After the Candy is Gone: Post-Halloween Ideas for AAC Learning

We’re sharing some ideas for AAC learning based on a previous post by the late Dr. Robin Parker.

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Language learning involves talking about events in the past, present, and future.  Since Halloween is over, it is a perfect opportunity to help AAC users talk about past events. Here are 5 tips for getting started.

• Use a weekly or monthly (calendar) schedule to ‘remember’ Halloween, or if you are sticking to core words to remember the “great day” or “bad day” depending upon the experience.
• Use photos of the Halloween festivities to discuss what happened and what everyone did. You can use these to discuss costumes, decorations, the best/worst part of the day, etc.
• Use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast Halloween experiences. This can be done by comparing two people, places, or anything else.

For some learners, you can use images to put Halloween things that everyone saw or did while others will need text only.  Then, a  discussion of what each student/group did that was the same versus different can be put in the Venn diagram and explained by each learner. (Example created with Kidspiration)

• Do a survey of favorite costumes, best candy, etc. Use a list format. This can be done in school, through speech-language intervention, or at home.
• Write a story about personal Halloween experiences.  The story can be a chat book or a general personal Halloween story.  The language used in the book should be at or just above the level of the language learner so it serves as a model for how to ‘talk’ about events. You can stick to core words or focus on fringe vocabulary depending on the learner’s language goals.  Stories are great ways of focusing on the whole event, and specific parts of speech in context (e.g., attributes/adjectives, etc.).

Have fun finishing up with Halloween and get ready to move to talking about the future-  Thanksgiving, December holidays,  and vacations.). There are always things to talk about!