November 18, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
It’s time for another installment of the TELL ME About It series which focuses on AAC, language, and literacy learning with preschool children. Maggie Judson and Jeanna Antrim are back with more great ideas for AAC intervention, this time focusing on the Eric Carle book, From Head to Toe. Maggie and Jeanna are speech-language pathologists who work in the Assistive Technology Department for the Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative (BASSC) in central Illinois. They are AT/AAC facilitators and provide evaluations, direct therapy, consultations, and trainings. You can check out the earlier posts in this series below. I Went Walking Brown Bear, Brown Bear TELL ME AAC Literacy Kits TELL ME About It: AAC Learning with ‘From Head To Toe’! TELL ME About Reading: The third book in the TELL ME program (Teaching Early Language and Literacy through Multimodal Expression) is “From Head To Toe.” We love when books are interactive... [Read More...]
May 30, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
It’s such a pleasure to have Angi Pearce back on these pages to share her experiences and passion for teaching students with AAC needs. Angi is a teacher at Kowhai Special School in Hastings, New Zealand, and serves as the team leader for the Junior School classes (ages 5-11). Her initial post (see that here) introduced us to the ways that she embraced AAC and integrated it into her classroom. In today’s post, she talks about how things have evolved. Enjoy the journey! How We Do It: AAC in the Special Education Classroom – Continuing the Journey This is my fifth year teaching in a school for children with special needs. Five years ago, AAC was a new term for me. Core vocabulary boards were the first tools which were introduced to me, which I did not understand the benefit and purpose of until I observed the way it enhanced... [Read More...]
April 22, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Have you worked with students like these? 19-year-old Jaclyn has used a number of SGDs over the years with a moderate degree of success. Her language is very predictable and the team is concerned that Jaclyn’s progress has stalled. Judging by his progress on IEP goals, 9-year-old Mason has made wonderful strides in learning to use his AAC app. Of the hundreds of words that are available to him, Mason has only ever used about 50 and uses far fewer than that in day-to-day life. Sloan is fairly proficient with her AAC device and can easily answer questions, relay information, and share her thoughts and ideas. Her language is much less sophisticated than her middle school peers, though. While they often integrate some of the academic vocabulary words that they learn in science, language arts, math, and other classes into their conversation and writing, Sloan tends to stick to the... [Read More...]