Tag Archive: Conversation
May 17, 2017
by Carole Zangari -
For people who are learning to use AAC, therapy is important. Good instruction matters. But you know what else really matters? Having the chance to build relationships and talk with other people just like you. Today’s featured video highlights a group that has been offering this opportunity to the community for several years. Dr. Nancy Robinson and her students in the Communicative Disorders Clinic at San Francisco State University have been hosting a social opportunity group that brings together people who use AAC. Let’s take a peek into Conversation Club. Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1YzBsriqRU
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: Conversation, group, social, video
December 26, 2016
by Carole Zangari -
A great many AAC learners would love to be more actively involved in social conversations but may not have the skills to carry on a conversation. For some individuals, the use of pre-stored messages designed to get their partners talking is a great way take the pressure off and allow the AAC learner to be more actively involved in the conversation. Partner-focused questions serve to get information, opinions, or feedback. By creating these and storing them as whole questions, the AAC learner has a relatively quick and easy means to drive the direction of the conversation. Here are some examples: How were your holidays? What did you get for Christmas/Hanukkah? What do you think? Where did you go over break? How’s your family? What’s going on with you? In general, people love talking about themselves and questions like these are a great way to get the ball rolling or keeping... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Conversation, holiday, language therapy, prestored messages
December 23, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
There is much to love about these video segments showing adults with intellectual disabilities interacting with their peers and caregivers in a supported community living environment. For starters, we love seeing successful interactions that focus on social connectedness, sharing information and true participation, as opposed to requesting and behavior regulation. Notice the tone of these conversations and the supportive strategies that the caregivers use. The residents are respected, empowered, and successful. And, of course, we love seeing the use of multiple modes of communication! Many thanks to the staff and residents of Inner South Communication Service of Victoria, Australia for making these videos available.
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: adults, Conversation, intellectual disability
November 16, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
It’s a great day to see AAC strategies in action. Today, the AAC Chicks from Dynamic Therapy Assoiates are back with another prAACtical video about using aided language input in conversation. You can see more of their work here. Direct link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUl8kD53NQg
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: AAC Chicks, aided language input, Conversation, Dynamic Therapy Associates
December 22, 2013
by Robin Parker -
Awesome video from Kreed’s World on teaching short conversations. Look at the great example of the language facilitation strategy: repetition with variety. Also, look at the meaningful language experience for Kreed (and his communication partner) as the conversation was authentic and based on Kreed’s interest.
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: Conversation, meaningful language experience, repetition with variety, teaching
July 8, 2013
by Robin Parker -
Make a Plan – Schedule a time to ‘talk about the past event (July 4th). The plan can include a ‘talk time’ or a time to collect remnants, photos, or related items from the event. Use a calendar or schedule to plan AAC style. Put Together A ‘Talking’ Photo Album– Gather all the photos from the activity and put together a talking photo album. You can use any talking photo album where you record a voice or use a story creation app that has recorded (digitized) or computer generated speech (synthesized). The process of making the photo album can be the ‘past event’ conversation and/or a review/reading can be the ‘conversation’. For some learners, turning the pages is the beginning of talking about past events while for other learners the pictures will be the opportunity for the conversation. It is helpful to use text and speech as you create the... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: calendars, Conversation, July 4th, past events, schedules
February 9, 2013
by Robin Parker -
This month’s communication and language strategy goes beyond requesting into conversation. Beginning (and more advanced) communicators can be introduced to conversations through scripts. Scripts for teaching the art of conversation can help give the language to initiate, maintain, extend, and terminate social and conversational exchanges. Scripts can be used to talk about special interests, to participate in activities, and much more. When we teach scripts in a way a learner ‘learns’, the script shows the guidelines, boundaries, and organization of conversations. The communication and language goal is conversation. The strategy to teach conversation is scripts. Scripts are not that foreign to the conversational situation. We all may use scripts at times. Think about your ‘small talk’ scripts or your scripts that help you in unfamiliar or difficult conversations. If learners have difficulty knowing how to participate in conversation, a script can capitalize on strengths like memory and doing well with... [Read More...]
Filed under: Strategy of the Month
Tagged With: Conversation, Scripts
September 2, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
We’ve been thinking a lot lately about the social skills of some of our AAC friends who are not quite fitting in the way that they would like. SLPs frequently work on social interaction skills with learners on the ASD spectrum, but it’s not something that we always think about with learners who have cerebral palsy, apraxia, or other developmental disabilities. – The idea of using a balance scale as a metaphor for balance in conversational turns is intriguing and one we’ve explored a bit. In this video from Autism Teaching Strategies, Joel Shaul demonstrates the strategy and discusses it relative to turn-taking (Click here for Part 1 and click here for the second video). That makes sense for a lot of learners who don’t respond to non-obligatory situations as well as they could. – We’ve also used it for helping people with AAC see how their utterances compare to... [Read More...]
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: Conversation, intervention
August 5, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
Cohesion is a tough concept for many of our learners who are developing their AAC skills and struggling to build relationships. In this week’s featured video, Joel Shaul, from Autism Teaching Strategies, discusses how to use two metaphors for building cohesive conversations. One is the idea of links in a chain and the other is the girders of a building. Of course, we are big fans of the use of visual supports whenever we talk and teach. — Although the focus here is learners with ASD, we’ve used this and similar strategies many kinds of learners. Hope you enjoy this informative video. – – – –
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: Conversation, intervention, resources, visual supports
July 8, 2012
by Carole Zangari -
A young AAC user whom I know shared a story with me recently about feeling left out and struggling to find out why. Although she is smart, has age appropriate receptive language, and good command of her high tech SGD, building and maintaining friendships is a struggle. One of the things we’ll be doing to make changes in that area is to learn more about what makes a good conversation, adding vocabulary to make small talk easier, and practicing that. – Here’s a nice video, from Autism Teaching Strategies, that shows how to use visual supports and music to help learners remember to use some of the conversational continuers. Although Joel Shaul demonstrates this with visual supports that have words and phrases, the strategy works just as well with pictures for pre-literate communicators. – – Enjoy!
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: Conversation, intervention, pragmatics, visual supports