Every day may not be good,
but there’s something good in every day.
Author Unknown
When I ask people to describe a particular student with autism that may be on their caseload or in their classroom, I often hear about the student’s challenges. I might hear about the fact that the student isn’t motivated to learn or that [...]
I often find myself helping people who are brand new to AAC. This often happens in the school setting when a teacher gets a student in their classroom who either already has a device or is going through the process to acquire one. Sometimes, it is an SLP who doesn’t really know how to support [...]
So many things have changed in the field of AAC over the past 15 years. Synthesized voices have gotten better. Device capabilities have become more remarkable. Access to funding has improved. There seems to be an endless amount of resources available.
One thing hasn’t changed – the challenges that we face when trying to implement AAC [...]
I love to people watch. My favorite place to watch people is in the airport. Over the past few years, I’ve started to notice that most people are constantly connected to technology, and I think it’s pretty cool. I sit and watch people use their phones, DVD players, computers, music players, etc. Technology has definitely [...]
I recently read an article written by C. Jorgensen (2005) where she proposes a new paradigm in the area of disability and competence. She found that often times if service providers weren’t sure what a student was capable of, it was presumed that the student could not (and never would be able to) learn to [...]
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
- Chinese Proverb
We rely on visual supports everyday. Visual supports help us locate the restroom in a public setting. They tell us where we can and can’t park our cars. They give us direction when we need to assemble a new [...]
I have been supporting people with complex communication needs (CCN) for more than 16 years. I have learned (sometimes the hard way) that the successfulness of a communicative interaction with someone with CCN is often dependent on the skills (or lack thereof) of the communication partner. We, as service providers, can sometimes get wrapped up [...]
Last month, I was sitting with my friend at one of my favorite sushi restaurants. At the table across from ours were two women and a child who looked to be about 20-24 months old. As the two women were absorbed in conversation, the little girl was busy playing a game on her mother’s Blackberry. [...]
A few years back, I needed to create a presentation about socials skills and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). As I was putting the presentation together and creating my materials, I sat back and pondered this question…Why do students with complex communication needs (CCN) have such difficulty during social interaction?
Trying to gather as much information [...]
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth a million! Several years ago, I received a package in the mail that contained the components for my home internet service. I was a little nervous because I just knew that I was going to spend countless hours on the phone [...]
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