There is a wealth of information and materials for you on our website, so you may be asking yourself, "Where in the world do I start?" No worries, we've got you! This is the first stop in your training! In this unit we will be answering some primary questions to get you started!
Our specialized training hub dedicated to supporting communication success in Early Intervention in the home and our preschool classrooms
AAC Partner Strategy Kits are engaging posters/handouts, descriptions and short videos explaining and modeling techniques for you to use to help your student be willing, and able to communicate using their AAC system!
5 steps to move from training to talking, give you a clear path for you and your student learner. Learning to communicate is a shared journey between the learner and their partners, and that makes sense! Communication is a shared activity between two people. It is the means for us to make connections, meet our needs, engage socially, participate in shared experiences, and bridge the gap between our experiences and sharing these their partners.
Communication is a dynamic process, between at least 2 people. It requires us to not only teach our students news skills, but also to learn new skills ourselves! There are years of research on the need for partners to people who use augmentative communication (AAC) to have knowledge around best practices in encouraging interaction with students who use AAC. To this end, we are creating materials and webinars, as well as conducting trainings to help partners of AAC users hone their skills. We have also curated a variety of materials from all the wonderful specialists out in the world who are also developing and sharing their resources!
Following this training, you'll find 14 trainings designed to give you specific technique you can use to help your student build a desire to communicate with you and everyone else! Our Partner Strategy Kits are a great place to begin helping your students become engaged communicators!
Aided Language Input is one of the most highly researched methods of helping our students learn how their behaviors are meaningful for communication, how to use their own AAC system, and to advance their language skills for communication. Aided Language Input is “a communication strategy that requires a communication partner to teach symbol meaning and model symbolic communication by pairing speech with graphic symbols or other forms of aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).” There is a substantial research supporting the use of Aided Language Input to improve the student’s understanding that their behaviors are communicative, that symbols allow them to communicate with a larger audience and, improve overall language development through expanding messages. Project Core, “Research Specific to: Aided Language Input”
This is a PLAN to begin increasing the comfort level of adult partners learning to use their student's AAC system for modeling and teaching. We start with a single target word/message and practice for 15 minutes, 3x/week for 2 weeks. For facilitators (AT Specialist, classroom teacher, SLP) there are planning sheets with a simple lesson plan to help you get started. This program is designed to be accomplished in 3 weeks, with the end goal of increasing adult partner's comfort touching the AAC systems and systematically increasing the number of times they model communication for their student. You'll find this resource linked below!
In this video we are exploring "how to talk so students will listen and how to listen so students will talk"- AAC Style! These are strategies that WE can use to encourage our students to communicate with us (speaking AND non-speaking students)! We are concentrating on helping build confidence and eagerness to communicate in all of our students! After you watch the webinar, click the "get credit!" button to take the short quiz and earn a certificate for continuing education maintenance hours. (ASHA CMHs or for proof of attendance)
In this video we are exploring Aided Language Input strategies to encourage our students to use their AAC systems for a variety of communication purposes. We will look at Senner & Baud's SMORRES acronym to help us remember all our AAC partner strategies!
Interviews Jill Senner and Matthew Baud researchers on the forefront of AAC Partner Strategies training
On her Model as a MASTERPAL framework
Tabi Jones Wohleber has developed a wonderful set of training resources she freely offers to help AAC partners learn key strategies for encouraging communication from their students. Her entire series is published on PrAACtical AAC Website. Sit back because this one is chock full of ideas and resources!
Communication is a dynamic process, between at least 2 people. It requires us to not only teach our students news skills, but also to learn new skills ourselves!
When a communication partner is speaking, the words are also "modeled" or shown using the AAC system.
Is it really as simple and being quiet and listening? Yes! Sometimes just waiting 10-15 seconds is all it takes to encourage our student to begin to use their AAC system to tell us something!
Keeping the AAC system available at all times is the very first step in making AAC work for your student!
When we are teaching students to communicate, we must ensure that they are interested and engaged so that they will attend, learn and remember how to say what they want to say, when they want to say it!
The easiest words and messages to learn, are ones you are already communicating in other ways! Let's look at how we can target meaningful messages by following our student's lead!
When we consider the process of teaching new skills and language to our AAC users, it is imperative that we remember the role of motivation and fun when teaching. If the student is motivated by a favorite activity, person or toy, they will be much more likely to learn and ENJOY learning! Effective and efficient with a side dish of FUN!
The expansion strategy is a way to help bridge the student's learning, from single word messages to multiple word messages.
How do you encourage spontaneous communication? Sometimes it’s as simple as setting up a situation that gives your student an interesting reason to communicate!
It’s very easy to get caught in the habit of asking questions that only require a “yes” or “no” response when you are talking to your student using AAC. Let's talk about that!
The Descriptive Teaching Model is a strategy that teaches students to use high-frequency, common words rather than more rarely used words.