July 29, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
Welcome to ISAAC, 2012! — It’s the first day of the ISAAC pre-conference and the focus of the workshop I attended was on healthcare. It was quite an honor to learn from such a stellar group of AAC professionals, including Sarah Blackstone, John Costello, Kathryn Garrett, Richard Hurtig from the US and Cristina Cerantola, Elisabeth Cataix Negre, several others from around the world, who came together to talk about effective patient-provider communication. As we well know, the AAC community is one of several communication vulnerable populations that require special supports when accessing health care. This presentation was highly interactive and covered best practices, strategies, and technologies that we should be putting into place for people with AAC needs as they interact with medical personnel. – There was a wealth of resources shared during the workshop, mostly of very prAACtical resources. We have permission to share many of them here. Watch... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Conference, healthcare, ISAAC, ISAAC 2012, patient provider communication
July 28, 2012
by Robin Parker -
Some PrAACtical AAC thoughts about challenging behavior: I wonder if it is ok to say that we love seeing challenging behavior during speech-language therapy sessions or observations. Well, I said it, both of us do, because if we really ‘listen’ then we can figure out what to teach that will really help our students. We tend to prioritize our goals into High Priority and General Priority. Challenging behavior and the communication message behind it, definitely falls into high priority. This is because challenging behavior in students limits experiences, limits interaction, and overall limits opportunities for people to get to know you. Consider Challenging Behavior through Communication Glasses Is it really Challenging Behavior? behavior that is or can be destructive or hurtful. Examples include but are not limited to: hitting, biting, spitting, throwing, pounding, etc. (Note: we are not talking about poor eye contact or poor attention to task or even laughing... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Challenging Behavior, communication, positive behavioral supports, visual supports
July 28, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
Keeping track of all the AAC devices, vocabulary sets, and other features is a full time job and few of us have the time to do that. And, yet, when we’re considering the different AAC options for a particular client, we have to be able to access that information. Looking for SGDs that have a specific vocabulary set? Need to identify the small, handheld AAC devices? Looking for devices that do voice calling? – Finding an AAC device that is a good fit for the people with whom you work is much easier when you have a searchable database. In the US, many professionals are familiar with AbleData and use it to find equipment that fit the bill. SpeechBubble is another free resource that indexes AAC devices in the UK. – Search by Feature SpeechBubble makes it easy to search for features you know that your client needs. There is... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: assessment, resources, SGD
July 27, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
It’s not every month that I get a chance to go to an international conference, let alone one focused specifically on AAC. Join me as I head to the ISAAC 2012 conference at the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. While I’m here, I’ll try to post some of the highlights. – ISAAC 2012 has a camp for people who use AAC (July 27-28), a pre-conference (July 28-29), a main conference (July 30-Aug 2), and a post-conference research symposium (Aug 3-4). There are also lots of social events and plenty of time to network, make new friends, and visit with old ones. You can view the program here, visit them on Facebook, and follow along with their Twitter feed, too. There will probably be quite a few bloggers sharing their ISAAC experiences, so if you can’t make it to Pittsburgh, you can appreciate it from afar. – I am excited... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Conference, ISAAC
July 26, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
Some posts that may be helpful for planning AAC assessments 92 Free or Lite Versions of AAC Apps Introducing RELAAACs: Rubric for Evaluating the Language of Apps for AAC PrAACtical Resources: Making Decisions about Reading Accessibility Options PrAACtical Questions: How Do I Find Good AAC Service Providers? PrAACtical Questions: How Can I Get AAC Devices for My Evaluations? 5 Tips to Make AAC Assessments Run Smoothly Sites We Love: Online AAC Assessment Tool 5 Things To Do Before You Choose an AAC App: Take A GULP
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: assessment, resources
July 25, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
In an earlier post, we lamented the under-utilization of a quick and effective strategy: qualitative rating scales. You may not know them by that name, but we all know them. Also called Likert-type scales, we’ve seen these a multitude of times when we were asked to give an opinion. Strongly agree to Strongly Disagree. Excellent to Poor. Always to Never. – There are only a few guidelines to using these with AAC folks. One is to make sure to use appropriate visual supports. Literate AAC users may be very comfortable with text-only options, but for other learners, we need to add images so it makes sense to them. Another suggestion is to stick with an odd number of options: 5 seems to be the norm in clinical practice, but you can certainly adjust to fit the learner’s needs. For some, a 3-point scale would be best. Others may want more... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: implementation ideas, intervention, rating scale, visual supports
July 25, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
I am so very lucky to be able to go to Pittsburgh this weekend for the biennial conference of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC). You can check back here for some comments and highlights on the conference. Also, for those of you who use Twitter (or were looking for an excuse to dive in), you can get updates from a group of ISAAC Twitter Delegates and others throughout the entire conference. Follow #ISAAC2012, if you want a peek into what is going on. –
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: #ISAAC2012, Conference, international, ISAAC, professional development, twitter
July 22, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
Once in awhile, we come across something that is just too good to keep to ourselves and has to be shared in its entirety. This post is a paraphrase of the Ten Commandments for Voice Output by the Provincial Integration Support Program (PISP) from the Ministry of Education in British Columbia. – You can get the original document here. – Ten Commandments for Voice Output 1. The AAC device is the student’s voice. Messages should be in the first person and reflect the age and gender of the user. 2. The learner needs full access to the device as well as many planned opportunities each day to use it. 3. With training, peers can and should be involved in the programming process. 4. People need to communicate all day long. The device should be available to the communicator at all times. 5. Messages should be meaningful to the... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: implementation ideas, inclusion, SGD, speech output
July 21, 2012
by Robin Parker -
A ‘funny area’ is not a technique or strategy you will see in a behavior or speech-language therapy text-book. But here is how we came to know and love ‘funny time’ & the ‘funny area’ A Little Background Tommy, a 9-year-old boy, seemed to be getting the ‘giggles’ each session. The graduate student clinician was not sure how to ‘control the situation’. Tommy typically worked hard using his Vantage Lite to build long and complex sentences for communication during natural age-appropriate activities (i.e., golf, art, and reading). But then the ‘giggles’ would start… and less and less communication was getting done. Initially, the clinician spent time redirecting Tommy. She would have him sit straight, pay more attention, and re-focus, but in the long run it would be more about what the clinician wanted then about Tommy communicating. We prompted the graduate student to think about how more could be accomplished,... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: behavior strategies, communication, showing off
July 20, 2012
by Robin Parker -
We need to continue to talk about scheduling…..especially as we talk about tools for positive behavioral supports. We know that having monthly, daily, and mini-schedules make us ALL feel more competent and calm. We have written a lot about visual schedules and visual schedule resources because we have seen schedules reduce or eliminate so many behavior challenges. They have helped with transitions, wandering away during activities, activity completion, asking repetitive ‘‘when are we going ________ questions, and with meltdowns during a less preferred activity. We also continue to write about schedules because there are still myths suggesting schedules might hinder independence when exactly the opposite is true. We personally continue to use a combination of no-tech to high-tech visual schedules, but we are loving mobile schedules especially during the summer when we are traveling and moving around from place to place even more frequently than usual. We gathered together... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Apps, behavior management, calendars, daily schedules, mini schedules, schedules, visual schedules