Tag Archive: professional development

5 AAC-related Presentation Handouts from 2012

December 11, 2012 by - Leave your thoughts

One of our deepest holiday wishes is that every AAC-loving clinician could have an increased travel budget for professional development. Until then, here are some handouts from AAC presentations at conferences around the US.  From the ISAAC Biennial Conference in Pittsburgh: Effects of Early AAC Intervention for Children with Down Syndrome by Janice Light and Kathryn Drager This was a well-attended session by Jane Korsten & Terry Foss at ISAAC 2012: Assessment Strategies for Individuals with Sensorimotor Differences Wish I could have been at Deanna Wagner’s session at ARSHA on AAC for Students with Visual and Multiple Disabilities: How to Plan and Implement a Successful AAC Treatment of Childhood Apraxia of Speech: A Checklist for Evidence-based Practice by Sue Caspari at the 2012 ASHA Schools Conference Theresa Bartolotta & Patricia Remshifski’s ASHA session on Communication & Swallowing in Rett Syndrome: An Update for Clinicians

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It’s All About Us

October 29, 2012 by - 1 Comment

It’s All About Us

No one wants to be ‘that’ professional. You know him or her. The one who always sees the glass as half empty. The one who can give you a long list of things his/her clients can’t do, won’t be able to do. The one is quick to give a dozen reasons why the AAC tools and strategies won’t work for his/her clients. The one who repeatedly says “We tried that and it didn’t work.” I met a professional like this (haven’t we all??) at a workshop I was teaching on making AAC work in the classroom. She approached me at every break and was eager to talk. In these conversations she tried everything she could to get me to agree that her kids were “too low functioning,” that the AAC device was too high level for them, and that the parent’s expectations were unrealistic. What struck me about this young... [Read More...]

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PrAACtical Alert: The World’s AAC Conference Comes to You (Well, a little bit of it)

July 25, 2012 by - Leave your thoughts

PrAACtical Alert: The World’s AAC Conference Comes to You (Well, a little bit of it)

I am so very lucky to be able to go to Pittsburgh this weekend for the biennial conference of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC). You can check back here for some comments and highlights on the conference. Also, for those of you who use Twitter (or were looking for an excuse to dive in), you can get updates from a group of ISAAC Twitter Delegates and others throughout the entire conference. Follow #ISAAC2012, if you want a peek into what is going on. –

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PrAACtical Resources to Scope Out

July 3, 2012 by - Leave your thoughts

PrAACtical Resources to Scope Out

Know someone who is new to the AAC field? – Lots of our fellow SLPs did their graduate work before there was much AAC training in the curriculum. If you are mentoring a professional who is trying to learn the basics of AAC, here is a great place to start. Scope provides information and services to people with disabilities in the UK. – A number of years ago, they developed an excellent set of resources that are still very prAACtical and useful today. There are 12 AAC modules with downloadable PDF documents that can help introduce professionals to this area of clinical/educational practice. – Click here to access those modules. –

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