April 21, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Easter and Passover, AAC friends. Enjoy your day and stop back to check out these posts from our prAACtical week. Monday – Autism Acceptance Resources for Children Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: How To Speak When You Don’t Have a Voice Thursday – How Much Do We Understand When Context Cues Are Removed? :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Ready for some more reading? Here are a handful of suggestions. PrAACtical Passover and Easter Supports Let’s Read: Getting to the Core of Earth Day Let’s Create: Getting to the Core of Earth Day PrAACtically SLPs: Hungry for Bilingual AAC
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: bilingual AAC, Earth Day, easter, Passover, summary post
April 18, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Have you ever worked with clients who could benefit from AAC but resisted using it because they don’t realize that other people can’t understand their speech? Or a family who resists AAC because they perceive their loved one as intelligible when they are actually depending on the context to help them decipher the message? Have you ever worked with service providers who disagree on just how comprehensible their client’s natural speech really is? It doesn’t happen often, but there are occasions when it can be helpful to remove context cues from the mix and take a hard look at how well we understand someone’s natural speech. Formal testing may certainly play a role here, but informal assessment activities can also be helpful. Here is a task we sometimes use in these situations. The Materials Develop a list of 20 words and/or 20 sentences that will serve as the stimuli. For... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: informal testing, natural speech, speech intelligibility
April 15, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Since we’re mid-way through Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month, it seemed like a good time to share some additional resources and ideas. Explore the Autism Kit for Kids by the Organization for Autism Research: What’s Up with Nick video, lesson plan, poster, and more. Attend a sensory-friendly event at a museum, movie theater, etc., or create your own using these suggestions from Sesame Street. Find a suitable book about autism and get reading! There are a number of book suggestions here. Check out the Choose Kindness: Autism Awareness Mini-Lessons by Autism NJ. Watch a TV show or video with positive messages about autism using suggestions from Reading Rockets. Have you been spreading the autism acceptance message this month? We’d love to hear about it.
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month
April 14, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Good morning, AAC friends. Here are the posts we published this week. Monday – AACtivity of the Month: Concept Sorts Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Strategies for Supporting AAC Team Buy-In & Implementation Thursday – How I do it: Using Videos & Instructional Feedback to Support Communication Partners ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Have time for a little more browsing? Check out these past posts. When Helping Isn’t Helping-Prompt Awareness in AAC Instruction Administratively Speaking: 5 Considerations for Recruiting and Retaining AAC SLPs AAC In the Classroom: Considerations for Modeling Core Vocabulary How I Do It: A Year of Core Word in Action AAC in the High School Classroom: Where Core Vocabulary Meets Life Skills
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: classroom, modeling, prompting, summary week
April 11, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
As AAC interventionists well know, we can improve learning outcomes by getting key communication partners to use specific strategies to support AAC learning. How can we do that effectively and efficiently? Today, we hear from Laura Hayes, an AAC Facilitator for Special School District of St. Louis County, Missouri. Using her 10+ years of AAC experience, Laura provides support to staff and students across 4 school districts. She has presented locally and at state, national, and international conferences, and has been involved in both inpatient pediatric and educational AAC research. Laura loves providing staff training, implementation resources and guided direction to help students using AAC succeed. In today’s guest post, she shares her experiences and tips for supporting communication partners. (Don’t forget to download the resources she is sharing before you go.) ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: How I do it: Using Videos and Instructional Feedback to Support Communication Partners Prior to the Training... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC partner training, classroom, school
April 9, 2019
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: AAC Link Up
April 8, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Concept Sorts (learn more here) are often used in vocabulary intervention and academic instruction. Chances are, you’re probably using them already with some of your learners. These easy-to-implement activities can be helpful in teaching AAC as well. There are lots of right ways to do a concept sort. Here is one of them. Select a target word. Print out 2 copies of the AAC symbol for it, and the symbol for No/Not as it appears in the learner’s AAC system. Use these to create a simple 2-column sorting system (e.g., 2 shallow boxes, one with the target word symbol and the other with No/Not + target symbols). Gather a collection of objects or pictures that depict or are related to the target word. Gather a collection of objects or pictures that depict the opposite of the target word or show something completely unrelated. Put the objects or pictures to be... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: semantic instruction, vocabulary intervention
April 7, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. Monday – 30 Ideas for Celebrating Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Compliance Is Not the Goal Thursday – How I Do It: Understanding Systems Change :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: If you have time, stick around for a bit more AAC reading. Building Engagement in Young Children with Autism Autism and AAC: 5 Pinterest Boards to Follow AACtual Therapy: Making Core Words Fun for Students with Autism How I Do It: Using PODD books and Aided Language Displays with Young Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder Evidence-based AAC Strategies for Students with Autism with Betsy Caporale
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: ASD
April 4, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Have you ever dreamed of taking a detour in your AAC work to address the needs from a totally different direction? Special educator Sarah Mueller did just that. Follow along as she tells us about her journey from teacher to student. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: “Autism isn’t something a person has or a ‘shell’ that a person is trapped inside. There’s no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate the autism from the person – and if it were possible, the person you’d have left would not be the same person you started with. This is important, so take a moment to consider it: Autism is a way of being. It is not possible to separate the person from the autism.” – Jim Sinclair... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: advocacy, legislation, policy
April 2, 2019
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