October 2, 2017
by Carole Zangari -
Welcome to ISAAC‘s 10th Annual International AAC Awareness Month! For the past decade, October has given us some extra opportunities 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,... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC Awareness, AAC Awareness Month, AAC partner training
October 3, 2016
by Carole Zangari -
Need some ideas for celebrating AAC Awareness Month? Here are a few to get you started. Participate on the #USSAAC Twitterchat on 10/13 at 7:00 pm EDT (UTC−04:00). New to Twitterchats? You can learn more here. The wonderful Chris Bugaj will be moderating. Subscribe to a blog with an AAC content, such as Uncommon Sense, Jane Farrall Consulting, AAC Girls, or Superpower Speech Follow a new AAC topical Pinterest board from Lauren Enders and others: AAC and AT, AT/AAC/Adapt/Modify/Accessibility/Accommodations, AT for Communication, SLP AAC, & AugComm, AAC by Constantly Speaking, Communication-AAC Print, hang, or give someone an AAC awareness image, 10 Commandments of AAC Devices, or 5 Tips for Communicating with Nonverbal Student Register for a free AAC professional development webinar from Ablenet University Print out an AAC Poster, like Lauren Enders’ AAC Boot Camp-Getting AAC Users to Communicate or Kate Ahern’s The Periodic Table of AAC, Explore an AAC app or SGD that is new to you Print out song visual... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC Awareness
October 1, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
Happy International AAC Awareness Month! Do you have plans to celebrate or build awareness about AAC? Here are some images that can help you do just that. The larger images are sized for Facebook header images and the smaller ones for Facebook profile photos.
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC Awareness, Facebook
October 16, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
From Bielsko, Poland, to Denver, USA, we are continuing to share the Faces of AAC. Today, we meet SLP Gretchen Storm, who works in the public school system and has a private practice. Gretchen enjoys collaborating with parents, children, teachers, other healthcare providers, siblings and peers in strategies and facilitating communication through speech generating devices. In this post, Gretchen introduces us to Zach. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Zach is an 11 year old who uses a Tobii I-12 eye gaze communication device to communicate. He previously used a switch scanning method on a VMax from Dynavox. Zach recently switched to an eye gaze device. Though he loves to use his arms and hands whenever possible, his motor control of them is not ideal for the consistent switch access needed for switch scanning. He was switched to an eye gaze system which could also serve as a switch scanning device if in the future he demonstrates improved... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC Awareness, eye gaze, Faces of AAC, Gretchen Storm
October 13, 2012
by Robin Parker -
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference”- Winston Churchill October’s Strategy of the Month focuses on Acceptance of AAC. There is always a path to acceptance of new ideas, new situations, or even new science. Even though AAC strategies and concepts are by no means new, they are often different from the ‘norm’ (whatever that is). We know that the path to acceptance is often filled with obstacles. In AAC, The Participation Model (Beukelman & Mirenda, 1988) delineates two main barriers to successful implementation. There are opportunity and access barriers. Opportunity barriers to participation are those imposed by people in the environment of the AAC user, while access barriers are present based on issues related to the individual who uses AAC. It seems that in the last several school and community visits, we have noticed a high degree of opportunity barriers which relate to attitude. The attitude... [Read More...]
Filed under: Strategy of the Month
Tagged With: AAC Acceptance, AAC Awareness, myths