The AAC through Motivate, Model and Move Out of the Way Facebook Group is having Summer Reading Contest. The goal of the contest is two fold: to have professionals and caregivers practice modeling and to create a free, online library of videos of storybooks being read aloud with AAC modeling happening during the reading. Please note: there doesn’t need to be AAC users present during the video - although it is not prohibited. The contest begins July 1, 2018 and closes August 1, 2018. The hope is that we will see videos posted of many robust AAC systems both electronic and non-electronic and ..read more

Join us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Teaching-Learners-with-Multiple-Needs/179671874000 ..read more

Facilitated Communication, recently rebranded as Supported Typing, is an unethical and means physically supporting, oftentimes unknowingly physically forcing, individuals with complex communication needs to communicate by pointing to letters on a piece of paper, board or keyboard. FC, as it is known, has been condemned by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, American Speech and Hearing Association, International Society for Augmentative an ..read more

People who know me know that I talk about the AAC or Communication Bill of Rights all the time.  All. The. Time.  I talk about it when training teachers, parents/caregivers, therapists and paraprofessionals. I teach directly about the AAC Bill of a Rights with my AAC using students.  I program specific messages about the AAC Bill of Rights onto my clients’ AAC Systems so they can self-advocate quickly when needed. I talk about it when I teach about AAC and behavior because often times “challenging behavior” is an indicator that the AAC Bill of a Rights is not being respected.&n ..read more

The world of assistive technology has come a long way since this blog started!  More and more often our students have the option for direct selection, the fastest way, on a communication system.  For many users options such as integrated conductive touch screens, head trackers, adapted joysticks and trackballs, and especially eye gaze tracking, have made switches less necessary in our field. Still, switches have a place in our assistive technology tool kit.  For learners with access needs that preclude direct selection through any possible means our next option is usually swit ..read more

In special education for children and young adults with significant disabilities we often assume that functional skills is our most important goal.  Yet, we often don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about what functional means or which skills are actually functional for our learners. This is the dictionary definition of functional: func·tion·al ˈfəNG(k)SH(ə)n(ə)l/ adjective adjective: functional 1. of or having a special activity, purpose, or task; relating to the way in which something works or operates. "there are important functional differences between left and right bra ..read more

This past week in the Facebook group AAC through Motivate, Model, Move Out of the Way we held a challenge for folks to post one picture each day of AAC users with their AAC systems "in the wild" (in everyday use, preferably out in the world). It was an overwhelming success with hundreds and hundreds of pictures posted from around the world! Posts included some in Dutch, Norwegian, French and Spanish as well as English! The above video is the "long cut" and this is the "short cut". You can see pictures from the campaign by searching for #seemeseemyaac on Facebook and other social media platfo ..read more

Teaching Internal Dialogue to AAC Users with Complex Needs  We all hold ongoing conversations with ourselves. We use self-talk to: Regulate our emotions (take a deep breathe, it must just be drive like a jerk day)  Motivate ourselves (I got this!)  Scold ourselves (Put down your phone and talk to people!)  Explain things to ourselves (He probably meant that as a joke...)  Help us with planning (if I leave at 3:30 I can run to the store before I pick him up at karate.)  Remind ourselves (The radio just said rain tomorrow, put the umbrella by the door.)  W ..read more

Did you know that the Foreign Service Institute says that for an adult who is fluent and literate in English to learn a foreign language with a different alphabetic system to a basic communication level takes at least 720 hours? Yet we ask children who may not have reading ability and who possibly have difficulties with receptive language to prove progress towards master of a language system with as little as one hour a week of language therapy. Even if they were adults with full receptive language, a lifetime of experience in the world and average cognitive abilities AND they spent ALL 30 h ..read more

I spent the past week at the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication Biannual Conference, held this year in Toronto, Canada. I learned a lot and enjoyed my time meeting people I had only known online before then.   By the second day of the conference I realized that I might need to repost a slightly revised version of this post from four years ago at ISAAC in Pittsburg.  At ISAAC Pittsburg I started joking that we all needed color coded dots on our name tags as shorthand to tell others which "church" of AAC we have joined. What I mean is that people w ..read more