One of the most valuable things that AAC interventionists can do is to gain the perspective of people who use AAC on a day-to-day basis. In today’s featured video, AAC user Hannah Foley shares her experiences and perspectives on learning to use AAC. Enjoy! Many thanks to Hannah and PRC-Saltillo for this insightful video. Direct Link to Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo-F8KVxAUY
Welcome back to another installment of TELL ME About It, guest authored by Jeanna Antrim and Maggie Judson. Maggie and Jeanna are speech-language pathologists who work in the Assistive Technology Department for the Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative (BASSC) in southern Illinois. They are AT/AAC facilitators and provide evaluations, direct therapy, consultations, and trainings with school teams. In this series, they discuss how they support preschool teachers who are implementing the TELL ME program with their young students. Today, they walk us through the ways that they facilitate AAC use while focusing on the book ‘What Do You Like?’ Don’t miss their Lesson Plan, video demonstrations, and other resources at the end of the post. TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘What Do You Like?’ TELL ME About Reading: The fifth book in the TELL ME program (Teaching Early Language and Literacy through Multimodal Expression) is “What Do You Like?”. ... [Read More...]
If you work with children with developmental disabilities, you almost certainly have worked with children who have some level of cortical visual impairment (CVI). In today’s featured video, Maren Barros and Kathy Howery team up to help us unpack the complex relationship between cortical visual impairment and complex communication needs. Kudos to Maren and Kathy for this wonderful information. Many thanks to the team at the Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium for creating this video and making it available to us all. We are grateful for their support of the AAC community through this archived webinar. Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOPqfOYp35Y
Here in the US, the third Monday of January is designated as Martin Luther King Jr Day (MLK Day), where we honor the contributions of this slain civil rights leader. Schools across the country are reading about his life and legacy, and engaging in activities to honor his achievements. If you’re supporting young AAC learners, this provides a wonderful opportunity to build language skills. In today’s post, we share some ideas for books on this topic and some of the core words that can be highlighted while reading them and some additional vocabulary words that you may wish to incorporate. Core Words Pronouns: I, he, it Verbs: do, help, go, love, make, stop, talk, tell, walk, work Descriptors: all, bad, big, black, different, good, right, same, some, white Nouns: day, man, father/dad, family, friend, school Other: no/not, now Other Vocabulary Words: celebrate, dream, fair, honor, justice, protest Suggested Books A... [Read More...]
While we are incredibly grateful for all of the high tech AAC options that are currently available, there is no denying that no tech and low tech communication tools play an important role in a comprehensive AAC system. Today, we turn to Margaret Cotts, a veteran AT Specialist, for an overview of no and low tech tools. This webinar is made possible by CoughDrop and was originally presented as part of their free, annual conference, AAC in the Cloud. Our thanks to Margaret and the wonderful team for hosting this event and sharing this helpful video. You can find the handout for this session here. Enjoy! Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j4a_rk5g9s You can see some of Margaret’s other work here.
Dan O’Connor and Bradley Heaven, authors of the website All Access Life, collaborated on this video demonstrating Brad’s use of AAC and how that has changed over time. Watch as they show how using different AAC tools impacts the rate of communication and take a look at how their conversation unfolds when they are both using eye tracking. Enjoy! Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVQJaeHEfJA&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR06pf-mqqu9BazQKo4mAuJ6GReds1c1kAQmPvfv8IfIr-n0EGw4MNsG4I4
Welcome to a new edition of TELL ME About It, with AAC Specialists Maggie Judson and Jeanna Antrip. Maggie and Jeanna are speech-language pathologists who work in the Assistive Technology Department for the Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative (BASSC) in southern Illinois. They are AT/AAC facilitators and provide evaluations, direct therapy, consultations, and trainings. They’ve collaborated on a series to share their experiences in supporting preschool classrooms that implement the TELL ME program that Lori Wise and I created. If you missed the earlier posts in this series, you can get caught up using the links below. From Head to Toe I Went Walking Brown Bear, Brown Bear TELL ME AAC Literacy Kits TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘Here Are My Hands’! TELL ME About Reading: The fourth book in the TELL ME program (Teaching Early Language and Literacy through Multimodal Expression) is “Here Are My Hands.” A... [Read More...]
Individuals with Angelman Syndrome often derive great benefit from the use of AAC. In today’s featured video, Rosie Clarke and Livvy Hepburn help us understand some of the key concepts in getting started in using AAC supports and systems. This video was made possible by AngelmanUK (formerly ASSERT). We are grateful to them for making this available. You can see an earlier video on supporting communication in people with Angelman Syndrome. Direct Link to Today’s Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSHWwFDy0lc
A picture may well be worth 1,000 words, as the saying goes, but we can boost the AAC learning power by making that image interactive. ThingLink is a site that allows you to upload images and create hotspots that users can click on for more information. Free accounts, with limited features, are available. The hotspots can be simple text boxes or you can turn them into multimedia launchers by linking to a website. In the examples below, I used static images of popular AAC apps and hyperlinked some of the cells to videos of songs that highlight those words. In this example, the target core vocabulary words link out to videos from Speech and Language Songs, Super Simple Songs, and Ms. Marlowe. This can be used during instructional activities or we can send the link to families for use at home. To explore these examples, move your cursor over the... [Read More...]
How do you consider the cognitive demands of using an AAC system when making recommendations and planning instruction? Today, we feature a wonderful new tool developed at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). Join us as we learn about the TAT4AAC team and their efforts to create an instrument that helps us think through these complex issues. The TAT4AAC was designed by members of the REKNEW team at OHSU) in Portland, OR, USA. The team is under the direction of Melanie Fried-Oken, an SLP, AAC specialist and professor at OHSU. Melanie leads the REKNEW team. Aimee Mooney, the project team leader, is an SLP and assistant professor at OHSU. She specializes in cognitive rehabilitation. Michelle Kinsella, an OT with a specialty in vision and cognition, in another member of the team along with Deirdre McLaughlin, an SLP with a passion for AAC and young kids. Developing a New AAC... [Read More...]