I have a friend who is originally from Poland.  Around the time of the unfortunate plane crash that took the life of the Polish president and others, I ran into her.  The first thing she asked was, “Did you hear about the plane crash?”  She was obviously upset about it and wanted to discuss the affect it might have on her native country as well as her family who lives there.  

Around the same time, there was a volcanic eruption that took place in Iceland causing the grounding of many flights to Europe, discussion about the economy and the jobless rate, Larry King reunited with his 7^th wife, two of my cousin’s were planning weddings and several of my friend’s had terrible colds.  These events certainly do not have an equal impact on the world as a whole, but they were all topics about which I was interacting.  It certainly would have been hard for me to do so if I did not have available to me the appropriate vocabulary to share that “ash” was being blown across Europe by the “wind” and that the color of my cousin’s bridesmaid “dresses” will be “apricot.” 

How do we assist those using augmentative communication to keep up with these shifting conversational topics?  Here are a few ideas that may not be new but remain useful.

•  Show the augmented communicator where vocabulary is already located in the device to talk about current topics.  The word, “wind”, for example is under “Weather” in “My Words” while “dress” is under “Clothing.”   I could talk with my friend from Poland using the “Feelings” vocabulary in “My Words” or the “What I Think” or “Opinion” message in “My Phrases.”  Vocabulary related to illness is in the “Going to the Doctor” pages and financial messages and vocabulary can be located in the “Banking” pages or in “Finances” in “My Words.”
• Add words that are needed in appropriate places.  I might add “President” to the “People” page in “My Words” and “volcano” to the “Weather” page.  I haven’t decided if I would add “apricot” to the colors or the foods. 
• Keep a few buttons in ”What I Think” or “Opinion” tab of “My Phrases” open for messages regarding current events in the world, in the neighborhood and in the family.   

In the V/Vmax devices and on the Xpress Design Software, there is a feature which allows you to take advantage of the increased availability of news in text on the Internet and via email.  It is called the Vocabulary Clipboard.  You are able to drag text from an article on the Internet, an email or word processing documents into the Vocabulary Clipboard.  This procedure varies somewhat depending on whether you are working on the computer (V/Vmax software, Xpress software) or on the device itself (V/Vmax open or closed).  The Vocabulary Clipboard automatically pulls out the nouns, phrases (including short phrases in quotes), verbs and adjectives below a frequency threshold, words that are not recognized by the device’s dictionary and consecutive capitalized words creating a list.  You may then drag this vocabulary into buttons on a page.  This is an efficient way of keeping up-to-date utilizing resources that are already in your device and on your computer. 

 You can find step-by-step “how to” resources about this topic in the Knowledge Base .  Type in the words, “Vocabulary Clipboard”, in the “Search for Keyword” box and review the article for your device.