Magic Moments: AAC Intervention with Stop and Go App

We’re always looking for engaging ways to give our preschool children practice with their core word vocabulary. Stop and Go by ShortStack is an app that will get your little friends using core language without even realizing how much practice they are getting.
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We love the simple structure of the app, which shows vehicles stopped at a traffic light. We see and hear the name of the vehicle and then press the green light for the vehicle to go. It has an English or a Spanish option and lots of interactive elements to try and then talk about.
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Magic Moments with Stop and Go
1. Core Word Practice: As expected, there are tons of opportunities for the child to move the vehicles in this app. Using the strategy of controlled access, we can elicit ‘stop’ and ‘go’ multiple times in this game.
2. More Core Word Practice – Lots of opportunities for practice with early developing action words (e.g., do, go, make) and descriptors (fast/slow, colors, clean/dirty, dark/light, loud/quiet).
3. Negation: This is a fun app to use to practice using no/not in a low stress condition. That’s important to us because we’re frequently trying to teach our little AAC friends to use those words when they are frustrated and stressed. To get to that point, we have to first teach and practice it it under low stress conditions. This is the perfect app for that. “It’s a bird.” “No!” “It’s not a bird. It’s a fire truck.” “It’s a book.” “No!” “It’s not a book. It’s a motorcyle.”
4. Sentence Structure: This is a great app for practicing simple sentences and giving that repetition with variety that we all strive for. E.g., “I see a __” “It is ___.” “What is it?” “That is ___.”
5. Scripted Conversation: Once we’ve had some practice with the core words in sentences, we can put them into a conversational routine. Scripted conversations work really well with our friends who thrive on predictability. With each screen, we can go through scripted dialogues like these to give them practice and us an opportunity for aided language input and language expansion:

• Look! 
• I see it.
• It’s a _(noun)__.
• Yes, a _(modifier)___ _(noun)__

• What did it do?
• I know!
• It __(verb+ed)___.
• It __(verb+ed)___ __(modifier__).

There’s lots more we can do with Stop and Go to build vocabulary and language structures, too. You can explore it with your AAC friends because the app is free today. Now, that’s PrAACtical!

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