The Southern California Augmentative and Alternative Communication Network...

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Monday, August 13, 2012

Research: Online Training for Paraeducators...[in AAC]

child with teacher
Douglas, S., Light, J., & McNaughton, D. (July, 2012).  Online Training for Paraeducators to Support the Communication of Young Children with Complex Communication Needs.  Presentation at 15th Biennial Conference of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) in Pittsburgh, PA....

...This research project examined the effect of online training for paraeducators to support the communication of young children with CCN during play and generalization activities. The content of training was driven by research in early childhood development and communication and based on research in the area of communication partners as summarized by Light and Drager (2010). During the online training paraeducators were taught the three steps of the  PoWR strategy.

1) Provide opportunities for communication
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included teaching paraeducators to provide multiple communication opportunities to their target child by asking questions, commenting about the activity, and providing choices (Fox et al., 1997).

2) Wait for child’s communication
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paraeducators learned to wait for at least five seconds after offering a communication opportunity so the child had adequate time to respond (Downing, 2005; Klein, Cook, & Richardson-Gibbs, 2001; Otto, 2010).

3) Respond to child’s communication
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taught paraeducators to respond when the child communicates, even if the communication is unclear (Allen & Hart, 1984; Cress & Marvin, 2003; Snell, 2002; Snyder & Sheehan, 1996; Zangari & Kangas, 1997).  If the child did not communicate after five seconds, the paraeducator was taught to provide another opportunity for communication....
(read the entire article HERE)

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