February 11, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
At a conference last month, I had some wonderful interactions with teachers and SLPs who are incredibly dedicated to helping their students with AAC needs become more proficient communicators. A number of common threads emerged through comments like these. “It’s really frustrating! My student would make SO much more progress if there was carryover at home.” “I keep telling my student’s parents this but they don’t really follow through.” “I’ve told them about the research and shared a lot of web links with them, but nothing seems to change. My student’s family still doesn’t really use his AAC at home.” “The family tells me that they are modeling AAC, but when I look at the ‘history’ it shows that not much AAC is happening outside of school hours.” In person and through social media, professionals have shared their stories and expressed that they are sometimes surprised and puzzled but mostly disappointed... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: family, home, parents, partner skills
March 25, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Missed some of our AAC posts from last week? Here’s what we were up to. Monday – PrAACtical Resources: Pragmatic Profile for People Who Use AAC Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Feature Matching for Apps Thursday – PrAACtical Alert: AAC App Discounts :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Looking for some resources to use in your AAC work? Check out some of those listed below. AAC 101 Flipbook Communication Partner Data Collection Form AAC Skills: Caught or Taught? AAC Modeling Handout Repairing Communication Breakdowns
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: AAC modeling, communication repair, flipbook, partner skills, summary post
August 2, 2017
by Carole Zangari -
Getting ready to head back to school? There are lots of things we can do to help our AAC learners be successful in the classroom and develop their language skills. In today’s post, we feature another wonderful video in the Power AAC series sponsored by PaTTAN. Master AAC clinician Gail Van Tatenhove is the speaker and shares essential information about ways in which partners can support students who are learning to use AAC systems. Before beginning, you may want to download this handout with links to video clips of the target strategies being used. We’re grateful to Gail and PaTTAN for making this video and sharing it so that we can all benefit.
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: AAC partner training, partner skills, school
November 25, 2016
by Carole Zangari -
Helping families build their AAC support skills is an important part of what we do. In today’s post, we have a return visit from Alicia Garcia, a lead SLP at the AAC Clinic at One Kids Place, a children’s treatment centre in northern Ontario. Alicia has more than two decades of clinical experience in a variety of settings and locales. You can see a guest post Alicia did on avoiding pitfalls in aided language input here. Today, she shares a booklet of handouts on AAC facilitation skills that can be used when working with families and other stakeholders. Many thanks to the AAC Team at One Kids Place for allowing us to share this helpful resource.
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: family, parent training, partner skills