43 Search Results for MASTER PAL

Narrative Assessment and People who Use AAC

March 16, 2013 by - Leave your thoughts

Narrative Assessment and People who Use AAC

This month, we’ve been talking about building narrative skills in our AAC clients. We tried to build the case that including narrative language goals in our intervention allows us to help people who use AAC to participate more fully in social exchanges, relay more in-depth information, and achieve greater academic success. But how do we know where to start in narrative intervention? And how do we measure progress? In this post, we share some thoughts on the assessment of narrative language in AAC. Most test batteries that assess narrative language are designed to take a snapshot of what the learner has already mastered in terms of telling personal narratives, story retelling, or scripts. This allows us to look beyond MLU, morphology, and grammar and can be useful in determining whether intervention is needed. Some scholars, however, have noted the limitations of this “one shot” approach, particularly for learners whose communication... [Read More...]

How I Do It: Supporting Teachers of Students with AAC Needs

February 21, 2013 by - 18 Comments

How I Do It: Supporting Teachers of Students with AAC Needs

We couldn’t be happier to have a guest  post by Jane Farrall for our How I Do It series. Jane has worked as a school and adult service based speech pathologist and literacy teacher. She has also worked as an assistive technology specialist and is currently working as an independent consultant in literacy, AAC and Assistive Technology. Jane has been working in the disability and assistive technology field for over 20 years. She has extensive practical experience in both AAC and in teaching children and adults with disabilities to acquire literacy. She has completed a Masters in Special Education focusing on literacy acquisition in children and adults without speech. Jane is a former Chairperson of AGOSCI (Australian Group on Severe Communication Impairment) and is the founder and organiser of the Big Mouth Camp, a camp for school aged students using speech generating devices and their families. You can get more... [Read More...]

AACtual Therapy: Breakthroughs with Bubbles!

January 31, 2013 by - 4 Comments

AACtual Therapy: Breakthroughs with Bubbles!

We couldn’t be happier that one of our first AACtual Therapists is Tanna Neufeld, a south Floridian on loan to the Pacific Northwest. Tanna was with us as a graduate student many years ago, and went on to build a fantastic reputation in our community for her excellent clinical skills. It was South Florida’s loss when she left last year and moved across the continent. (I know at least a few people scheming of ways to get her back.) Tanna is now working at the Children’s Therapy Center in Seattle. Tanna blogs at SNEAK Outside the Box and My Blind Side. You can read more about her at the end of this post, in which Tanna talks about using bubbles in her AAC therapy sessions. AAC Breakthroughs with Bubbles! When I first started using core vocabulary boards with my kids, I didn’t really know where to start.  It was really... [Read More...]