Nothing makes us smile like learning about AAC-related content from people who use technology to communicate their message to the world. In this post, we hear about and from film maker Christopher Hill. Take a peek at his presentation at the ILT 2014 conference. Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFieqM09nSQ#t=510l
There are so many wonderful things about reading with kids, and practicing AAC is one of them. Every month, we’ll try to pick a book and provide some prAACtical suggestions for how to read it and sneak in some opportunities for receptive and expressive AAC use. You can make book-specific screens, overlays, or boards, but we favor a more powerful approach: use core vocabulary as your base and supplement with words specific to that book. Need some core language displays? There are many floating around, but here’s a link to ours if you need some more. We thought we’d start off this series with a book that is familiar to most, if not all, of you. Pull it off your shelf, find your prAACtical pal, grab that core language board, get to a cozy spot, and let’s get started. PrAACtically Reading with Brown Bear Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do... [Read More...]
We love seeing ways in which clients are ‘heard’ in the course of AAC evaluations. Today, we return to the ACE Centre North, to see a specific example. In Shelley’s case, the need to use for the AAC device to be compatible with other technology was a driving force in the recommendations. Take a look! Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UzV-x7vF84&list=UUMCsugUQwzWK3mOzuVSSmaw
If you’re like most SLPs, you didn’t learn a lot about teaching clients to use alternative access in your graduate program. This resource document from the ACE Centre North provides a great overview of switch skills and includes a number of prAACtical intervention tips. Take a look! Direct link to handout: http://acecentre.org.uk/Websites/aceoldham/images/InfoSheets/DevelopingSwitchingSkills.pdf
Rick Hohn has been educating people about AAC for decades. We love one of his more recent efforts in which he shares tips for using humor to break the ice. Take a look. Direct Link to Video: http://vimeo.com/97247957
Get ready to smile and enjoy this video produced by the Dumfries and Galloway National Health Service. Lots of great advice and tips for communication partners! Direct link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx338vnATIA
Expanding the length and complexity of sentences is something that SLPs love to work on well beyond the ‘early communicator’ phase, something we talked about a few weeks back. In today’s post, we’ll consider ways to build more complex utterances for learners who are gaining competence with their AAC systems but who still use language that is immature, imprecise, or overly simplistic. In many ways, this therapy is like language therapy for any other learner with delays in grammar, syntax, and morphology. Indeed, we sometimes forget to activate all that we know about language intervention when working learners who use AAC. We try to use that as a starting point and adjust for the AAC components as needed. Here are some of the things that we think about when planning therapy for AAC learners who are trying to strengthen their ability to speak in more complex sentences. Relate the language... [Read More...]
We’re so pleased to be able to share this terrific webinar presented by Erin Sheldon and hosted by the Angelman Syndrome Foundation. This presentation is chock full of prAACtical ideas for assessment and skill-building. Erin discusses a free literacy assessment tool, The Bridge, from the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies that you might want to download and keep handy as you watch the presentation. (We linked to it in a previous post and you can access it here.) Direct Link to Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFgJLhYCPMo&feature=youtu.be
We’ll take any opportunity we can get to see teachers eliciting AAC in the classroom. Take a look at some of the clips in this brief presentation by the folks at Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia. Direct Link to Video: http://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/116/CommVideos/ECSADL.wmv
Picture exchange is powerful strategy for building symbolic communication in individuals with significant communication difficulties. We’ve posted about implementation of PECS a few times, and included references to research supporting its efficacy in some additional posts. Today, we look at a sequence of three single subject design experimental studies by Dr. Jeff Sigafoos and other researchers that looked at how the use of picture exchange and AAC devices (SGD condition) impacted social interaction. In the initial study, the team taught requesting skills either with picture exchange or AAC devices and then looked to see if there were any changes in social interaction. They hypothesized that the physical act of picking up a symbol and giving it to someone, as with the picture exchange condition, would make the learner less likely to turn away from his communication partner. So, in addition to measuring how well the participant learned to make requests,... [Read More...]