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5 Ways to Use Books to Build Interaction with AAC Learners

June 18, 2018 by - Leave your thoughts

5 Ways to Use Books to Build Interaction with AAC Learners

Looking for more ways to build AAC skills? Book reading can be incorporated into therapy sessions and instructional lessons, as well as part of the daily routine at home. Here are some ideas for using books to support AAC and language learning. Choosing a book: In most cases, we want the AAC learner to have the autonomy to choose a book. However, we can make this part of the AAC learning process by teaching the skill of choosing something to read and talking about it before the learner makes his/her choice. Goal Areas: We can use this time to build basic turn-taking skills, requesting, sentence-building, and new vocabulary, among other things. It’s also a great opportunity to develop more advanced syntax using words like ‘since’ and ‘because’ (e.g., “I want to read about sport because it is World Cup time.”) and various sentence structures (e.g., “First, let’s read a sports... [Read More...]

AAC Assessment Corner with Vicki Clarke: AAC Assessment for Emergent Communicators

June 1, 2016 by - 3 Comments

AAC Assessment Corner with Vicki Clarke: AAC Assessment for Emergent Communicators

Today, we welcome back Vicki Clarke with more helpful information on conducting AAC assessments. If you work with individual who are at the early stages of communicative development, this post is for you! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Some of my most favorite students are those who, at first, may not seem to notice me at all.   Sometimes these students seem to exist in their own worlds.  They don’t seem to respond in ways we would expect: looking, attending, listening, or gesturing.  They may have a diagnosis of Autism, significant developmental delay, epilepsy, or any number of syndromes. I love these kids, and unfortunately, these are often the students who don’t get referred to me.  Sometimes it takes years of working in a district before I get to see students with significant developmental delays.  These children are typically served in classrooms for students considered to be severe/profound or multi-handicapped.  Honestly, I usually get the... [Read More...]

AAC Therapy: When the Lesson Plan Fails

August 4, 2015 by - 2 Comments

AAC Therapy: When the Lesson Plan Fails

We’ve all been there. You have meaningful goals, engaging materials, and a solid lesson plan for our therapy session. Five minutes into the session, it’s clear that the AAC learner has little or no interest in what we’ve prepared. Now what? Our choices are limited: persevere with the plan, modify it somewhat, or scrap it entirely. What’s a clinician to do? Take A Breath The first thing to do is breathe. Know that you are not the first one to struggle to engage this learner, and you won’t be the last. Think of it not as an excuse for an unproductive session but as a problem-solving challenge. Previous clinicians may have justified the session’s difficulties and atttibuted them to the learner’s lack of engagement, limited attention span, or behavioral problems. Personally, I feel sad for those clinicians because when we take that approach, not only do we fail the client,... [Read More...]

“What’s Wrong?” AAC Messages for Negative Emotions and Feelings

June 16, 2015 by - Leave your thoughts

“What’s Wrong?” AAC Messages for Negative Emotions and Feelings

Pain. Fear. Anger. Frustration Parents and teachers frequently ask SLPs to help learners further develop the skill of being able to say what is troubling them. Those are skills worth developing, of course. But a first step may be to review the vocabulary and messages available to the learner and consider making some adjustments. It is fine to be able to say what is wrong, but it’s even better to be able to explain what happened and what kind of help you might need.  Here are some ideas for messages to consider. Sadness Because…[I remembered a sad thing that happened; Something happened to me; I’m lonely; I miss someone; I was left out; Someone got hurt. Something else.] It would help if…[add student’s preferred solution strategies Anger Because…[Something bad happened; I want to do something else; Someone hurt me; It’s unfair; I’m not sure why; Something else.] I need…[Some time... [Read More...]

Emergent Literacy Work in AAC Therapy Sessions

September 23, 2014 by - Leave your thoughts

Emergent Literacy Work in AAC Therapy Sessions

We strive to use some of our therapy time to build the literacy skills with all of our beginning communicators. It’s not easy. First, because they often have little to no interest in it (at first), but mostly because our time together is quite limited. Here are some of the things we’ve been doing. Having our clients sign in themselves (Think: name stamps, stickers, tracing, or even making a mark) Looking for their name on their therapy room door: We make signs and print two copies. We give them one in the waiting room so that they can match it to the sample on the door. Formatting the visual schedule so that the client does some writing (Think: check box, crossing off the activity when finished) Picking a book or the topic: For some of clients we use the books themselves, but for most we use their AAC. It’s time... [Read More...]

Strategy of the Month: How Clear Priorities and A Little Sacrifice Build Engagement

September 22, 2014 by - Leave your thoughts

Strategy of the Month: How Clear Priorities and A Little Sacrifice Build Engagement

We can’t complete our thoughts on engaging AAC learners without a bit of conversation around the topic of priorities. Here’s the main idea: Go into each activity having a clear priority for what you want to achieve. Everything else become negotiable. As SLPs, sometimes we want it all. We want therapy activities where the AAC learner initiates communications, uses new vocabulary, creates novel sentences, experiments with new grammatical forms, and kicks some morphological butt. We.want.it.all. After a few decades of being an AAC practitioner, I think I’m finally learning that trying to have it all isn’t always the best option. It isn’t about what I want, it’s about what my client needs. Sigh. In this approach, we look at the lesson or activity and create our “Must Have List.’ For Mayra, a kindergartner just learning to use symbols for the first time, our lessons ‘must’ be engaging, have high pay-off... [Read More...]

3 Ways to Promote Interest in Language Therapy for AAC Learners

July 30, 2014 by - Leave your thoughts

3 Ways to Promote Interest in Language Therapy for AAC Learners

In an earlier post, we raised this question: Why work hard at something you don’t care about? The truth is that all of us put more effort into learning things that allow us to accomplish something important to US. As SLPs, we can spout many reasons why learning to use and comprehend more advanced language is a good idea. Making that meaningful to our clients, though, is another thing altogether. How can we align our therapy objectives with things of true value to our clients? Figure out what the AAC learner wants: More friends? A job? Good grades? Link the language and AAC objectives to those things. Seek the AAC learner’s input on goals and objectives: If the learner can’t nominate his/her own goals for consideration, maybe you can offer choices or help them use a rating scale to give their opinion on the suggested goals. Provide rationales for why... [Read More...]

Video of the Week: An App for Giving Opinions

May 18, 2014 by - 2 Comments

Video of the Week: An App for Giving Opinions

In previous posts, we’ve written about our love of rating scales as an easy way to help people with significant language challenges express their preferences. We also posted a video of that in action with a little preschooler using Talking Mats to tell whether he liked or disliked various school activities. What could be better than getting the authentic input from our prAACtical friends? Two things, actually. An e-tool for this purpose A FREE app In this post, we share two demonstrations, one with an adult client and one with a child. You can see the demo of the app here. First, take a look at James. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzAgGmLYpE0 Next, let’s take a peek at Matthew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIIv17eTgFI And, last, but not least, a link to the free Talking Mats app.  

Loving Literacy-Let’s Read and Write Storybooks

March 24, 2014 by - 2 Comments

Loving Literacy: Let's Read and Write Storybooks

Literacy instruction involves lots of reading and writing. Last week, Carole discussed using storybook reading and the RAAP (Read, Ask, Answer, Prompt) strategy by Drs. Cathy Binger and Jennifer Kent-Walsh to teach communication and literacy.  To use storybooks with all learners we need to have lots of books that are easily accessible. Books need to  be accessible physically as well as through content and interest. It is lucky that with all of today’s on-line resources there is an abundance of ways to obtain as well as make and write storybooks.  All learners can and should be be involved in both the reading and writing process. Not only do literacy skills improve but so do communication skills. Involving Learners in the Storybook Process   Reader & Writer Vocabulary- Facilitate involvement by using reader and writer vocabulary. Refer to learners as “readers”, “authors”, “editors”, “publishers”, “critics”, etc.  When you are treated and referred... [Read More...]

PrAACtical Communication Opportunities in SLP Sessions

January 13, 2014 by - Leave your thoughts

PrAActical Communication Opportunities in Speech-Language Intervention

Planning for communication opportunities in every aspect of speech-language therapy helps ensure productive use of time and effort for both clinician and learner. It is not enough to talk to a student, it is not enough to provide fun activities without lots of opportunity for active participation and more specifically communication initiation.  Another word for communication initiation/opportunities is communication temptations. Communication temptations are structured situations designed to entice a variety of specific communication functions or semantic relations (Wetherby, 1988). There needs to be lots of times where there is targeted modeling and then a specific, obvious reason for the learner to be the initiator of communication. A temptation to communicate. Take a look at this sample therapy session for frequent and multiple communication opportunities. Please let us know a favorite or creative communication opportunity that you use. PrAACtical Considerations Meaningful AAC Goals– All quality speech-language intervention sessions start with meaningful... [Read More...]