November 16, 2023
by Carole Zangari -
If you’re in a role that requires you to provide support to a team and strengthen their AAC practices, today’s post may have something of value. Take a look. Tech Tools for Supporting AAC Team Collaboration AAC Team Leadership Supporting Young AAC Teams: 5 Considerations for Facilitating Growth Teaming with Related Services to Support AAC Users Strategies for Supporting Team Buy-in and Implementation PrAACtical Research: Meta-synthesis of AAC Team Members’ Voices On AAC Training: Skill Building for AAC Team Members Helping the General Education Team Support Students Who Use AAC How I Do It with Rachael Langley: PODD in the Classroom – Quick Tips for Teams On the Same Page: Helping Team Members Recognize and Respond to Unconventional Communication Signals AAC in Secondary School: Collaborative Teaming for High School Students Who Use AAC AAC Teamwork: Encouraging Colleagues #1 (downloadable) AAC Teamwork: Encouraging Colleagues #2 (downloadable) AAC Teamwork: Encouraging Colleagues #3 (downloadable)... [Read More...]
October 16, 2023
by Carole Zangari -
Many AAC professionals are known for their generosity in creating and sharing resources to support individuals with complex communication needs. In today’s post, we feature a sampling of some that can be helpful during AAC Awareness Month and beyond. Print and display an AAC Poster. Create a bulletin board with an AAC focus or sprinkle these around the environment. From Drawn to AAC: AAC Awareness Month October Printable Posters From Emily B. Speech: AAC Awareness Month Poster and Bulletin Board Kit From The AAC Coach: Never Too Late or Early From CoughDrop: Keys to Modeling From Rachael Langley: Subway Art From Lauren Enders: AAC Do/Do Not From Kate Ahern: The Periodic Table of AAC From Noodle Nook: 5 Tips for Communicating with Nonverbal Students From Scope: Speak Up and Be Safe From PrAACtical AAC: More Teaching, Less Testing Share handouts Print, hang, or give someone an AAC awareness image 10... [Read More...]
September 16, 2023
by Carole Zangari -
About This Week Welcome to Week 7 of your Stepping into AAC journey! We continue to explore ways to customize our communication boards this week with a focus on accommodating challenges with vision and attention. You will explore the following concepts this week: Be an Access Detective: What does ‘access’ mean in an AAC context, and how can we address this for AAC learners with complex bodies? Attention, Please! Explore the role of attention in AAC learning and how to accommodate challenges in this area. Customization to Address Challenges with Vision, Hearing, & Attention: Learn ways to personalize the communication board so that people with sensory and attention difficulties can be successful users of AAC. AAC Learners with CVI: Cortical vision impairment (CVI) can make AAC learning a lot more challenging. Learn about this condition and how we can support AAC learners with CVI. AACtion Steps Week 7 AACtion Steps... [Read More...]
July 20, 2023
by Carole Zangari -
Our series on multilingual AAC support guest authored by BilingüeAAC continues. In today’s post, Sarah Lee addresses issues specific to features of AAC apps and SGDs. 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. If you are new to this series, you can check out the previous articles using the links below. Bilingual AAC Support from Monolingual Professionals: An Introduction Cultural-Linguistic AAC Intervention: A Framework for Consideration Gathering Information from Families with Questionnaires and Surveys Most of us WANT to provide culturally-linguistic responsive bilingual Spanish AAC intervention, but we don’t feel confident without knowing/speaking the language. In an effort to foster Spanish heritage language development and empower the monolingual SLPs*, we have created context-specific templates using the sociocultural approach (Soto & Yu, 2014) for the monolingual English-speaking SLP*. We will be referencing... [Read More...]
September 22, 2022
by Carole Zangari -
If you’re in a role that requires you to provide support to a team and strengthen their AAC practices, today’s post may have something of value. Take a look. Tech Tools for Supporting AAC Team Collaboration AAC Team Leadership Supporting Young AAC Teams: 5 Considerations for Facilitating Growth Teaming with Related Services to Support AAC Users Strategies for Supporting Team Buy-in and Implementation PrAACtical Research: Meta-synthesis of AAC Team Members’ Voices On AAC Training: Skill Building for AAC Team Members Helping the General Education Team Support Students Who Use AAC How I Do It with Rachael Langley: PODD in the Classroom – Quick Tips for Teams On the Same Page: Helping Team Members Recognize and Respond to Unconventional Communication Signals AAC in Secondary School: Collaborative Teaming for High School Students Who Use AAC AAC Teamwork: Encouraging Colleagues #1 (downloadable) AAC Teamwork: Encouraging Colleagues #2 (downloadable) AAC Teamwork: Encouraging Colleagues #3 (downloadable)... [Read More...]
June 26, 2022
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. We have some posts that you might enjoy. Monday – AAC Reading Material: 3 Book Suggestions Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Funding for AAC Thursday – Throwback Thursday: Summertime & AAC :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: If you have the time, here are some past posts you may enjoy. Beyond AAC Modeling: 3 Things to Add to Your AAC Teaching Plan AAC Skills Assessment for Direct Selectors Selecting AAC Apps & Devices: A Handful of Reasons Not to Skip the Trial Period Observational Assessment of Beginning Communicators Bilingual AAC Assessment Tips by Lindsay Oesch Say What?!? AAC Assessment for Children Who Speak with Dr. Jill Senner and Matthew Baud
April 7, 2022
by Carole Zangari -
We’re ending the week with some wonderful resources shared by AAC expert, Lauren Enders. In her continuation of the Goal Writing series, she reviews some important tools that can help in determining which skills to target when writing goals for AAC learners. You can see other posts in this series using the links below. AAC Goal Writing with Lauren Enders 5 Common Challenges Laying a Solid Foundation :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: In the first post of this series, you learned that you are in good company if you find AAC goal writing to be intimidating. Thankfully, you were also assured that despite the learning curve, you CAN write meaningful goals for AAC learners given the right tips, tools, and guidance. In the second post, you learned how the Four Communicative Competencies (Linguistic, Operational, Social, and Strategic) (Light et al., 1989, Light & McNaughton, 2014)) plus Psychosocial or Emotional Competency (Light & McNaughton, 2014, Blackstone... [Read More...]
March 17, 2022
by Carole Zangari -
In today’s Throwback Thursday, we learn from AAC professionals who’ve shared their experiences, perspectives, suggestions, and materials. We’ve had a lot of these posts over the years, so we’ll do this in two parts, both with lots of great content. Take a look. How I Do It Tabi Jones-Wohleber Classroom CORE Book AAC Inservices The All-in-One-Visual-Support Tool Deanna Wagner Supporting Spanish-speaking AAC Learners Lindsay Oesch Bilingual AAC Assessment Tips Kim Ho Video Read-Alouds with Aided Language Input Krista Hadeed Building & Using Language Kits Jesse Kleinman Functional Ideas for AAC Use at Home Kathrine Dally Pocket Flipbooks for Teens Pocket Flipbooks for Adults & Teens Pocket Flipbooks for Adults & Teens, Part 2 Amanda Samperi Teaching the AAC Helpers Planning AAC Therapy Activities Across Grade Levels Putting the FUN Back in FUNctional Working with Multiple Symbol Sets Tina Moreno Classroom Support for Students with AAC Needs Laura Hayes Using Videos... [Read More...]
February 13, 2022
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends! Here are some posts that you may have missed in your busy week. Monday – Some Thoughts on Using the Terms ‘Nonverbal’ and ‘Nonspeaking’ Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Considerations in Switch Assessment Thursday – Throwback Thursday: AAC-friendly Resources for Black History Month ———————————————————————————————- Before you leave, here are a few more past posts to check out. Visual Supports for Places Around School (downloadable) Visual Supports for Places We Go (downloadable) AAC Intervention for Children with ASD Teaching Communication Partners Through Video Self-modeling Bilingual AAC Assessment Tips
December 16, 2021
by Carole Zangari -
Many AAC users need support from family, friends, and professionals in learning to advocate for themselves. Therapists and educators can support this process in many ways, starting with their ability to recognize all communicative acts and respond in respectful ways. At times, formal instruction and intervention are necessary to build specific skills that make it possible to advocate for one’s views and interests. If you are supporting AAC users who are learning to advocate for themselves, here are some skills to consider targeting. Protesting and Rejecting: Objecting to events around us and refusing things that are offered are early-developing communicative functions that don’t seem to get enough attention. These are critical skills for all of us and AAC learners should be given the opportunity to develop a variety of strategies for this type of expression. Ranking: When AAC users can express their preferences by rank ordering different options, they can... [Read More...]