Tag Archive: language therapy
October 28, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
For several years, we’ve written many posts on the use of visual supports with AAC learners. One thing we haven’t talked about, though, is what to do when you’re in the midst of therapy or a lesson, and the need for an additional visual support arises. In this week’s featured video, SLP Shannon Hennig does an amazing job of explaining how she improvises to make visual supports on the fly. Like you, I appreciate the plethora of visual supports that have been appearing on Teachers Pay Teachers, SLP blogs, materials exchange sites, and Pinterest. Most of them are just adorable, some of them are well-designed, and all of them make using visual supports more convenient for busy professionals and families. In the end, though, the best visual supports are the ones that meet the needs of the situations. And, while we do our best to predict what will be needed... [Read More...]
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: language therapy, Shannon Hennig, visual supports
October 8, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
Last month, we began some musings about the sad reality that the percentage of people who use AAC to communicate in a grammatically correct fashion is woefully small. In that post, we explored some of the reasons for that and looked at conversations in which the communication partner does a lot of vertical scaffolding. While the term vertical scaffolding may be new to some of you, the concept is one with which you are quite familiar. Here’s an example: Learner: Olaf. Elsa. Clinician: Are you telling me about Frozen? Learner: Nods Clinician: What about Frozen? Learner: Book. Clinician: Oh, did you get a Frozen book for your birthday? Learner: Nods excitedly Clinician: Awesome! You should bring it next time so we can read it together. Scenarios like this are very common in AAC, especially among communicators who use their AAC to say 1-2 words at a time. Because their... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: language intervention, language therapy
September 22, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
Here’s a sobering thought. Relatively few users of AAC use grammatically correct sentences when they communicate. There are lots reasons for that, but in this post, we focus on understanding the things that contribute to that problem. In Part 2, we’ll look at ways to address the issue. Let’s reflect on the problem of why many AAC learners don’t communicate with complete, grammatically correct utterances. When communication is time-consuming and difficult, it makes sense to put your effort to saying things that convey a lot of meaning and skip the rest. If you are trying to get your point across with as little effort as possible, content-heavy words, like agents, actions, and places, pack a punch. As clinicians, we are often so driven to understand the main points of what the learner is trying to convey that we promote that strategy. Here are two snippets to illustrate. Clinician: Look at... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: intervention, language therapy, vertical structure
September 17, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
Great kid. Check! Appropriate AAC system. Check! Well-developed intervention goals. Check! Key intervention strategies. Check! Where do we go from here? Well, if you are anything like the young clinicians with whom I’ve been speaking, you might be thinking about therapy activities and materials. Here are some past posts that may be of interest. Magic Moments with Tellagami New Word Teaching: A Look Inside Some PrAACtical Therapy Sessions 5 Ways to Use Word Clouds in AAC Therapy and Magic Moments with Word Clouds Magic Moments: Painting with Time Teaching the Use of Social Phrases and Comments Let’s Go Outside! 5 PrAACtical Ideas Magic Moments with Disneyland Explorer “Can I Ask You a Question?” Language Experience Surveys 5 PrAACtical Thoughts on Catch-up Conversations Magic Moments with Sentence Builder
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: activities, language intervention, language therapy
July 9, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
Judgment tasks refer to situations in which we present some examples and have the learner pass judgment on them. They can be examples of words used correctly/incorrectly, word endings used properly/improperly, or responses that fit well/poorly with a situation. We can set them up so that the learner weighs in with a binary judgment (e.g. thumbs up/down), gives them points (e.g., 2 points=perfect, 1=good, 0=wrong), a letter grade (e.g., A+ to F), or rates on a scale (e.g.,Excellent Okay Terrible). There are several reasons why I love judgment tasks. It can be a fun, low-stress way to increase their awareness of specific linguistic concepts. Think of it as giving them receptive exposure to the concept. In these tasks, we’re highlighting the concept but not expecting them to produce it. They put the learner in a position of power. Our prAACtical friends often don’t get enough experiences with that role, so... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: intervention ideas, language therapy
June 4, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
Magazines are one of my favorite therapy materials for AAC learners. There is a lot to love about these inexpensive, engaging materials. They’re readily available, novel, and easy to tote around. But most importantly, they work really well because you can find a magazine on practically any topic. From Justin Bieber to sharks to the Miami Heat and everywhere in between, there is likely to be a magazine that is age respectful and aligns with the interests of any AAC learner. There are so many options for using magazines in our AAC therapies. Here are some ideas to get you started. Beyond choicemaking: We all love to give our clients choices to promote engagement and support personal autonomy. (What’s the point of AAC if people aren’t also learning to speak up and use their voices to impact their lives?) Offering a choice of magazines is a fine, of course, but in... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: language therapy
April 27, 2015
by Carole Zangari -
Like many of you, I enjoy using fun websites in AAC therapy sessions. Word clouds are popular therapy tools, both because of their versatility and because they are fun and easy to make. Word clouds are images composed of words on a given topic, where the frequency of use of a word determines its size in the word cloud image. There are lots of websites and apps for this, and most are free. If you are looking for a way to build literacy into your language therapy activities, this may be an option worth exploring. Here are some ideas for prAACtical things to do. Build word knowledge: Use the word cloud to define new words, provide examples, and given synonyms. Once created, you can print these out for a word notebook or display on a vocabulary word wall. You can also keep a digital copy for a vocabulary notebook that... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: implementation ideas, intervention, language therapy, word clouds
August 22, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
While we’re on vacation, take a look at some of the resources we’ve collected on AAC and language intervention.
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: language therapy
July 30, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
In an earlier post, we raised this question: Why work hard at something you don’t care about? The truth is that all of us put more effort into learning things that allow us to accomplish something important to US. As SLPs, we can spout many reasons why learning to use and comprehend more advanced language is a good idea. Making that meaningful to our clients, though, is another thing altogether. How can we align our therapy objectives with things of true value to our clients? Figure out what the AAC learner wants: More friends? A job? Good grades? Link the language and AAC objectives to those things. Seek the AAC learner’s input on goals and objectives: If the learner can’t nominate his/her own goals for consideration, maybe you can offer choices or help them use a rating scale to give their opinion on the suggested goals. Provide rationales for why... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: language intervention, language therapy
July 3, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
Do you work with AAC learners who seem perfectly content saying things that are vague or non-specific, despite their ability to communicate more precisely? It puts a burden on the partner to use context to figure out the meaning, and sometimes this is efficient and quite necessary. Other times, however, it makes sense to seize the opportunity to teach them about saying things that are clear enough to be understood without relying on context or the partner’s knowledge of the AAC user. Like you, we sometimes work with people who are learning to be more specific in the things that they say. For those learners, we try to balance enthusiasm and interest in the message with cues that direct them to add more information. We’ve noticed that some AAC practitioners are reluctant to press the learner to communicate in more specific terms, and we certainly agree that there are times when the... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: clarity, language intervention, language therapy, specificity