Tag Archive: symbols
January 19, 2020
by Carole Zangari -
Happy Sunday, AAC friends. Here are some posts you may have missed in your busy week. Monday – PrAACtically Martin Luther King Jr Day: AAC Learning Suggestions Tuesday – AAC Link Up Wednesday – Video of the Week: Exploring the Complexity of CVI and CCN Thursday – AAC AACtivity Round-up ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Before you go, here are a couple of other suggestions for posts to explore. Transitioning to the Workplace: Resources for AAC Learners with Significant Disabilities Working with Multiple Symbol Sets Faces of AAC: Making It Work in A Busy Family Supporting AAC Learners in Working with Words Vocabulary Instruction: When Definitions Don’t Work
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: symbols, vocabulary, work
August 26, 2019
by Carole Zangari -
Amanda Samperi is back with the second post in her series about getting ready to return to school-based AAC services. Amanda is an AAC SLP who has worked in a variety of service delivery settings and runs the blog, AAC is Where It’s AT. Currently, she provides push-in language therapy to children with complex communication needs at a substantially-separate center school in Florida. She also conducts AAC/AT evaluations, provides year-round parent trainings, and assists the SLP team in instructing teachers/staff about communication supports and strategies In today’s post, she addresses a situation faced by many AAC teams: Serving children who use a variety of different AAC symbols and systems. If you missed Amanda’s initial post on back-to-school AAC, you can catch up on that here. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: How I Do It: Working with Multiple Symbol Sets It’s the beginning of the year – desks are in their spots, students’ names are... [Read More...]
Filed under: Featured Posts, PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: back to school, classroom, implementation ideas, symbols
March 4, 2018
by Carole Zangari -
Good morning, AAC friends! If you had a busy week, you probably missed one or more of these posts from the week. Monday – PrAACtically March: AAC Resources for A Year of Core Vocabulary Words Wednesday – Video of the Week: Implementing Visual Supports Thursday – PrAACtical Resources: AAC Info to Use & Share Still in the mood for some more AAC? Here are a handful of previous posts to explore. Video of the Week: On Using Symbols with Beginning Communicators Video of the Week: Object Symbols and Core Vocabulary A PrAACtical Look at Getting Started with AAC Symbols Fast FAACt Friday: On Symbols and Reading Core Vocabulary: Making Sense of Symbols
Filed under: Featured Posts
Tagged With: summary post, symbols
June 21, 2017
by Carole Zangari -
Figuring out the best way to represent language to someone who will be communicating through AAC is challenging, but when the client is unable to see well enough to use pictures, the task is infinitely more complex. In this week’s featured video, Dr. Kathy Howery provides an overview of the 3D tactile symbols created by the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill for high frequency core words. If you work with individuals who are blind or have very low vision, this important video is one you may want to share with the whole team. You can access the accompanying handout here. Many thanks to Kathy Howery and Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium for creating this video and making it available to us all.
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: blind, deafblind, low vision, object symbols, symbols
November 2, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
Today, we return to the team at Dynamic Learning Maps. In this video, Karen Erickson discusses key factors in symbol use by students with significant communication difficulties.
Filed under: Video of the Week
Tagged With: beginnin communicator, Dynamic Learning Maps, Karen Erickson, symbols, tactile symbols
October 10, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
When we provide literacy experiences to pre-readers, a question emerges: Should we add symbols to the text? For those of us who have been prAACticing for awhile (you know who you are, friends), there has been a shift in our thinking. Early on, we tried to add symbols to the words. Our thinking was that doing so would enhance the client’s ability to learn to read. A few years ago, we re-examined that belief. Here’s why. Many times, our clients didn’t really know the symbols anyway. Symbols for frequently used words (like of, some, and know) are not at all transparent. So the notion that the symbols would help them understand what they were reading often didn’t pan out. We want the learners to (eventually) develop their reading skills and be able to read conventional text. The symbols distract attention away from the print/text. If we want the learner to... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: reading, symbols
September 9, 2014
by Carole Zangari -
We’re back again with another Research Tuesday post, a series organized by Rachel Wynn of Gray Matter Therapy, in which bloggers are encouraged to write about a research article that they’ve read recently. (You may also know Rachel from her amazing work in advocating for ethical services in skilled nursing facilities.) For our September post, we look at a study done with babies to see how they like different AAC symbols. SLPs frequently assume that children with AAC needs better understand and prefer photos to other forms of picture symbols used in AAC. In this article, we look at the work of special educator Alexandra DaFonte whose work gives us some insight into this issue. In this study, she sought to determine if typically developing infants at 6, 9, and 12 months of age responded to two types of graphic symbols used in AAC: actual photographs and Picture Communication Symbols... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: Alexandra da Fonte, babies, PCS, photos, Research Tuesday, symbols
April 12, 2013
by Carole Zangari -
Take a look at these pictures and try to guess their meanings. Now do it again with these symbols. One more time with the symbols below. We’re not gamblers by nature, but if we had to bet we’d say that you had a pretty easy time guessing the first two rows (backpack, banana, bathroom; sleep, wash, eat) and struggled with the last row (know, she, was/were). That presents a bit of a problem, actually, because it’s that last hard-to-guess row that contains important core vocabulary. And these kinds of core words are the ones we need to use frequently during the day. Looks like we have a bit of a dilemma: The symbols that are least transparent are important ones to teach. We often hear SLPs say that they want concrete symbols for some of their clients with AAC needs. We can certainly make that happen for some... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: abstract, core language, core vocabulary, semantics, symbols
August 3, 2012
by Robin Parker -
We can’t believe there are only a few weeks left before school starts. We have been talking to teachers, scheduling school and teacher trainings, helping to prepare communication dictionaries, and making recommendations for classroom materials. We realized that there are some bigger resources that would help MANY students in a classroom and even a school. These are gifts that might cost a lot of money ($150 or more) or a lot of time to set up (but are free). We realized that these would be great gifts for a parent group (PTA’s/PTO’s) or charitable organizations/foundations to give to a teacher, classroom, or school that has students who use AAC even though the gift will benefit ALL learners. Give a gift before school starts or after a successful fundraiser. 5 Great Gifts to Give to A Classroom News-2-You – A symbol based current event newspaper that allows ALL students to talk... [Read More...]
Filed under: PrAACtical Thinking
Tagged With: ablenet, communication, reading, single hit message devices, symbols