March 5, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
It’s Throwback Thursday and today we’ve reached into the archives to revisit past posts on research in the field of AAC. Enjoy! PrAACtical Research with Kathy Howery Profiles of Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities AAC Intervention for Children with ASD Aided Language Input for People with Developmental Disabilities Meta-synthesis of AAC Team Members’ Voices Effects of Parent Instruction on SGD Use Recasts in AAC Mediated Interaction Research Support for Aided Language Input AAC & Challenging Behavior Research Tuesday: Photos Versus PCS – Babies Weigh In Literacy Instruction for Students with Significant Disabilities Comparing Picture Exchange and SGDs Research Reviews Supporting the Use of AAC Supporting Children with Severe and Profound Multiple Disabilities Sensory Intervention for Individuals with ASD: What Does the Research Say?
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: research
March 3, 2020
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... [Read More...]
Filed under: AAC Link Up, Featured Posts
March 2, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
Are you interested in being more systematic in looking at the language that AAC users produce? Today, we feature a user-friendly resource to help you get started. The Quick AAC Developmental Profile (the QUAD Profile), developed by veteran AAC SLP Russell Cross over a decade ago, is a set of four checklists that help us look at various aspects of language. Vocabulary Checklist (Q-Voc) Morphology Checklist (Q-Morph) Sentence Types Checklist (Q-Syn) Language Functions Checklist (Q-Funct) These checklists make it easy to track different aspects of language and flag those areas that need additional assessment. The QUAD has had a longstanding presence in our AAC toolkit and the clinicians to whom we’ve recommended it value the checklists for their simplicity and ease of use. You can view the QUAD tool and download a copy here. Many thanks to Russell Cross (co-founder of The Speech Dudes) for creating and sharing this helpful... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: language sample analysis
March 1, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. Here are some posts you may have missed in your busy week. Monday – PrAACtically March: More AAC Resources for a Year of Core Words Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Communication-The Sky’s the Limit! Thursday – PrAACtical Resources: Tar Heel Shared Reader :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: If you have the time, here are a few more posts to check out. PrAACtical Teaching in the ASD Classroom: Predictable Chart Writing with Core Vocabulary PrAACtical Resources: AAC Assessment Modules A Tool for Identifying Features for AT Selection Supporting People with Significant Communication Challenges in Medical Encounters AAC Apps and Devices: Thoughts on Conducting AAC Trials
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
February 27, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
If reading is a priority in your AAC work, you’ll want to explore today’s featured resource, the website Tar Heel Shared Reader. Developed by a team at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this variation of the popular Tar Heel Reader website provides PCS symbol support for core words that can be used in discussing each book. You can learn more about Tar Heel Reader here. Their newest site focuses on interactive book reading and contains all of the same wonderful features as the original version plus several additional options. For example, you can specify which core words you are targeting while reading the book so that those appear in a strip below each page. That enables us to use those in modeling the symbols for those words as we talk and read the story. Sample phrases and sentences to... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: reading, shared reading
February 25, 2020
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... [Read More...]
Filed under: AAC Link Up, Featured Posts
February 24, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
Do the AAC users in your life use only a fraction of the core words in their SGD, AAC app, or communication board? One way to help them move forward is to make a concerted effort to use, highlight, and provide additional teaching on a variety of words. It’s hard to do this without getting overwhelmed, so find a strategy that works for you. A few years ago, we decided to approach this by focusing on 12-16 core words each month. (If this is too much for the teams with whom you work, that’s not a problem. Just cut it back to 4-6 words/month.) Each month, we can highlight those words in our conversation (aided language input), direct intervention, and home programming activities with AAC learners. The repeated experiences with those 12-16 (or 4-6) words help our AAC learners develop new skills, and keeps the team focused on the same destination. ... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: A Year of Core Words
February 23, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. We’ve got some posts that may be of interest. Monday – PrAACtical Research: Recasts in AAC Mediated Interaction Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Bridging Literacy and AAC for Adolescents Thursday – Throwback Thursday: AACtivities for Language Building ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Before you head off, take a look at some of these posts from the archives. Alphabet Books & AAC Implementation 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: research
February 20, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
Expanding vocabulary Increasing sentence length and complexity Using a greater range of communicative functions Applying morphological markers Given the heterogeneity of our AAC learners, it’s no surprise that the language goals we address are just as diverse. Today, we dig through the archives to highlight activities that can be used to target an array of language learning objectives. Browse through the list to see if you can find some that are of use in your AAC work. Magic Moments with Tellagami New Word Teaching: A Look Inside Some PrAACtical Therapy Sessions Teaming Up to Build Communication with a Treat Cart: Part 1, Part 2 AACtual Therapy: Use Your Best Spud to Teach Vocabulary With Tanna Neufeld PrAACtical Supports for AAC Learners: AT Recipes for Success – Sensorimotor Activities AAC Intervention: 5 Activities with PrAACtical Potential Vocabulary Activities: 5 Sites for Learning with Avatars PrAACtical Teaching in the Autism Classroom: Instructional... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC activities, language intervention
February 18, 2020
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... [Read More...]
Filed under: AAC Link Up, Featured Posts