Please Don ’t Leave My Voice on the Shelf: 5 Tips to Improve AAC Use in School

Do you ever walk into a classroom to find your student’s augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device sitting quietly on a shelf? Does everyone on the school team think of it as a voice? After experiencing AAC access challenges with many well-meaning educators on a number of occasions, I probed deeper. I soon discovered other school-based speech-language pathologists encountered similar challenges. When I asked them for theories as to why this was happening, several themes emerged. ‘Alexa, Call My SLP’: Using Smart Tech to Boost AAC Transitioning Into Adulthood for Students Using AAC   Research shows that children with communication challenges do best when introduced to AAC as early as 12 months. Typical reasons why AAC wasn’t being used include that school staff: Viewed AAC more as a tool than as a voice. Lacked education and training with AAC. Felt overwhelmed with the prospect of learning about new technology alongside other responsibilities. Abandoned AAC when students displayed challenging behaviors, such as pressing off-topic buttons. I hope these five strategies can help SLPs improve AAC access challenges. Consistently refer to AAC as the child’s voice. I encourage SLPs to consistently refer to the device as the student’s voice. For example, “I’m going to grab Johnny’s voice to program some new words onto it.” As my understanding of this challenge began to crystallize, I wrote a poem entitled Please Don’...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Tags: Schools Slider Speech-Language Pathology Augmentative Alternative Communication Autism Spectrum Disorder Source Type: blogs