PrAACtical Groups: Let’s Be Authors

May 20, 2024 by - Leave your thoughts


PrAACtical Groups: Let's Be Authors

Our series on AAC group therapy continues with guest authors Marisa Portanova and Marnina Allis. In today’s post, they share ideas for helping young AAC users enhance their literacy skills. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: PrAACtical AAC Groups Made Easy – Let’s Be Authors Last week, we discussed our ongoing weekly groups. Once we had success and saw progress made in the weekly groups, we came up with the concept of “AAC intensive groups,” where children would come in over a school break for a week and participate in the AAC groups for 5 consecutive days, for a longer stretch (about two and a half hours). This gave children a chance to interact with children from different classes and helped reduce the regression of learned AAC skills over the school break. During those weeks, we picked one book per day for the first 4 days. Day 5 was for review, discussing opinions of each... [Read More...]

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AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week 20: May 2024

May 19, 2024 by - Leave your thoughts


AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week 20: May 2024

Happy Sunday, AAC friends. We have some posts that you might enjoy. Monday – PrAACtical Groups: AAC Let’s Have a Weekly Social   Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Eyegaze & ALS Thursday – A PrAACtical Guide to Stepping into AAC ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: While you’re at it, here are some previous posts that may be of interest. Helping Beginning Communicators Expand Their Sentence Length 5 Ways to Make Semantic Maps More Effective in AAC Therapy PrAACtical Questions with Vicki Clarke: What’s the Role of Core Vocabulary? Communication Boards: Colorful Considerations Zooming, Masking, Distancing, & More: AAC-friendly Resources for Managing Coronavirus Challenges Let Me Tell You Something- Narratives for the Beginning Communicator

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A PrAACtical Guide to Stepping into AAC

May 16, 2024 by - 2 Comments


A PrAACtical Guide to Stepping into AAC

Parents of children, teens, and adults who are learning to use AAC often find themselves in need of more support than they typically receive. Today, we are excited to launch a new series that addresses this need. This series is built around a unique collaboration between PrAACtical AAC and the Angelman Syndrome Foundation (ASF), bringing together our expertise to create a set of training materials that caregivers can use to build an AAC presence in their lives or expand its use in daily living situations. These materials are now available on both of our websites, ready to empower and support you in your AAC journey. In today’s post, you’ll learn about the Stepping Into AAC program and how to access the materials. Future posts will focus on the implementation of AAC by families who want to enhance communication at home and in the community. Who is the target audience for... [Read More...]

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AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week 19: May 2024

May 12, 2024 by - Leave your thoughts


AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week 19: May 2024

Happy Sunday, AAC friends. We have some posts you might like. Monday – PrAACtical Groups: AAC Groups Made Easy – How to Get Started  Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Unlocking Communication for Students with Challenging Behavior Thursday – Throwback Thursday: Out & About with AAC ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Before you leave, here are a few more posts that you might like. Aided AAC & the IEP How I Do It: AAC in the IEP AAC & the IEP: 5 Resources to Explore 5 Reasons to Put AAC Training for Staff and Parents into the IEP How I Do It: Writing IEP Goals for Students Who Use AAC with Lauren Enders

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Throwback Thursday: Out & About with AAC

May 9, 2024 by - Leave your thoughts


Throwback Thursday: Out & About with AAC

Looking for ideas on AAC use outside the home and school environments? Today’s edition of Throwback Thursday has some posts that might be helpful. Thumbs Up for AAC Support in The Community AAC-friendly Library Visits: 5 PrAACtical Ideas AAC Goes to High School: Community-based Instruction Community Participation Let’s Go Outside! Five PrAACtical Ideas AAC Goes to the Library Aging Without Community – Thoughts from Rick Creech AAC in Secondary School: AACcessibility during Community-Based Instruction Activating the Power of Community Partnerships

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PrAACtical Groups: AAC Groups Made Easy – How to Get Started 

May 6, 2024 by - Leave your thoughts


PrAACtical Groups: AAC Groups Made Easy – How to Get Started 

Today we welcome two new guest authors, Marisa Portanova and Marnina Allis, to share their experiences in running AAC groups. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: PrAACtical AAC Groups Made Easy – How to Get Started  All speech language pathologists do group therapy. It’s a great way to work on pragmatic skills, but lots of other skills too. It can also be motivating and fun for the participants. Have you thought about groups for AAC users but weren’t sure where to start? We are Marisa and Marnina, SLPs at Blythedale Children’s Hospital, and we started groups for our AAC users.  Over the next few blog posts, you will learn more about these, but today, we will discuss the overview and some tips and tricks that helped make them successful.    Marisa and Marnina are SLPs at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Westchester County, NY.  They are part of the Assistive Technology team, where they do multi-disciplinary... [Read More...]

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PrAACtically Mother’s Day: AAC-friendly Ideas

May 2, 2024 by - Leave your thoughts


PrAACtically Mother's Day: AAC-friendly Ideas

Here in the US, we’ll be celebrating Mother’s Day soon. If you’re looking for resources that you can incorporate into your AAC work, we have some ideas for you. These are great for highlighting core vocabulary, such as these: Pronouns: I, you, she, we, her, our Verbs: can, do, give, help, like, love, make, read, see, write Adjectives: good, nice, pretty, smart, strong Conjunctions: and, because, but, with Time Words: later, now, today, tomorrow Questions: what, who, where ACTIVITY SUGGESTIONS Read about Mothers and Mother’s Day with some of these books. Mother’s Day Book for Early Communicators by AAC with Annie Mother’s Day book highlighting core words ‘like’ and ‘give’ from Speech by Carrie. You can also check out this one which focuses on the words ‘help’ and ‘make’ and offers practice with several pronouns. From Boardmaker  From Tarheel Reader (SDJ)   From Tarheel Reader (Nicolaus)   Cards and letters... [Read More...]

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May Year of Core Vocabulary & School Year of Core Vocabulary Words

April 29, 2024 by - Leave your thoughts


May Year of Core Vocabulary & School Year of Core Vocabulary Words

We’re back with core vocabulary resources and focusing on a new set of words for May. In 2013, when schools and other clinical programs were expanding their emphasis on teaching core vocabulary words, PrAACtical AAC published a set of resources for families and professionals that included symbol cards, sample sentences to model, activity suggestions, and more. All of these were based on a small set of core words for each month (see that post here). We followed that with a second set of Year of Core Vocabulary Word resources for a new list of words (click here for that post). Over the years, the resources were expanded and grew to include a wonderful series of calendars with daily activity suggestions developed by AAC SLP and co-founder of Talking AAC, Rachael Langley. There were many other contributors over the years who added to these efforts. In 2020, a new series was... [Read More...]

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AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week 17: April 2024

April 28, 2024 by - Leave your thoughts


AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week 17: April 2024

Happy Sunday, AAC friends. We have some posts for you to browse. Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: AAC in Shared Reading Thursday – School Year of Core Vocabulary Words – Older Student Lessons: AAC Resources for May ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Have time for a little more? Here’s a small selection for you to peruse. “Can I Ask You a Question?” Language Experience Surveys Language Experience Surveys: 8 Fun Ideas Strengthening the Communication Environment Barriers to Access for AAC Learners Living an Accessible Life AAC at a Distance: 5 Ways to Use Video Chat & Videoconferencing to Boost Engagement  

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School Year of Core Vocabulary Words – Older Student Lessons: AAC Resources for May

April 25, 2024 by - 1 Comment


May School Year of Core Vocabulary Words - Lessons for Older Students

It’s prAACtically May! Guest authors Michaela Sullivan and Lindsay Dougherty are back with wonderful ideas for your older students who are building their skills with core vocabulary. Don’t miss the slide decks full of activities and the data collection forms specific to the May core words. In this post, they also discuss how the Participation Model and participation planning can support our AAC practices. SCHOOL YEAR OF CORE- Older Student Lessons  Access & Copy below: Weeks 1-2 Google Slides Weeks 3-4 Google Slides INTRODUCTION- MAY 2024 Welcome back to the School Year of Core – Older student lessons- May!  Summer is on the horizon, and we are kicking off the month of May with new core words and themes such as Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Cinco De Mayo, Climate change, recycling, thrifting, reflections of the year, planning for trips and the summer, new interests and hobbies, ways to relax, animals,... [Read More...]

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