Minspeak E-Newsletter, Issue 56

Send to Friend August 30, 2012 Pixon Teaching Tip: Provide a hands-on experience to teach the Pixon for “which”. The Pixon for “which” is a finder pointing at 2 question marks. This Pixon is NOT part of the original set of Pixon pictures. Download this new Pixon as a bmp picture and add it to your Pixon picture file. As your prop, make 2 red question marks. Do a choice making activity. Attach a red question mark to each object. Place one object to the right of your hand and 1 to the left while you ask “which one do you want.... this one (point) or this one (point)?”. Intervention Planning: Create more communication opportunities to encourage your person using Minspeak to ask “which” questions (e.g. which one, which story, which snack). Teaching Materials Exchange: Use the book Labor Day to ask questions about the holiday. It is coded with Pixons and icon sequences from Unity®45, Unity®60, Unity®84, and Unity®144. Core Vocabulary Webinar: Gail Van Tatenhove will be doing a webinar entitled “Using Core Vocabulary in General Education Classrooms: Dealing with the Academic Vocabulary” on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 from 3:30 – 5:00 EST as part of the ATIA 2012 Online Webinar Series. Don’t miss this opportunity. Pittsburgh AAC Language Seminar Series: The next seminar series is September 11-13 and features Caroline Musselwhite as the guest speaker. October 16-18 will feature Gail Van Tatenhove. Go to the Minspeak website for more information and to register for an upcoming series.

ProLoQuo2Go Back-to-School Tips

Follow Proloquo2Go on Facebook (CLICK HERE) for tips like these and more!

1st Tip: How to submit a request for assistance. You can go to this link: https://support.assistiveware.com/index.php?pg=request or email support@proloquo2go.com

2nd Tip: New video! In this 9-minute video demonstration (CLICK HERE), Nate will tour the two new Proloquo2Go 2 vocabularies: Core Word designed for users who are able to put 2 or more words together to make sentences and the Basic Communication vocabulary designed for those who are just beginning to use AAC to express their basic needs.

Grad Course Curriculum: AAC in Autism

In her preparation of curriculum for a 7-week, graduate level course on AAC, Tami Brancamp, Ph.D. (Univ. of Nevada, Reno) asked the ASHA Community SIG 12 for input on the content of her course. I couldn't resist! and would like to share my personal soap box shpeal with you, too...

(From Gwendolyn Meier, Pasadena, CA)
I hope that you will dedicate at least one class session entirely to AAC in autism.  I recognize two primary issues that are of great importance when teaching nonverbal and minimally verbal folks with autism to use AAC: 1) expanding pragmatic functions right from the start, and 2) de-emphasizing symbol recognition and association in exchange for emphasis on motor patterns for expressive communication. 

It is my experience that much graduate instruction as well as continuing education courses focus on providing AAC to persons with intact social communication desires (i.e., disabling conditions other than ASD). In autism, as I'm sure you have also experienced, early pragmatic functions of communication are restricted by the lack of intrinsic motivation to communicate socially. In addition to teaching learners to make requests and to protest using AAC, I find that even at the 1-word/hit language stage, the functions of commenting, interjecting and sharing opinions can be very powerful when sufficiently modeled in motivating interactive contexts. Some examples of content follow:

Early Non-Verbal Language Stages

1.       One word/picture card/button/hit at a time

- Cause-and-effect, One-word/hit requesting (More, Mine, Want, Go, Turn, Open, In, Out, object or action labels)

- Rejecting/Protesting (Stop, No, All done, Break)

- One-hit comments, interjections, sharing opinions, greetings (taught through modeling; Oh man!, Oops, Sorry, Help, Be careful, Funny, I like it, I don't like it, Cool! Hi, Bye)

2.       Two- and three-word/picture/button/hit phrases

- Specified requests ("I want" + item/action, "More" + item/action)

- Specified protests ("No" + item/action, "All done" + item/action)

- Directing others' actions using core vocab (Help This, Give Me, I Go, You Go, Put in, Open it, etc.)

3.       Building phrases and early sentences (3+ words/hits), moving toward grammar, morphology, etc.....

 

In addition to this content, I think it is important to emphasize that when teaching learners who have complex communication needs, with our without autism, receptive symbol recognition should not be considered prerequisite to the teaching of expressive language concepts through modeling in meaningful interaction.  In the teaching process, consistent location of motivating vocabulary can reduce the learner's reliance on visual recognition, symbol iconicity and metaphoric association - particularly learners with autism. Learners don't need to be able to recognize/"point to"/"give" a symbol that is named before they can use that symbol to get something done in the world. This concept may seem counter-intuitive to some, but is supported by the fact that nonverbal individuals with autism and related disorders have inherent challenges in abstract association of meaning and, in general, their motor systems are relatively more intact than their conceptual and linguistic systems.

Picture communication books or other Velcro-based displays often lack a consistent placement of vocabulary from one use to another, which can put a strain on the cognitive demand of communicating any particular message. If clinicians and teachers capitalize on the benefits inherent in consistent motor patterns when creating and maintaining visual displays for communication in different settings or activities, motor learning will reduce the associative demand. In fact, for all learners, motor planning plays an important and often overlooked role...This is not to say that receptive identification of photos, drawings, etc. is not an important skill to teach! It just may be less important than we think when teaching use of a visually-based expressive communication system.

The Center for AAC and Autism's LAMP program (Language Acquisition through Motor Planning) talks more about this. There is also a wealth of practical and well-organized information on the evidence base for speech generating devices in autism at this site:

http://autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/content/speech-generating-devicesvoca

PRC CA Coverage Changes

PRC Announcement Regarding Coverage Changes for California The Prentke Romich Company (PRC) would like to inform you of some changes in California.  Kara Bidstrup, M.S., CCC-SLP, has accepted the position of Manager of Training Services for PRC.  In addition to managing training services, Kara will continue to be the Regional Consultant for San Diego county.  PRC is excited to have Kara accept this new role in addition to continuing to serve as a Regional Consultant. Although she will miss serving her clients outside of San Diego, PRC will continue to maintain the same level of service by transitioning our California Regional Consultants’ territories. Kara Bidstrup, M.S., CCC-SLP, will continue to serve San Diego County, as well as assume the role of Manager of Training Services.  Kara can be reached at keb.cons@prentrom.com or (800) 262-1984 ext. 472.   Julie Dunbar, M.S. Ed., Regional Consultant for the greater Los Angeles area and Orange county for the last three years, will continue to serve that area, in addition to Riverside and San Bernardino counties.   Julie can be reached at jad.cons@prentrom.com or (800) 262-1984 ext. 445. Joan Sharp, B. Ed., Regional Consultant for PRC for 12 years, will continue to serve the Bay Area, as well as Fresno county.  Joan can be reached at jls.cons@prentrom.com or (800) 262-1984 ext. 419. As the territories are transitioned, please know that PRC recognizes that the state of California is a large supporter not only of AAC as a whole, but also PRC AAC devices and the Unity Language program.  PRC is very focused on continuing to provide excellent support and service to our California clients and their long term success with our AAC devices. For specific inquires regarding your Regional Consultant, please search here.  Thank you and we look forward to continuing to work with you, The California Regional Consultants for PRC

Study opportunity for SLPs: Communication Matrix

From: Charity Rowland To: SIG 12, AAC Posted: August 14, 2012 3:58 PM

We are seeking Speech-Language Pathologists and Special Education Teachers to participate in a study funded by the U.S. Department of Education.  Participants must: ·         Currently serve at least one student with complex communication needs at any grade level, including early intervention/early childhood special education. ·         Be responsible for developing communication-related IEP/IFSP goals for one student, as described above. ·         NOT currently use the Communication Matrix to evaluate students Participants will receive an honorarium ranging from $200-$350 depending on the group they are assigned to. If you are interested in further details about this study, please email quinnem@ohsu.edu. Grant #H327A110010 U. S. Dept. of Education Dr. Charity Rowland, P. I. IRB #1517

Minspeak E-Newsletter, Issue 55

Send to Friend August 15, 2012 Pixon Teaching Tip: Provide a hands-on experience to teach the concept and Pixon for “all” vs “some”. The Pixon for “all” has the family and is based on the metaphor of “all in the family”. Collect photographs of people in the person’s family. Put “all” of their pictures inside of a circle. Point at them and talk about having “all” the people in your family in the circle. Contrast this with “some” using 5 colored letters of s, with some placed inside the circle and some placed outside of the circle. Intervention Planning: Create communication opportunities to encourage your person using Minspeak to use the words “some” and “all”. The question “how many” is another word you can teach while teaching “some” and “all”. Teaching Materials Exchange: Learn to ask “how many”, “some”, and “all” using the book “Back To School”. It is coded with Pixons and icon sequences from Unity®45, Unity®60, Unity®84, and Unity®144. (Link to new material in August TME.) Core Vocabulary Webinar: Gail Van Tatenhove will be doing a webinar entitled “Using Core Vocabulary in General Education Classrooms: Dealing with the Academic Vocabulary” on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 from 3:30 – 5:00 EST as part of the ATIA 2012 Online Webinar Series. Don’t miss this opportunity. Pittsburgh AAC Language Seminar Series: The next seminar series is September 11-13 and features Caroline Musselwhite as the guest speaker. October 16-18 will feature Gail Van Tatenhove. Go to the Minspeak website for more information and to register for an upcoming series.

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

By David on August 11, 2012 (read the entire article HERE)

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
- 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
- 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
- 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)