674 Search Results for communication book

AAC Awareness Month Giveaway # 2

October 10, 2012 by - 2 Comments

AAC Awareness Month Giveaway # 2

We’re bAACk with another giveaway to celebrate  AAC Awareness Month, made possible by the very generous people at the organizations listed below: Ablenet, Inc Abilipad Alexicom BeeVisual Dynavox/Mayer Johnson Gail Van Tatenhove, PA Hump Software iClick iTalk MarbleSoft News-2-You Patient Provider Communication Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company RJ Cooper Safe N Sound Mobile Say It with Symbols Silver Lining Multimedia SpeechPathology.com TapSpeak TherapyBox/TBoxApps Verbally How Does It Work? We use Rafflecopter to administer the giveaways. All entries made through there will be counted toward our drawings. We’re holding three additional drawings this month, and will pick winners on October 17, 24, and 31. Prizes are randomly assigned to each winner. We’ll send an email to each one letting them know what they’ve one. The winners will have 5 days to respond to our email. You’ll need to be a good sport to play along because we’re not going to get... [Read More...]

It's AAC Awareness Month- PrAACtical Giveaways

October 5, 2012 by - 8 Comments

Reasons for PrAACtical Giveaway

We are incredulous!  In a GREAT way, an AWESOME way, an EPIC way.  The generosity  of the AAC community has honestly made us speechless for a moment. Then we quickly had a lot to say about AAC Awareness Month and the PrAACtical Celebration.   So ENTER THE GIVEAWAY BECAUSE: The GIVEAWAYS are awesome! You can learn about a lot of new resources! You can get AAC Awareness  ideas. You can help promote AAC Awareness Month! It’s fun to try and win! There are a lot of giveaways! You can learn about cool companies to ‘like’ on facebook. You or someone you know may be surprised. AAC Awareness is important! The GIVEAWAYS are awesome!   Ablenet, Inc Abilipad Alexicom BeeVisual Dynavox/Mayer Johnson Gail Van Tatenhove, PA Hump Software iClick iTalk MarbleSoft News-2-You Patient Provider Communication Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company RJ Cooper Say It with Symbols Silver Lining Multimedia SpeechPathology.com TapSpeak... [Read More...]

Avoiding Insanity: AAC & the Pace of Change

October 4, 2012 by - 24 Comments

Avoiding Insanity: AAC & the Pace of Change

Although the field of AAC emerged only in the last few decades, the notion of communicating in alternative ways is centuries old.  In classical times, the use of manual communication by deaf individuals was referred to by Plato and documented in Europe during the Middle Ages.  In North America, American Indian Hand Talk evolved over generations to allow cross-cultural communication between speakers of diverse languages. As a clinical/educational field, AAC has been described as evolving through a “bottom-up” mechanism. Individuals with congenital conditions that prevented the development of intelligible speech invented their own communication systems long before teachers, therapists, and clinicians formalized instruction in alternative modes of expression.  AAC users growing up in the forties and fifties tell of communicating through grunts, vocalizations, “air writing,” and eye movements, which, though effective in some contexts, were maddening in their limitations. Individuals who were fortunate enough to have access to habilitative and... [Read More...]

AAC Awareness Month: A PrAACtical Celebration

October 1, 2012 by - 22 Comments

PrAACtical Celebration

It’s a prAACtical celebration! Thanks to the generosity of a lot of companies and individuals, we’re hosting some AAC Surprise Giveaways in honor of AAC Awareness Month. As you can see, we’ve had lots of prizes donated from these wonderful folks: Ablenet, Inc Abilipad Alexicom  BeeVisual Dynavox/Mayer Johnson Gail Van Tatenhove, PA Hump Software iClick iTalk MarbleSoft News-2-You Patient Provider Communication Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company RJ Cooper Say It with Symbols Silver Lining Multimedia SpeechPathology.com TapSpeak TherapyBox/TBoxApps How Does It Work? We use Rafflecopter to administer the giveaways. All entries made through there will be counted toward our drawings. We’re holding four drawings spaced throughout the month, and will draw winners on October 10, 17, 24, and 31. Prizes are randomly assigned to each winner. We’ll send an email to each one letting them know what they’ve one. The winners will have 5 days to respond to our email.... [Read More...]

Lightening, Thunder, & Rain Oh My!

August 25, 2012 by - 2 Comments

Lightening, Thunder, Rain, Oh My!

We live in Florida and there are lots of general summer storms. They can be very loud and dark.  There are also many hurricane warnings (like now for Hurricane Isaac).  Many children and adults with communication challenges can become upset or anxious because of the loud noises, the change in routines, and/or the heightened state of anxiety that is usually around the house or community. Because of this we are often asked to help find visual support resources. Here are some great prepared visual support stories and resources that we use: Bad Weather Tips and Story by Hands in Autism Hurricane Preparedness More Hurricane Preparedness Thunder/Lightning Storms Thunder Box   Sometimes though the prepared supports do not meet the needs for specific learners. Here are our tips for developing your own storm visual supports and resources   Creating Personal Participation Stories Use language of the story that is at the... [Read More...]

5 Different Gifts to Give To A Classroom

August 3, 2012 by - Leave your thoughts

5 Different Gifts to Give To A Classroom

We can’t believe there are only a few weeks left before school starts.  We have been talking to teachers, scheduling school and teacher trainings, helping to prepare communication dictionaries, and making recommendations for classroom materials.  We realized that there are some bigger resources that would help MANY students in a classroom and even a school. These are gifts that might cost a lot of money ($150 or more) or a lot of  time to set up (but are free).   We realized that these would be great gifts for a parent group (PTA’s/PTO’s) or charitable organizations/foundations to give to a teacher, classroom, or school that has students who use AAC even though the gift will benefit ALL learners.  Give a gift before school starts or after a successful fundraiser. 5 Great Gifts to Give to A Classroom News-2-You – A symbol based current event newspaper that allows ALL students to talk... [Read More...]

37 AAC Posts You May Have Missed, July 2012

August 1, 2012 by - Leave your thoughts

37 AAC Posts You May Have Missed, July 2012

Biennial Conference: ISAAC 2012 PrAACtically There: ISAAC 2012 Day 1 at ISAAC 2012: What You Should Know About AAC’s Expanding Role in Health Care ISAAC 2012, Day 2: AAC Goes to Preschool ISAAC 2012, Day 3: Let the Games Begin ISAAC 2012, Day 4 – The Fives 5+5 Commandments for Speech Output Communication 5 Under-Used Strategies in AAC 5 Online Notebooks Full of AAC 5 Adapted Play Resources for Children with Motor Impairment – PrAACtical Thinking 92 Free or Lite Versions of AAC Apps PrAACtical Alert: Free AAC Evaluation App This Week Visualize 9 Nice Things to Say to Students who AAC PrAACtical Thoughts About Challenging Behavior PrAACtical Resource: Searching for AAC Devices with SpeechBubble AAC Assessment Round-Up 5 Ways to Use Rating Scales to Enhance Communication with AAC PrAACtical Alert: The World’s AAC Conference Comes to You (Well, a little bit of it) Power of the Visual Planner: 20... [Read More...]

ISAAC 2012, Day 2: AAC Goes to Preschool

July 29, 2012 by - 23 Comments

ISAAC 2012, Day 2: AAC Goes to Preschool

It was another wonderful day here in Pittsburgh at the 15th Biennial ISAAC Conference. It was a special day for me because I had the opportunity to speak about a really fun topic, core vocabulary teaching for young children with AAC needs. It was certainly a group effort! A talented graduate student of ours, Tathiane Paiva, and I shared a framework for developing a curriculum to teach core language in preschool classrooms, and used the curriculum I developed with Lori Wise (special educator and literacy specialist with UM NSU CARD) as an example. The basic principles behind the approach we shared are listed below. – •Language and literacy learning happen all day long. •Children learning AAC need high-quality instruction to learn and use basic vocabulary. •Children learning AAC need frequent opportunities for learning and practice. They need dozens of carefully planned opportunities to use their new words each day. •The focus is on... [Read More...]

PrAActical AAC Thoughts About Challenging Behavior

July 28, 2012 by - 1 Comment

PrAACtical AAC Thoughts About Challenging Behavior

Some PrAACtical AAC thoughts about challenging behavior:  I wonder if it is ok to say that we love seeing challenging behavior during speech-language therapy sessions or observations.  Well, I said it, both of us do, because if we really ‘listen’ then we can figure out what to teach that will really help our students.   We tend to prioritize our goals into High Priority and General Priority.  Challenging behavior and the communication message behind it, definitely falls into high priority.  This is because challenging behavior in students limits experiences, limits interaction, and overall limits opportunities for people to get to know you. Consider Challenging Behavior through  Communication Glasses   Is it really Challenging Behavior? behavior that is or can be destructive or hurtful. Examples include but are not limited to: hitting, biting, spitting, throwing, pounding,  etc. (Note:  we are not talking about poor eye contact or poor attention to task or even laughing... [Read More...]

Behavior-It’s All about Perspective: Funny Time in the Funny Area

July 21, 2012 by - 2 Comments

A ‘funny area’ is not a technique or strategy you will see in a behavior or speech-language therapy text-book.  But here is how we came to know and love ‘funny time’ & the ‘funny area’ A Little Background Tommy, a 9-year-old boy, seemed to be getting the ‘giggles’ each session. The graduate student clinician was not sure how to ‘control the situation’.  Tommy typically worked hard using his Vantage Lite to build long and complex sentences for communication during natural age-appropriate activities (i.e., golf, art, and reading).  But then the ‘giggles’ would start… and less and less communication was getting done. Initially, the clinician spent time redirecting Tommy.  She would have him sit straight, pay more attention, and re-focus, but in the long run it would be more about what the clinician wanted then about Tommy communicating.  We prompted the graduate student to think about how more could be accomplished,... [Read More...]