891 Search Results for core vocabulary
October 3, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Established in 2007 by ISAAC’s LEAD Committee, AAC Awareness Month invites us to spread the word about all things AAC, and it’s pretty exciting to think back on all we’ve done and also to plan for the current year. Each week during AAC Awareness Month, we’ll share suggestions for things to do to help others learn about a field that emerged to support children and adults with complex communication needs. This week, we’ll focus on hands-on activities. A popular approach to AAC Awareness Month is to invite a group of colleagues or families to come together and communicate only through AAC for the event. Some years, we’ve held ‘Silent Snack’ events before class, where we put out a variety of board games and invited some of our AAC clients to come in and play along. They enjoyed serving as our AAC Ambassadors, meeting new people, and ‘wow-ing’ the crowd with... [Read More...]
August 8, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
In the US, the new school year is underway in some places, and others are gearing up for the return in a few weeks. Here are a few things from previous posts that might come in handy. AAC 101 Flipbook This all-in-one resource contains information on how to implement key AAC support strategies: AAC 101 Handout. AAC Options Ensure that every student who needs AAC has access to at least a starter set of words and phrases. There are plenty of core communication boards and flipbooks to choose from, and this post has links to a variety of them: Core Boards. Hands-on AAC Interactive experiences where communication partners get to try out and use AAC to learn and express themselves can be very powerful. If you need ideas or materials to use, check out the options we shared in an earlier post: Hands-On Activities. Parent Training Materials The Stepping into... [Read More...]
June 10, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Have you been following our series on using Stepping Into AAC as an on-ramp to start an AAC journey or reboot one that has stalled out? Post 1 – A PrAACtical Guide to Stepping into AAC Post 2 – Starting a Journey with Stepping into AAC Post 3 – Building a Foundation with Stepping into AAC (Weeks 2-5) In today’s post, we step away from some of the foundational concepts and early practices in AAC to take a little detour. Up until now, we’ve focused on using a communication board with generic high-frequency words that align with popular AAC programs such as Proloquo, Wordpower, Project Core, and others. For the next three weeks, we will focus on ways to customize these communication boards to better meet the needs of individual AAC learners. Week 6 – Adding words that are relevant to your AAC learner During Week 6, you’ll learn... [Read More...]
June 3, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Ready to continue your Stepping into AAC journey? Now that you have your communication board (or an AAC device), we can dive into some of the key information you’ll need to support a beginning AAC user. Over the next four weeks, you’ll build or strengthen a foundation of critical AAC concepts. More importantly, you’ll begin daily use of AAC with quick and easy hands-on activities. Here’s what to expect. Target words for Weeks 2-5: different, go, good, like, look, me, not, some, stop, want Hands-on activities: Try your best to complete the 5 daily activities, each of which takes less than 10 minutes. While they are short and simple, these AACtion steps guide you in building the new habits of AAC use that will help your AAC learner be successful. Each day, you will be interacting with your communication board (or AAC device, if you have one) to Find, Look,... [Read More...]
May 27, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
We hope that guest authors Marisa Portanova and Marnina Allis have inspired you to develop AAC groups for the children and adults you serve. Today, they wrap up their series with some final tips for creating and running successful groups. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: PrAACtical AAC Groups Made Easy – Positive Outcome and Tips and Tricks Our AAC groups were a hit, and we want to help you all knock it out of the park as well! We had some great positive outcomes we would like to share to help with motivation to get started. Variety of communication opportunities – talking about their weekends, playing fun games like HeadBandz, giving opinions about a book read Language learning opportunities – within literacy contexts and natural social environments Social interaction opportunities are hard to accomplish in 1:1 settings between child and therapist. These groups allowed for peer-to-peer interaction as well. They allowed children to see other... [Read More...]
May 20, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
Our series on AAC group therapy continues with guest authors Marisa Portanova and Marnina Allis. In today’s post, they share ideas for helping young AAC users enhance their literacy skills. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: PrAACtical AAC Groups Made Easy – Let’s Be Authors Last week, we discussed our ongoing weekly groups. Once we had success and saw progress made in the weekly groups, we came up with the concept of “AAC intensive groups,” where children would come in over a school break for a week and participate in the AAC groups for 5 consecutive days, for a longer stretch (about two and a half hours). This gave children a chance to interact with children from different classes and helped reduce the regression of learned AAC skills over the school break. During those weeks, we picked one book per day for the first 4 days. Day 5 was for review, discussing opinions of each... [Read More...]
February 5, 2024
by Carole Zangari -
It’s prAACtically Valentine’s Day, so we’re reprising this past post with Asome updated AC-friendly resources for one of our favorite holidays. Valentine’s Day, a celebration of love and romance, is just around the corner. We’re keeping up the tradition of sharing ideas for an AAC-friendly holiday so that you can focus your attention on the supportive strategies that facilitate AAC learning. Take a look. Have fun with this animated PowerPoint poem, 5 Little Valentines, from Bloom. How about a game of Valentine-themed Jeopardy with these materials from Traveling Talker Time? Print and send these Valentine’s Day cards from CoughDrop Are there any Pete the Cat fans? Weave Chat AAC created this companion vocabulary board for Valentine’s Day is Cool. Valentine’s Day Is Here: Enjoy a video sing along with the Swingset Mamas Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR2S1AanFmFOY-W42JGdsuloRizrpmEE9e-YcrqU_Aqmo4McFJpqRfDnokY&v=Rbtgl9n3mJg&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=Swingsetmamas This AAC Guide on Valentine’s Day for TouchChat Word Power 42... [Read More...]
December 22, 2023
by Carole Zangari -
With Christmas Eve just around the corner, we thought we’d celebrate the season with an AAC take on this treasured tale. ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas A Visit from St. Nicholas ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the town Not a creature was stirring, they were all safe and sound. The stockings were hung by their chimneys with care, In hopes that AAC Elves would soon visit there. The teachers were nestled all snug in their beds, With visions of lesson plans banished from their heads. The therapists with data sheets and the strategies they love best, Had just settled in for a good winter-break rest. When outside the schoolyard, there arose such a clatter I rushed toward the window to see what was the matter. Stepping on Legos (does that pain ever fade?) I ran to the window and lifted the shade. With her silvery face, the... [Read More...]
November 6, 2023
by Carole Zangari -
We’re sharing some ideas for AAC learning based on a previous post by the late Dr. Robin Parker. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Language learning involves talking about events in the past, present, and future. Since Halloween is over, it is a perfect opportunity to help AAC users talk about past events. Here are 5 tips for getting started. Use a weekly or monthly (calendar) schedule to ‘remember’ Halloween, or if you are sticking to core words to remember the “great day” or “bad day” depending upon the experience. Use photos of the Halloween festivities to discuss what happened and what everyone did. You can use these to discuss costumes, decorations, the best/worst part of the day, etc. Use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast Halloween experiences. This can be done by comparing two people, places, or anything else. For some learners, you can use images to put Halloween things that everyone saw... [Read More...]
October 9, 2023
by Carole Zangari -
Established in 2007 by ISAAC’s LEAD Committee, AAC Awareness month invites us to spread the word about all things AAC, and it’s pretty exciting to think back on all we’ve done and also to plan for the current year. Each week during AAC Awareness Month we’ll share suggestions for things to do to help others learn about a field that emerged to support children and adults with complex communication needs. This week, we’ll focus on hands-on activities. A popular approach to AAC Awareness Month is to invite a group of colleagues or families to come together and communicate only through AAC for the event. Some years, we’ve held ‘Silent Snack’ events before class where we put out a variety of board games and invited some of our AAC clients to come in and play along. They enjoyed serving as our AAC Ambassadors, meeting new people, and ‘wow-ing’ the crowd with... [Read More...]