PrAACtical AAC Celebration #2
It’s time for the 2nd 2013 AAC Awareness Month celebration! It is so exciting to see all of the AAC activities and plans from around the country and world to help spread AAC Awareness. There has been sharing of AAC information, AAC decorations, Silent teas, and much more. We hope that with increased awareness, there is increased ACCESS for ALL who need it. Keep spreading AAC information and keep teaching & learning. HAPPY INTERNATIONAL AAC AWARENESS MONTH!
Celebrate with us by entering our AAC giveaway. Good Luck Everyone!
The PrAACtical AAC Celebration is made possible by the very generous and awesome people at the organizations listed below:
:
- Ablenet, Inc
- Abilipad
- Alexicom
- BeeVisual/ChoiceWorks
- Dynavox/Mayer Johnson
- Handhold Adaptive
- Hump Software
- MarbleSoft
- Mozzaz
- News-2-You
- Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company
- Safe N Sound Mobile
- Silver Lining Multimedia
- Smarty Ears
- Speak For Yourself
- SpeechPathology.com
- SpeechTree
- TapSpeak
- TherapyBox/TBoxApps
- TouchChat
- 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 two drawings: October 9th and 31st.
- Once we’ve drawn our winners, we’ll send an email to each one. You’ll need to be a good sport to play along because we’re not going to get into requests for specific prizes or substitutions. (As I learned from wise-beyond-her-years Pauleen, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.” Love that!)
- The winners will have 5 days to respond to our email.
- We’ll send out the prizes.
How Often Can You Enter?
That depends on what kind of entry it is. See our AAC Awareness Rafflecopter for details.
The Fine Print
- Winners have 3 days to respond to the email with prize notification. On day 4 after the notification was sent, we will draw a new winner for that prize. Check your spam filters so you don’t miss our notification.
- Tech Support: Regrettably, we can’t provide it. If you have trouble with Twitter or Facebook or anything like that, you’ll have to rely on your problem-solving skills to FIO (figure it out). We’re new to a lot of this ourselves, so we probably wouldn’t be much help anyway.
- In the event of unforeseen difficulties with prize donors or other things that give us grief, we reserve the right to make prize substitutions.
- What if you don’t like or need your prize? There’s probably someone in your community who does. Consider donating it to a local school, hospital, clinic, or library. We won’t be making substitutions based on winners’ preferences. (Sorry, folks. We gotta leave some time in the day for our real jobs.)
- The app codes that were donated are for the US app store.
- iPads are not included.
- We are not responsible for prizes that get lost in the mail.
If you’re an AAC service provider, we invite you to celebrate AAC Awareness month and join in the fun!
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC Awareness Month
This post was written by Robin Parker
20 Comments
My student learned to use aac in middle school. he learned to text girls to ask for their phone numbers…that made my day!
I just got my 1st kid with AAC. It was so exciting to see her face light up when she was able to communicate the first time she got her device.
I love that AAC gives my daughter the opportunity ti both express herself as well as participate more in social situations.
AAC Rocks Baby!
You’re blog posts and ideas help me find new ways to interact and support my students every week. Thanks
I love building marble towers with my kids. They get so excited to be in control
AAC has given my son the ability to express his great personality!
I am OBSESSED with this blog! It has helped me so much you will never know! I am a CF and almost all of my kiddos use some sort of AAC!
Haha, Becky! We love passion in all its forms, but passion for helping kids learn AAC is #1 in our book!
I work primarily with kids with complex needs, so AAC is my life. My most exciting moments are those when a student begins using a strategy functionally, meaningfully and independently — whether it’s an independent across-the-room PECS exchange, a successful use of a PODD book, or accesing a high-end device to tell me what they did over the weekend. I love it all.
Wow! Awesome, we also feel that AAC is our passion for people who need it. Keep up the great work. Your students are very lucky.
Thanks for this blogsite! It is both a place I go to learn and to validate.
I have several students who use AAC, but my favorite is one student used his device to say “I don’t like that” to something his mom had packed in his lunch. When we told her what he said, she commented that she never realized he didn’t like it and would pack other things in his lunch for him. He advocated for himself and got something in his life to change!!
Love this example! Self advocacy is a skill that lasts a life time!
I love this blog, its full of so many helpful ideas, and putting lots of things I already know or do into words that help me explain them to other people!
A definite AAC highlight memory for me is a parent comment a few weeks after purchasing and sending home an AAC device for a child: “We now know what our child’s REAL favorite food it. We always assumed it was ___, but it is actually ___.” And then a few weeks later mom shared about an “argument” she and her child had had via the device over candy. 🙂
I am the AAC specialist where I work and do monthly AAC evaluations. I also have a wide variety of users on my caseload. It is so fulfilling to be able to provide an alternative form of communication to my kiddos who wouldn’t otherwise be able to communicate! Recently we had an eye gaze evaluation for an 8-year old with CP. He had no form of functional communication and when we trialed the eye gaze system, he did AMAZING! His parents couldn’t believe he would now be able to ‘talk’ to them! No one had ever given him an opportunity or modality before that was successful, so it was so rewarding to see the joy for everyone involved! AAC truly changes lives!
As always love your website SO helpful and informative for all of us in the AAC field.
I work in a small district and am on the AT team. We are currently building our program via training and experience. AAC recently helped one of my students tell others the day of the week and helped another tell that he wanted juice/sausage biscuit. 🙂
Love it- both the message and the choice of food. Thanks for celebrating AAC Awareness Month with us!