My friend has a 2-year-old son who, needless to say, is very active.  When she is busy with cooking dinner or other such things, he is even busier…taking the opportunity to pull things out of drawers, playing with the telephone, grabbing objects of interest from the countertops.  She needs to stay a step ahead of him.  We hear this phrase, “staying a step ahead”, often when it comes to managing actions and behavior but it also holds true when talking about language as well.  

What do I mean by this?  Let me explain with an illustration.  I speak a bit of French.  Though my accent isn’t bad (so I have been told), I have the vocabulary of an 18 month old.  Imagine if I decided that my child or student needed to learn French.  I might enroll them in a 1 hour class or afterschool program.  Great!   That is one or two hours a week.  My child will never be a fluent speaker of French unless I carry it over at home or in the classroom.  Given my current skills, how well will my child speak French?  Probably not very well, he might have a good accent but he wouldn’t be able to carry on a conversation.  In order for my child to really succeed, I need to stay a step ahead by using the language that I expect him to use. 

This applies directly to use of augmentative communication.  I often hear people say, “He knows the device better than I do.”  That makes me very sad. As adults we have skills that need to be passed on to younger communicators – not just vocabulary and where it is located, but how to communicate effectively in conversation (e.g., starting an interaction, asking questions, how much information to provide based on the situations, how to interject during a group discussion).  In addition, we may be needed to assist the younger communicator with conversational repair (e.g., finding the right words, correcting a social misstep).   These things cannot happen if the adults around an augmented communicator are not a “step ahead.”  

How do we take this step ahead? 

• Learn what is in the device.
  • Explore
  • Use resources from DynaVox
    • Use the resources in our “Introduction to InterAACT Language Elements” on the Implementation Toolkit including a video overview of the language in in DynaVox devices.
    • Use the device to communicate yourself.
      • Learn about Partner Augmented Input
        • Look to the Implementation Toolkit’s “Communication Partner Techniques” learning path for resources to help you.
• Use Partner Augmented Input
  • Pick one daily activity to start with then add additional activities as you feel comfortable.
  • Keep the goals in mind.
    • Use the device to model the skills you want the student to obtain in functional situations.  These skills might be sentence structures, grammatical endings, vocabulary or social skills. 

Stay a “step ahead” of your students in the use of the device to encourage them to move on to greater skills.