585 Search Results for tell me about it
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...]
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...]
November 7, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
Earlier this month, we introduced a general sequence of how we conceptualize semantic instruction. We promised to elaborate on that. There are two things that I really love about this approach to to vocabulary teaching. The first is that is honors a principle that we know to be true: providing repetition with variety not only helps us reach learners with different strengths, but also gives our AAC learners much-needed practice. The other thing that makes this really work for us is that assessment has an active role but not a central one. Testing takes a backseat to teaching. As we all know, getting accurate assessment information from people who are learning their AAC systems is a huge challenge. Often, our AAC friends don’t have decent test-taking skills so we’re not really testing what we think we’re testing. Just last week I got to see Kristofer, an adorable little fellow who... [Read More...]
September 7, 2023
by Carole Zangari -
We are excited to continue our series on multilingual AAC support, guest-authored by BilingüeAAC. In today’s post, one member of the team, Melissa Tapia, addresses ways to use specific instructional materials with bilingual individuals. BilingüeAAC is a group of SLPs with a shared belief in providing evidence-based intervention strategies and resources to bilingual Spanish AAC clients, families, caregivers, and professionals. Inclusive Practices Using Tell Me Program & Other Materials How can we effectively conduct inclusive practices in our work settings? What are some approaches or materials that we can use to integrate the culture of the home and community? Why are inclusive practices essential for the success of our students/clients? These are fundamental reflective questions I have found to guide me in collaborative therapy and lead to better participation with and from my clients and their caregivers. We are Bilingue AAC, and we are here to provide helpful tools to... [Read More...]
December 30, 2022
by praacticalaac -
October 1, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
Today we kick off AAC Awareness Month 2020 and there’s no better way to do that than to share some resources with our AAC friends. Maggie Judson and Jeanna Antrim, guest authors of the TELL ME About It series, collaborated to build these virtual classrooms for those who are using the TELL ME program that I wrote with my colleague, ASD and reading specialist Lori Wise. Click the image below to view a video where they explain this wonderful resource. Direct link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRwRD2FlJIk&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=basscAAC You can see what these virtual classrooms look like in the static images below. There are a few different ways to use these resources, which, by design, are not editable. If you just want the static image to use as a virtual background you can use the pictures below. But the magic is only apparent when you download the files and get the interactive version.... [Read More...]
April 12, 2017
by Carole Zangari -
Do you work in or support preschool classrooms? Are you interested in infusing more AAC teaching throughout the day? If so, the TELL ME program may be of interest. This post has an overview of the program I developed with my friend and colleague, Lori Wise, in order to give teachers and therapists a better understanding of ways that they can integrate AAC learning throughout the classroom day. Many thanks to the fine folks at Saltillo for inviting me to do this webinar and for allowing us to share the recording. We are grateful for the support of SLP Joni Nygard and the wonderful team at Attainment for helping us bring this work to fruition. You can download the handout for the video here and see some samples of the TELL ME program here. What works for you in teaching AAC in the preschool classroom? Share your ideas so we can... [Read More...]
June 16, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
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...]
August 12, 2013
by Carole Zangari -
Looking for ways to engage older learners with age appropriate materials? Searching for fresh ideas for AAC and language practice? Tellagami (“tell-uh-gah-mee”) is a free iOS app that allows you to create short animations, save them to your device, post to Facebook, and share them by email, SMS text, or Twitter. Best part about it, in this busy SLP’s opinion? Super easy to learn and use! The animations are called ‘Gami’s’ and are short and fun to make. The app has a good amount of flexibility and you are only limited by your imagination. Here are some ideas for putting it to use in your AAC work. 1. Choice making: The AAC learner can work collaboratively with a peer to create a Gami. In doing so, he/she can make selections of things like the gender of the character, hair, clothes, and the background. 2. Peer interactions: Many of our AAC... [Read More...]
May 12, 2013
by Carole Zangari -
A good number of SLPs in school settings serve students with intellectual disabilities, some of whom who use or need AAC. In this video by ASHA, Dr. Krista Wilkinson and Ellen Kravitz of Easter Seals in Massachusetts, discusses many prAACtical issues that arise in doing this work. A number of years ago when I was the Coordinator for the ASHA Special Interest Division on AAC, I had the opportunity to work with a team of SLPs who were fully committed to educating SLPs about AAC. Ellen spearheaded the effort to create this webinar, along with the support of Diane Paul, Karen Niles, and many other wonderful people at the ASHA National Office. We were delighted to host ASHA’s media team at our university SLP clinic to do some of the taping for this program. Thanks to the generosity of ASHA and ASHF, this presentation is offered both in the free version and... [Read More...]