375 Search Results for complex communication
September 16, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
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 a beloved book by Eric Carle. TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with Brown Bear, Brown Bear TELL ME About Reading: The first book in the TELL ME program (Teaching Early Language and Literacy through Multimodal Expression) is the warm-up book, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear”. A wonderful classic that may already be part of your classroom... [Read More...]
September 12, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
When young children with significant motor challenges are unable to move freely around the environment, it impacts many things. Today, we introduce a limited series on why hands-free mobility is so crucial during the early years, and what we can do to promote independent mobility. We are extremely fortunate to have Christine Wright-Ott authoring this series. Christine is an Occupational Therapist and consultant at The Bridge School in Hillsborough California. She authored the chapter, Mobility, in several editions of the book, Occupational Therapy for Children. Christine lectures at universities and conferences including ATIA, Closing the Gap, ISAAC, ISS, and AAC by the Bay. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Why Hands-free Mobility Matters for Children with AAC Needs Speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists have long been aware of the many ways that mobility and communication go hand-in-hand. Without a way to move around, a child’s opportunities for incidental learning and motivation to communicate are severely... [Read More...]
September 5, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Looking for examples of how AAC is successfully incorporated into inclusive education? Today, we head to upstate New York to learn from AAC SLP Sarah Gregory who shares her experiences in supporting students in general education settings. In this post, Sarah shares her ideas for using peer modeling to support AAC learning. Enjoy! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: AAC in General Education: Incorporating Peer Modeling Authentic inclusion of students with Complex Communication Needs (CCN) or non-speaking students is essential and can also be difficult to achieve. One of the most effective strategies I have found is involving all students in AAC learning. Folks in my district started a peer modeling program a few years ago and we found this to be a powerful tool in achieving our goals for academic inclusion and social belonging. In this blog post, I will outline the why and the how of our current peer modeling program.... [Read More...]
September 4, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Reducing the vulnerability of people with complex communication needs is something that all AAC service providers should be thinking about. In today’s featured video, which was part of the AAC in the Cloud Conference, AAC specialist Erin Sheldon helps us understand the issues and consider some of the things we can do to help AAC users have more autonomy and be less vulnerable. Many thanks to Erin and to the wonderful team at CoughDrop for this fine presentation. This is an important topic that we should all learn more about, AAC friends. Erin’s handout is available here. Link to the session on the CoughDrop site: https://presenters.aacconference.com/videos/UVRRelFURTU= Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=4iclspbe774
August 26, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Amanda Samperi is back with the second post in her series about getting ready to return to school-based AAC services. Amanda is an AAC SLP who has worked in a variety of service delivery settings and runs the blog, AAC is Where It’s AT. Currently, she provides push-in language therapy to children with complex communication needs at a substantially-separate center school in Florida. She also conducts AAC/AT evaluations, provides year-round parent trainings, and assists the SLP team in instructing teachers/staff about communication supports and strategies In today’s post, she addresses a situation faced by many AAC teams: Serving children who use a variety of different AAC symbols and systems. If you missed Amanda’s initial post on back-to-school AAC, you can catch up on that here. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: How I Do It: Working with Multiple Symbol Sets It’s the beginning of the year – desks are in their spots, students’ names are... [Read More...]
August 19, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Combining AAC learning with literacy activities is one of our favorite ways to support young learners. We start off the week with a taste of how AT specialists in one school district are helping preschool special education teachers build a foundation of core vocabulary in their students. Maggie Judson and Jeanna Antrim 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. This is the first of a series of posts in which Maggie and Jeanna discuss ways that books from the TELL ME program can be used to support AAC learning. Enjoy! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: As AAC facilitators for a special education cooperative, we are always on the lookout for effective ways to provide our students access to instructional materials and activities that not... [Read More...]
July 18, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
We’re glad you’ve returned for Part 2 of Tabi Jones-Wohleber’s series on Visual Supports. As an AAC specialist, Tabi uses these with children who have complex communication needs and teaches others to incorporate them as well. Let’s learn some of the ways in which visual supports can be used to help with organization, transitions, and independence. You can click on the images in the Downloadable Templates section to obtain the visual support files. If you’re interested in seeing more of Tabi’s work, you can check out Part 1 of the series here. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Visual and Environmental Supports to Organize Time and Tasks “But he knows his schedule” isn’t the whole picture. We all use schedules to help us manage our time and keep us on track when non-routine activities occur. For instance, you may know your schedule for any given Tuesday, but what about that Tuesday when you have... [Read More...]
July 11, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
We’re very excited to welcome back AAC SLP Tabi Jones-Wohleber to these pages. You may remember Tabi from the wonderful AAC training materials she shared (11 full modules) or used her Classroom CORE book. Maybe you downloaded her All-In-One Visual Support Tool, used some of her great suggestions about AAC therapy with young children, or were lucky enough to attend one of her conference presentations. Her expertise, generosity, clear command of AAC practices, and commitment to ethical service provision have enriched the AAC lives many of our readers. Today, Tabi launches a new 6-part series on one of our favorite topics: Visual Supports. Let’s get started! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Visual and Environmental Supports…4 – 3 – 2 – 1! Visual and environmental supports are the bread-and-butter of many a classroom with students with complex communication (and learning) needs. They may be presented on paper-based or electronic platforms. Understanding the purpose and process... [Read More...]
July 1, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
How can we better support parents and caregivers of children with AAC needs? Meredith Laverdure and Jaime Lawson, who are SLPs and former co-workers, wanted to do more for the families they served. Meredith is currently a doctoral student at Old Dominion University. Her clinical and research interests include building communicative competence for children with complex communication needs with group interventions, as well as family- and community-level support. Jaime has predominately worked with pediatric clients, focusing on AAC/AT evaluations and intervention. Her clinical and research interests include enhancing communicative opportunities for children across settings and in various social settings, group intervention, family-centered therapy, and communication partner training. In this post, Meredith and Jaime share their experiences in developing The Talk Flock, a parent education and support group. Enjoy! The Talk Flock: Taking Care of Caregivers As speech-language pathologists in the outpatient pediatric setting with a busy AAC/AT clinic, we tried to... [Read More...]
June 24, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Thanks to all who reached out to express appreciation for Katherine Dally’s series on making and using flipbooks for adults and teenagers with complex communication. Today, she continues that series with a case example of how she used this to support a young woman who communicates through multiple modalities, including an SGD. Katherine is an SLP who works both as an AT consultant for an educational service center and as a home health SLP serving adults with neurological conditions in Ohio. We’re grateful to Katherine for sharing her experiences and for the downloadable materials that are linked at the end of her post If you missed her previous posts in this series, you may want to check those out: How I Do It – Pocket Flipbooks for Adults & Teens: Part 1, Part 2. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: How I Do It: Pocket Flipbooks for Teens Let’s go through a teen case example... [Read More...]