Something to Say
It takes practice to pause, but so worth the effort.
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tag Archive: pause
On Not Talking
Traffic lights and stop signs Quarter rests and half rests Commas and periods There are times when a brief pause is just what is needed. In AAC intervention, sometimes a pause is more powerful than anything we can do or say. More effective than us repeating or rephrasing, because those can interfere with processing. More helpful than a question or a mand, because overuse of those can build learned helplessness. Focused attention. Quiet bodies. A few seconds of silence. Provide access to AAC with sufficient vocabulary. Provide an eliciting context. Provide a space for the communicator to process and respond. There is power in the perfect pause.
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Building Communication Skills During Storybook Reading
In this post, we continue to explore strategies for advancing the literacy experiences of people who use AAC. Today, we’ll look at a strategy used in the research of Drs. Cathy Binger and Jennifer Kent-Walsh. What is a little different about this strategy is that it uses literacy experiences, specifically storybook reading, to build communication skills. One component of their research focuses on an interactive reading strategy called RAAP: Read, Ask, Answer, Prompt. There is lots to love about this approach, but one of our favorite things is that is makes heavy use of aided language input, an intervention strategy that is critical for partners of beginning communicators to use. You can read more about aided language input and see videos here. It also gets partners using language expansions and extensions, an intervention strategy that is effective for communicators at many levels of proficiency. Finally, we appreciate the frequent use of... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: aided language input, Cathy Binger, expansion, extensions, Jennifer Kent-Walsh, literacy, pause, RAA, RAAP, reading