AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week 37, September 2014

September 13, 2014 by - Leave your thoughts

AAC Posts from PrAACtical Week 37, September 2014

Sunday: Video of the Week – AAC in the Group Home Monday: Strategy of the Month: Engaging the Learner Tuesday: Research Tuesday: Photos Versus PCS – Babies Weigh In Wednesday: Five Facebook Groups for Families of Beginning Communicators Thursday: 5 Things We’ve Learned from our AAC Families Friday: Fun Friday: Check Your  Knowledge of  AT History

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5 Things We’ve Learned from our AAC Families

September 11, 2014 by - Leave your thoughts

5 Things We’ve Learned from our AAC Families

Here’s something we want our young clinicians to understand. Often families come to us for what we can share and teach them. Just as often, though, they’re the real teachers. Here are some lessons learned from some amazing families. Start where they are, not where you wish they were. Celebrate the tiniest of victories. Success breeds success. Small, sustainable changes are the best kind. When things have petered out, it’s okay to start over. It’s better than giving up. Muffins and fruit make those difficult meetings a little easier. (Thanks, Stephanie!) Happy fall semester!

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Five Facebook Groups for Families of Beginning Communicators

September 10, 2014 by - 4 Comments

Five Facebook Groups for Families of Beginning Communicators

What’s better than parents and professionals who are knowledgeable about beginning to use AAC with children? Connecting with them on Facebook. Here are some of the most active AAC-related groups out there. 1. Speak for Yourself Users Group (Despite it’s name, this one is not limited to families/professionals who use SFY.) 2. AAC: Alternative Awesome Communicators 3. Angelman, Literacy, and Education (Despite the name, the content is very applicable to a broad range of developmental disabilities.) 4. Apraxia-Kids (not AAC-specific but lots of good information) 5. PrAACtical AAC (Okay, we’re biased!)  

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Research Tuesday: Photos Versus PCS – Babies Weigh In

September 9, 2014 by - 6 Comments

Research Tuesday: Photos Versus PCS - Babies Weigh In

We’re back again with another Research Tuesday post, a series organized by Rachel Wynn of Gray Matter Therapy, in which bloggers are encouraged to write about a research article that they’ve read recently. (You may also know Rachel from her amazing work in advocating for ethical services in skilled nursing facilities.) For our September post, we look at a study done with babies to see how they like different AAC symbols. SLPs frequently assume that children with AAC needs better understand and prefer photos to other forms of picture symbols used in AAC. In this article, we look at the work of special educator Alexandra DaFonte whose work gives us some insight into this issue. In this study, she sought to determine if typically developing infants at 6, 9, and 12 months of age responded to two types of graphic symbols used in AAC: actual photographs and Picture Communication Symbols... [Read More...]

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Alphabet Soup: Acronyms for AAC Practitioners

September 5, 2014 by - Leave your thoughts

Alphabet Soup: Acronyms for AAC Practitioners

We’re excited about the passion and enthusiasm for AAC shown by many new SLPs and graduate student clinicians. One of the things they sometimes struggle with in reading and writing reports is the number of acronyms that we tend to use. This is always a problem in clinical and scholarly writing, but when the field is incredibly diverse and transdisciplinary, the challenges multiply. Here’s a starter list of acronyms* and their meanings. Many, MANY thanks to those who helped us create this list on the PrAACtical AAC Facebook page. AAC-RERC – AAC Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center ACOLUG – Augmentative Communication Online Users’ Group AiLS, ALgS, and ALs – Aided language stimulation ALI – Aided language input ALS – Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis AOTA – American Occupational Therapy Association APTA – American Physical Therapy Association ASD – Autism spectrum disorder ASHA – American Speech Language Hearing Association AT – Assistive technology ATIA... [Read More...]

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How I Do It: Cooking in the Classroom with Carol Goossens’

September 4, 2014 by - 3 Comments

How I Do It: Cooking in the Classroom with Carol Goossens'

There is something about fall that puts us in the mood for cooking. Today, we are honored to learn from an AAC pioneer, Dr. Carol Goossens,’ who is an SLP and special educator based in the New York City area. She has consulted extensively in a variety of classrooms serving the full spectrum of children with special needs. Carol has presented both nationally and internationally about her collaborative work with teachers, therapists and families. She is known for her ability to seamlessly integrate technology in the classroom and for developing innovative ways to help children learn …while having fun doing it! In this post, she shares one of her latest projects, making animated recipes for using in cooking activities in the classroom. Cooking appears to be motivating for most children … the magic of putting together ingredients that ultimately become something delicious to eat. Teachers, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and occupational therapists (OTs) often use food preparation activities... [Read More...]

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