January 7, 2025
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 course 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... [Read More...]
Filed under: AAC Link Up, Featured Posts
January 6, 2025
by Carole Zangari -
It’s a cold, snowy week in much of the US, and that gives us something fun to talk about. It makes a regular appearance at Circle Time and Morning Meetings. It’s part of our casual conversation on a daily basis. We learn about it in Science classes, and it often plays a role in the books we read. Everyone talks about the weather. How can we take advantage of this ubiquitous topic to strengthen AAC learning? Here are a few ideas of language concepts to address. Core Vocabulary: Weather-related discussions offer many opportunities to model and elicit core words, both by themselves and in the context of longer sentences. Single words: Feel, it, like, look, see, that, what Multi-word combinations: I can see rain/snow/sun. Look at that. What is it like outside? Can you feel it? I don’t like when it is ___. More Advanced Vocabulary: Many AAC users have... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts
January 5, 2025
by Carole Zangari -
Happy New Year, AAC friends. We have a few posts to help you start 2025 with a touch of AAC. Monday – PrAACtically Energized: Ideas for Boosting AAC in the New Year Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Top Videos of the Year – 2024 Thursday – After the Holidays: AAC Conversations Using Pre-stored Questions Friday – PráctiCAAmente Conectados: Comunicación sin Barreras :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Ready for a few more suggestions? Here are some past posts that you might enjoy. PrAACtical Ideas for Repurposing Older AAC Technology 5 AAC Downloads to Use and Share 5 Ways to Make Semantic Maps More Effective in AAC Therapy PrAACtical Resources on Language Development When Helping Isn’t Helping: Prompt Awareness in AAC Instruction
Filed under: Featured Posts
January 3, 2025
by Carole Zangari -
On the first Friday of each month, we publish a post in Spanish by guest author Claudia Marimón to highlight AAC work being done in Spanish-speaking countries and offer translations of material that can help families and service providers. In today’s post, she introduces an exciting conference that will be held in Mexico and offered in-person and virtually. You can view the program here: Programa Tercer Congreso Comunicación sin Barreras. Please help to spread the word about this wonderful opportunity for AAC learning. ¡Bienvenido 2025! Comenzamos este año con entusiasmo y nuevas oportunidades para promover la comunicación para todos. Nos complace anunciar el Congreso Internacional de Comunicación Aumentativa y Alternativa “Comunicación Sin Barreras”, que se llevará a cabo en México los días 29 y 30 de marzo de 2025. Un encuentro único para compartir aprendizajes, experiencias y herramientas de comunicación que transforman vidas. ¡Súmate a este evento que impulsa la... [Read More...]
Filed under: AAC Link Up, Featured Posts
January 1, 2025
by Carole Zangari -
Happy New Year, AAC friends. In case you missed them, here are some of the most-watched videos in 2024. AAC with Eddie the Elephant A Look at the DAGG 3 AAC Modeling at Home TELL ME – AAC in the Preschool Classroom AAC Halloween Fun Getting Ready for December School Year of Core Vocabulary Words Older Student Lessons
Filed under: Featured Posts
December 30, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Novice or expert Parent or professional Generalist or specialist No matter what our differences, we share a common goal of helping AAC learners move forward on the path to better language and literacy. We can all do a little more to help people with AAC needs achieve their potential. Here are some things ideas to get us moving. Find a new use for a retired, abandoned, or under-utilized tool. Lots of us are cleaning out closets and drawers at this time of year, and we’re bound to find something that has AAC potential. It could be an old magnetic card reader (great for phonological awareness and other literacy activities), a talking switch (adds flavor to ‘word of the day activities;’ great for telling jokes, getting attention and more), or even some random picture cards (add some spice to the sensory table or hide them around to read the room). Someone’s... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts
December 29, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. We hope you enjoyed a busy but celebratory week. If you’d like to catch up on any AAC reading, here are some ideas for you. Monday – PrAACtically Hanukkah: Resources & Activities for an AAC-friendly Celebration Tuesday – PrAACtically Christmas: AAC-friendly Resources Thursday – AAC in the Holiday Season: Using Photos for Language Learning Friday – AAC Resources for a Year of Core Vocabulary: 4 Sets of Materials for January Words :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Interested in a few more articles to browse? Here’s a selection to choose from. Got Holiday Cards? 5 PrAACtical Suggestions AACtual Therapy with Deanna Wagner: Why Cook When You Can’t Eat? Communication Access Cards Visual Organization, Themes, & Duct Tape Beyond Requesting: Thoughts on Teaching Information Transfer
Filed under: Featured Posts
December 27, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Looking for resources to support core vocabulary instruction? The Year of Core Vocabulary Words and The School Year of Core Vocabulary Words remain popular with therapists, educators, and families. We’re reprising those posts for anyone interested in following along and utilizing the resources developed by quite a few people in the AAC community. The initial series was 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). Among the many resources are the activity calendars created by AAC SLP and co-founder of Talking AAC, Rachael Langley. Many other contributors added to these efforts over the years. The School Year of Core Vocabulary Words, authored by guest contributors Michaela Sullivan, Alisa Lego, and Beth Lytle, was first published in 2020. Finally,... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts
December 26, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or some combination of holidays, these events offer rich opportunities for building language in people who use AAC. There’s a good chance that someone took photos which can be a terrific source of motivating materials. In this post, we’ll look at a few ideas for using those to strengthen language and communication skills. Collect them into a photo album: Use PowerPoint, Keynote, or an app to pull the photos together into a collection that can serve as a highly motivating context for language learning activities. With these albums we can: Page through them together to practice making comments (e.g., cold; I see tree, That is pretty), Co-create a narrative about the picture, Work on morphological goals such as pluralization and verb tenses, and, Build longer sentences (e.g., ‘hot chocolate’ becomes ‘drink hot chocolate’ or ‘make more hot chocolate’). Create a photo collage: Work with the... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts
December 22, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. If you have time for AAC reading before the holidays, here are some posts to check out. Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Using AAC to Support Late-Talking Toddlers ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: If you can squeeze in a few more, take a look at some of these posts from the archives. PrAACtically Reading with Karen Natoci: Hello, Holidays! How We Do It: Using AAC to Repair Communication Breakdowns Data Collection for the Beginning AAC User: Essential Things to Measure AAC & ASD: Beyond Scripting More Words, Please! Expanding Our Manual Communication Boards Activity Schedule AACtion
Filed under: Featured Posts