Today we head to Australia to see some great examples of communication support in the daily lives of women in a group home. Enjoy this video by Inner South Communication Service. Direct link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PljrI54od6A&app=desktop
As SLP’s we love to have families learn and carryover the work we do in speech-language treatment sessions. This helps ensure carryover of progress and generalization of therapy success. However, as Carole clearly illustrated last Monday, there are a lot of family dynamics, cultural issues, and family challenges that make adding extra work possibly burdensome. We really (really) do not want to burden families, but its beneficial to have AAC communication happen all day long. We once had a client who had a very huge house with lots of bedrooms, but mom chose to keep her children together in one bedroom. This was just in case the AAC user woke in the middle of the night. Then she would have someone close by as a communication partner. This was a family who took home programming to the max and expanded and modified it to fit their family. A main issue... [Read More...]
Practicing skills outside of therapy is a good way to extend the learning process and generalize skills to functional environments. It isn’t appropriate for every situation, but when it is, here are some things we try to think about. 1. It should focus on skills they have, not ones they need to learn. Why? Because when we’re learning new things, we get it wrong fairly often. And we don’t want to give them practice getting it wrong. Instead, the home practice should be on things they know and can do, but don’t do consistently. Home practice is a great way to build fluency and automaticity. 2. Tie it into the client’s interests. Use materials or topics that they enjoy. 3. Teach it. Resist the temptation to quickly go over the home practice in the last 60 seconds of therapy or in the waiting room. We’ve all done it, but strive... [Read More...]
Yes. Although this question was settled definitively in 1991 by US Special Education Programs former director Judith Schrag, there are still some misinformed professionals saying otherwise. In most cases, administrators cannot limit AAC device use to school grounds only. As long as the team agrees that the student needs to be able to communicate throughout the day, then the AAC device can go home in the afternoon, on weekends, on holiday breaks, and during the summer. The “Schrag Letter” (OSEP, November 27, 1991) asserted that “if the IEP team determines that a particular assistive technology item is required for home use in order for a particular child to be provided Free Appropriate Public Education, the technology must be provided to implement the IEP.” There may be an IEP team out there somewhere who feels that a student only needs to communicate during the 6-hour school day, but we haven’t met... [Read More...]
These videos from Autism House (in Indiana) have some great illustrations of using visual schedules and calendars at home. If you’re looking for different kinds of examples, these videos are for you. Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2. —
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. We have some posts you may enjoy. Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Unspoken Voices and More Thursday – PrAACtical Considerations: Prestored Messages in AAC, Part 1 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Looking for some AAC materials? We pulled out a few from the AAC Toolbox just for you. Spelling Boards & FlipBook– Letter boards (alpha & QWERTY) used at Camp Alec; Created by Tina Moreno Communicare Language Board Templates – Communication board templates for the post “How We Do It: Using Language Boards to Support AAC Use” Colorful Connections – Templates for teaching modified Fitzgerald Key and Goossens’, Crain, & Elder color-coding schemas And here’s a post from the past that you might like. Readiness: 7 Days of AACtion
What is the role of core and fringe vocabulary for beginning communicators? In today’s featured video, we learn about this topic from Bethany Frick Semmler. We are grateful to Bethany for this information and to USSAAC and ISAAC for hosting this webinar. Direct Link to Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Z2ZJr4j1w&ab_channel=InternationalSocietyforAugmentativeandAlternativeCommunication%28ISAAC%29
Join us as we learn ways that artificial intelligence and robots can support interaction from researchers Paulina Finak, Vera Ralin, and Rafael Santana at Queen’s University. Many thanks to the presenters, to ISAAC Canada, and to ISAAC for sharing this information. Direct link to video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTJ9D9AIRaU&ab_channel=InternationalSocietyforAugmentativeandAlternativeCommunication%28ISAAC%29
On the first Friday of each month, we publish a post in Spanish by guest author Claudia Marimón to highlight AAC work being done in Spanish-speaking countries and offer translations of material that can help families and service providers. In today’s post, Claudia introduces us to an exciting project blending AAC and literacy for individuals affected by Angelman Syndrome. Claudia provided an email address for anyone who would like to join or get more information. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Damos la bienvenida a febrero, compartiendo la experiencia a un año de iniciar el Proyecto CAAmigos Angelman, un programa de Alfabetización Emergente y CAA para personas con Síndrome de Angelman en Latinoamérica. Desarrollado e impulsado por FAST Latam (organización sin fines de lucro). www.cureangelman.lat El Programa se desarrolla basado en la evidencia de la Instrucción Integral de Alfabetización Emergente. (Karen Erickson, Erin Sheldon, Caroline Musselwhite) En el proyecto los estudiantes con Síndrome de Angelman ... [Read More...]
It’s a cold, snowy week in much of the US, and that gives us something fun to talk about. It makes a regular appearance at Circle Time and Morning Meetings. It’s part of our casual conversation on a daily basis. We learn about it in Science classes, and it often plays a role in the books we read. Everyone talks about the weather. How can we take advantage of this ubiquitous topic to strengthen AAC learning? Here are a few ideas of language concepts to address. Core Vocabulary: Weather-related discussions offer many opportunities to model and elicit core words, both by themselves and in the context of longer sentences. Single words: Feel, it, like, look, see, that, what Multi-word combinations: I can see rain/snow/sun. Look at that. What is it like outside? Can you feel it? I don’t like when it is ___. More Advanced Vocabulary: Many AAC users have... [Read More...]