brother, close, family, head, last, long, no, old, right, scared, soft, thing, top, wash, whole Here are some resources to help with implementation. Templates for you to plug... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: A Year of Core Words