140 Search Results for schedules
April 1, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
If March was as busy for you as it was for us, then you may have missed some of these posts. Grading exams, meeting with students, clinical paperwork, grant-writing, teaching, travel, etc. Know wonder we’re tired! Enjoy this bit of catch-up. – The Fives 5 Great Resources for Helping Individuals with Vision and Hearing Loss AAC on the Go: 5 Tips for Traveling with AAC Tech it Up’- 5 Visual Schedule Apps 5 Resources for AAC Data Collection 5 Tips to Make AAC Assessments Run Smoothly 5 References to Support AAC Use – PrAACtical Thinking 1. The Secret to Succeeding At Anything 2. National Quilting Day & Employment 3. AAC and March Madness 4. Games are More Than Fun… Gaming for ALL 5. Hearing the Knock 6. HijAACked! AAC & Anti-Bullying with Stand Tall, Mary Lou Melon! 7. Emergencies and Resources to Help 8. Random Acts of Kindness 9. Do... [Read More...]
March 31, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
In this last post on our March Strategy of the Month, visual schedules, we address a couple of questions about using schedules and end with a list of helpful resources. Lots to click on and explore! – What about activities that don’t happen very often? How do we incorporate those into the schedule? Many of the learners with whom we work get quite stressed when the typical routine is violated. It could be an undesired change, like a fire drill or a dentist appointment. Or it could be that a regular event gets cancelled, such as when our music therapist is out sick or when outdoor recess is cancelled due to bad weather. Even changes that involve the addition of a positive event, such as a birthday party or a special classroom guest, could lead to stress and meltdown. If we have advance notice of the change, we can use... [Read More...]
March 19, 2012
by Robin Parker -
It has been a really long weekend. A very close relative had a significant medical emergency this week. The emergency involved intubation, an air ambulance (that is helicopter), and many many procedures. With the intubation, there was a temporary loss of speech which made communication difficult to say the least. This was a time that the patient (my relative) needed communication most, yet there were multiple barriers to effective communication (no speech sounds, tubes in the mouth obscuring lip movement, noise, etc..). Although the hospital staff was amazingly wonderful, communication was not their priority. Lucky, for us, I just happened to have some AAC apps on my iPhone. At one point, the AAC app was literally a lifesaver (thanks so much to Verbally for providing an easy way to communicate complex questions, reminders, and comments). As I was waiting around for many hours, texting Carole, we started thinking about... [Read More...]
March 17, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
No one likes to be tested, least of all people with communication difficulties who don’t have the tools to express their anxiety or discomfort in the ways they would like to. Some of the people we evaluated had real issues with this and so we’ve experimented with ways to make the testing less stressful and more productive. Here are some of the strategies that we found to be most successful. – 1. Work with the team to establish Fair Testing Practices for the person you’ll be evaluating. Our chapter on ‘Language Assessment for Students Who Use AAC’ describes this in more detail, but essentially it involves writing a ‘rule book’ for how to test this person. It might specify how long the test session can/should be, how to set up the situation so the person can respond, and what other supports are needed so that we are testing the person’s... [Read More...]
March 12, 2012
by Robin Parker -
We have been writing a lot about schedules. Schedules can be created by using tools ranging from no-tech to high tech. Here are 5 great visual schedule apps to help with ‘teching’ up the process. We think it is important to let you know that ALL of the app developers provide information about the rationales behind schedules and visual learning which adds to our educated AAC consumers. One of our priorities in ‘blogging’ was to get the information about AAC systems and visual strategies out to more people with the hope that AAC systems will be provided to ALL cpeople who would need it It is great to see app developers prioritizing this as well. **Just 2 notes: for our own personal and business schedules we still use a combination of no-tech to high-tech options) and apps are listed in no particular order Choice Works $14.99 by BeeVisual + designed... [Read More...]
March 10, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
It’s Spring Break here in Florida and that makes us think of traveling. Traveling is never easy, but people who use AAC don’t let that stop them. Here are some tips for making travel easier. – 1. Prepare with a social story. There are some great ones available online, like this one from Autisable (downloadable version here) and . Books and narratives about travelling, such as this one from Kids Can Dream, can also be helpful. Keep the visual element strong by downloading travel brochures for places you will visit, looking at images together, or watching online videos of your destination. – 2. Put it on the (visual) calendar. If you have a monthly or weekly calendar, add symbols to for the trip. Look at the calendar together to talk about it, what you’ll be doing, etc. Doing this repeatedly, can ease the transition into this new territory. Consider doing... [Read More...]
March 3, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
Here’s a riddle for you. Read the clues and guess what tool or strategy we’re talking about. Clue #1: It’s used in almost every classroom and therapy room serving students with ASD. Clue #2: The one for Johnny looks almost the same as the one for Jenny. Clue #3: It looks as nice in June as it did in September. If you guessed visual schedules, you’ve just named our March Strategy of the Month. Visual Schedules? But everybody already uses those. Why post about those? — Here’s why. – They’re ubiquitous. And yet when we talk with educators and SLPs about how the children are doing with their schedules, we get a look and a shrug. “Okay, I guess.” To be sure, okay is better than not okay. But visual schedules have so much potential to make lives better for clinicians, educators, and people with AAC needs that okay isn’t... [Read More...]
February 3, 2012
by Robin Parker -
How we integrated AAC strategies into a community event… The name of our website is PrAACtical AAC. We continue to look for ways to make AAC strategies fit praAACtically into ALL activities. We are extremely proud to be part of the Dan Marino Foundation WalkAbout Autism, which is a large South Florida Community Event. The Walkabout helps raise money services for individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities and their families. It also promotes a sense of community collaboration and awareness about autism spectrum disorder and developmental disabilities. We are including this information about the WalkAbout not as a plea for money (although read about the WalkAbout and donate if you are so inclined), but instead to tell you how we are incorporating AAC into community events. This past weekend was the 2nd WalkAbout Autism. It was a truly amazing event and day! There was great music and bounce houses,... [Read More...]
January 23, 2012
by Robin Parker -
AAC & The Art of the Unconventional Conversation, Carole’s post from Saturday, recounts a young girl who some people might have thought was not ready for AAC. It reminds me a young man I know, Michael. I met Michael when he was 14, after he was discharged from all of his communication intervention or I should say his speech-language therapy sessions. He was discharged at school because when he moved from his autism classroom in middle school to a high school classroom for children with varying exceptionalities, it was ‘felt’ that he did not need it anymore. He had not made ‘progress’ in his speech and language goals, he did not talk, he did not consistently identify objects, and he did not essentially do a lot of things. He was discharged from his private therapy as he was not making progress in a lot of goals there either. Everyone... [Read More...]
January 8, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
A colleague and I taught a workshop awhile back where there was an interesting sidebar conversation. A special educator was trying to convince an administrator that even though her student used a high tech speech generating device (SGD), she still needed the software to create other communication tools, like language boards and visual schedules. Having spent a great deal of money on AAC technology, the administrator was reluctant to commit additional funds for that authoring software. “She has a $5,000 device,” Sally Supervisor said. “Now you’re telling me you need special software to make things you can print out on paper?”The teacher’s point, of course, was a valid one. Children with AAC needs, like the rest of us, communicate in a variety of ways. In most cases, they need access to a variety of tools and the training to use them effectively. Just like we do.We gesture. We write with... [Read More...]