Monday – Tracking Natural Speech Changes in AAC: PrAACtical Suggestions Tuesday – Presentation Handouts on AAC Implementation Wednesday – Video of the Week: Family Collaboration by Dr. Barry Prizant Thursday – PrAACtically Reading with Karen Natoci: I Eat Thanksgiving Dinner
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Here in the US, many are getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday. If you’re looking for a way to add a prAACtical dimension to your preparations, this post is for you. Thank you, Karen Natoci, for another fabulous PrAACtically Reading contribution! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Book: I Eat Thanksgiving Dinner by Karen Natoci; Published on Tarheel Reader here. Core Vocabulary focus: LIKE, DON’T LIKE, Uh Oh!, I, MORE, IT, COMMUNICATION Matrix Level: I-VII Literacy Framework: Emergent This month, we decided to practice eating Thanksgiving Dinner by “eating” our way through this book! This has been uploaded to Tarheelreader and the powerpoint version is available there. This is shared around a table set for a feast! To prepare for this story, we were able to purchase a frozen thanksgiving dinner available at the grocery store. We heated it up and separated it into serving dishes, individualized according to the diet of each of our readers. Some... [Read More...]
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Tagged With: download, Karen Natoci, literacy, PrAACtically Reading, Thanksgiving
It’s hard to get to every conference where high-quality information on AAC implementation is being shared. Here are some handouts on AAC implementation from presentations you may have missed. Models of Parent-implemented AAC Intervention for Children with Severe Autism (Wendt, et al 2014) AAC in the Pediatric ICU/Acute Care: Preparing a Child for an Upcoming Hospital Admission (Santiago, 2013) Teaching Preschoolers with Unintelligible Speech to Produce Rule-Based Sentences: AAC Solutions (Binger, 2014) Supporting Beginning Storytellers Who Use AAC (McLellan, 2014) Strategies for SLPs Working with Students with AAC Needs in Schools (Phillips, 2014)
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Let’s face it: No matter how much some of us love the AAC field, nothing makes us happier than hearing the natural speech of our prAACtical friends. Initially, it’s a good idea to capture the oral output of our AAC learners so that what we have a baseline of their productions. That can serve as a point of comparison later on when we want to look at how the student is changing over time. Didn’t do a baseline measure at the start of treatment or the school year? It’s nothing to stress about, but put this on your radar and consider gathering the information now so that you have it to work with later on. Here are some thoughts on moving forward. What to Track Track the sounds your student can produce: Complete a phonetic inventory by keeping a list of all the consonants and vowels the AAC learner has produced.... [Read More...]
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Tagged With: data collection, natural speech, Padlet, phonetic inventory
It’s a busy week for AAC, with dozens of presentations on AAC and related topics at the annual ASHA convention. Here are some posts from our prAACtical week. Monday – How We Do It: A Classroom Journey with PODD by Rachael Langley Tuesday – On Full Sentences and Questions in AAC Systems Wednesday – Video of the Week: AAC Implementation with Children by Kate Ahern Friday – AAC Handouts from ASHA 2015
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Traveling to conferences to hear about new developments in AAC is always re-energizing. Here are some of the handouts from ASHA’s 2015 Convention in Denver. (FYI – There is an alternate link at the bottom if you have trouble accessing individual handouts.) AAC for the Generalist: When, Where, & What to Explore by Lisa Martin and Meghan Shank Getting to the Core of Core Vocabulary: AAC Implementation Strategies for Caregivers & SLPs by Sara Barnhill, Meghan Danowski, and Barbara Lent Outcomes of AAC Acquisition in Pediatric Intensive Speech Model: A Case Study by Heather McDaniel and Teresa Ankney Using Client Interests to Facilitate Success in AAC & Intervention by Bethany Diener Progress Monitoring Strategies for Children With Complex Communication Needs Who Use AAC by Janet Dodd Please note that downloads of ASHA Conference handouts may only be available for a limited time. If you are unable to access the links, you... [Read More...]
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A few years ago, we wrote about the role that prestored messages can play (you can see that post here). We discussed the need to provide AAC learners with quick ways to communicate emergency messages, ask questions, and participate in predictable routines, among other things. For linguistically competent users of AAC, having access to phrases and full sentences may not be life-changing but it can cut down on fatigue or speed up conversations. For other AAC learners, however, prestored messages play a much more important role. People with significant access issues, for example, can quickly become exhausted trying to select words and put them together into sentences. Early on, they learn to evaluate interactions in terms of whether the communicative situation merits the physical and mental energy needed to construct a full response. Often, they opt out, not because they are willful or lazy but rather as an energy conservation... [Read More...]
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Tagged With: prestored message, prestored sentence
Let’s face it. Good AAC implementation takes commitment and requires a lot of effort from those who are with the AAC learners throughout the day. Sometimes an AAC tool or strategy that seemed promising at first, doesn’t pan out to be as successful as expected. Other times, it’s a challenge to keep up with the demands of the classroom, therapy session, and life and still find the energy to consistently implement good AAC practices. In the real world, teams struggle with these issues every single day. So when Rachael Langley, a Michigan-based SLP and AAC specialist, offered to provide insight into what that process has been like in classrooms she supports, I was thrilled. Rachael’s original post about using PODD in the classroom and her follow-up post on implementation tips gave us insight into the journey that one elementary school classroom team is taking to better serve their students with little or no... [Read More...]
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Tagged With: classroom, PODD, Rachael Langley
Monday – From Activity-based AAC to Robust Language: Part 2 Tuesday – Make It PrAACtical: New Life for Talking Switches Wednesday – Video of the Week: Apps and Resources for Language and Literacy in Young Children with Disabilities by Beth Poss Friday – Autism and AAC: 5 Pinterest Boards to Follow
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Pinterest has just exploded as a curation venue for content related to AAC and autism. Here are some boards to check out and consider following. Considerate Classroom by Lindy McDaniel Autism Teaching Tools Visual Supports by Christine Reeve Visual Supports and Social Stories by the Michigan Association of School Social Workers Visual Schedules by Brandi Shinn Behavior Management Strategies by The Autism Helper Do you have favorite Pinterest boards that we should know about?
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