JOBS! CT, PA, MA

Looking for a change in 2014? Here are some AAC-related jobs for those looking to the north east for their next move. Click each position title to be linked to a more complete listing elsewhere.

Rank: Assistant/Associate Professor Communication Disorders - Augmentative/Alternative Communication Specialization(s): Speech-Language Pathology Southern Connecticut State University Brief Description of Duties/Responsibilities: This is a 10-month tenure-track position available with possible summer employment. Responsibilities include graduate and undergraduate teaching, enhancement of interdisciplinary education and practice, participation in scholarly activities, and may include clinical supervision. Eligible candidates should have an interest in clinical practice, teaching and research in one or more of the following areas: Augmentative/Alternative Communication, voice disorders, fluency disorders. Required Qualifications: Earned Ph.D. in Communication Disorders or related field; ABD candidates considered.  If ABD, candidate must earn doctorate by end of first year of appointment. Preferred Qualifications: A Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP); Eligibility for Connecticut state licensure. ------------------------------------- Speech Language Path-CCC Part Time (8 hrs/wk) | Health & Technology Center | Allentown, PA Seeking experienced SLP to work 8 hrs per week providing assistive technology assessment and training to an adult population.  Population has chronic or aquired disabilities (stroke, MS, ALS).  Will work with leading edge technology.   No assistive technology experience necessary. WE WILL TRAIN!!! Requirements:  Graduate from a Masters Degree in Speech Language Pathology, Certificate of Clinical Competence from American Speech and Hearing Association and licensed by the Commonwealth of PA.  Cannot consider CFYs.

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AT/AAC CONSULTANT, Full-Time

Cotting Consulting is an outreach program of Cotting School, Lexington, MA. Cotting Consulting offers client centered consulting services to meet the technology needs of students within the student’s educational settings. Consulting services include assessments, training, and therapeutic intervention related to assistive technology and augmentative and alternative communication.

Position Summary: Provide consultation services related to assistive technology and/or augmentative and alternative communication for Cotting Consulting to students and programs in various school districts.Essential Skills and 

Experience:
• Experience with assistive technology (AT) and/or augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) including assessment, intervention and training within a school setting 
• Experience working with students on the Autism Spectrum and with a broad range of disabilities
• Strong technical skills with communication devices and other assistive technology
• Comfortable with creating language based materials to support the curriculum
• Ability to actively participate in formal and informal meetings

Re-Post: PrAACtical AAC's Most Popular Posts of 2013

From the site:

It’s been a wonderfully prAACtical year. Here’s a look back at our top 10 most popular posts. Anyone see any patterns? 

1. How I Do It: Writing IEP Goals for Students Who Use AAC by Lauren Enders 
2. Teaching Core Vocabulary
3. 5 Great Resources for Pre-Made Communication Boards
4. Core Samples
5. A Year Of Core Vocabulary Words
6. AAC ‘Must Haves’ the the Classroom and Therapy Room
7. Pivotal Skills for AAC Intervention: Aided Language Input
8. How I Do It: AAC in the IEP by Lauren Enders
9. Getting Started with Core Vocabulary
10. More on Teaching Core Vocabulary

Pinterest = AAC Ideas

If you are looking for AAC ideas and inspiration, and you haven't yet browsed a Pinterest search of "AAC," you have a lot of looking to do! Sign up for a free account HERE, and happy searching.

One of my favorite pins...an AAC Cake! (frosting PECS book and Dynavox Maestro, I belive)

Apple's 12 Days of Gifts (Dec 26-Jan 6)

While having nothing to do with AAC, Apple is giving away free stuff, and I thought I should spread the word for those of you that are paying attention during these quiet last days of the year...
From December 26 to January 6 (to mark the Epiphany/Dia de los Reyes, perhaps?), you can download a gift from Apple for free each day—"songs, apps, books, movies, and more" (no personal experience with this, so not sure what type of content Apple will be gifting). Day One's gift is Justin Timberlake's London 2013 single of four live performances.

Each day's gift will only be available for only 24 hours, so download this free app to make sure you don’t miss out. Note: Not all content is available in all countries.

1. Update to the iOS 7 operating system if you haven't yet.
2. Go to the Apple app store on your iPhone or iPad.
3. Download the free 12 Days of Gifts app.
4. Allow push notifications and/or check in daily 

iEvaluate: Choosing the right app for the job

In the world of assistive technology its easy to get caught up with the tools. Recent innovations have excited professionals and parents alike - and rightly so - but central to the process of identifying a tool to match a need is feature matching.

Feature matching is the systematic process by which a person’s strengths, abilities and needs are matched to available tools and strategies (Shane & Costello, 1994).

Selecting an app as assistive technology is no different than selecting any other AT tool. The skills and needs of the individual must be identified first, and then the features necessary to meet the need are arrived at, and finally a tool with those features can be sought.  So many times the discussion of this or that tool is begun with discussion of the neat things the tool can do, rather than starting with the need. When the tool in mind is a consumer product, such as an app for a tablet, it seems to be even more common to start with the app rather than the student's need.

Jeannette VanHouten thought of all the tough feature matching questions to ask when looking for an app to meet a specific curricular need. She opens her multiple choice iEvaluate table with the question "What goal from the student's IEP/504 does this app need to support?" (perfect!) 

LINK to download the form

On AAC apps: [excerpt from Katie Lyon via the Spectronics' blog] 

"Carole Zangari from PrAACtical AAC (which is a fabulous resource in itself!) has written a great Blog Post on the topic of app selection resources  and has listed those apps which come in a FREE or LITE version, which can be a handy way to try the app with your client to ensure it is the correct choice before going ahead. Carol has also developed a Rubric for Evaluating the Language of Apps for AAC (RELAAAC) which is a really useful tool for scoring the capacity of the language and communication functions of the app you are considering in more detail. I also really like her 5 things to do before you choose an AAC app: Take A GULP ."

Happy feature matching!

AT Network (SoCal Schools) Meeting - 2/6/14

Join the first AT Network event of 2014!

MEETING TOPIC: AT Tools for School (and Home) (Low, Mid, High Tech options to support curriculum), Google Chrome (Read & Write)

WHO: School-based AT-interested professionals are invited to participate.

WHEN:  February 6, 2014 from 9:00 am - 12:00 pm

WHERE: West San Gabriel Valley SELPA offices in Alhambra, CA (15 Alhambra Road, 91801).

Registration link will be coming soon. 

Thoughts on Access, Part I (Gloria Soto at Univ Redlands)

The Technology + Collaboartion = Communication & Access" Conference (12/7/13) presented by the Center for Educational Justice at University of Redlands  was just great!

It was a very special treat to hear San Franceisco's darling, Dr. Gloria Soto, and the emphasis she takes on teaching language (not just communication) using AAC. Stay with me here. Dr. Soto made it clear that giving an individual instrumental communication (the ability to request) is important, but, essentially, to stop there is a crime. It is imperative that we push AACommunicators who have mastered requesting into every more diverse uses of language.  When we see learners only using systems to request after two weeks, 6 months, 5 years...its not right! AACommunicators need to be learning to use language. This starts with the provision of core vocabulary in their system and relies on the teaching of narrative language.

Thoughts sparked by Gloria Soto (some paraphrased, some extrapolated):

"Access is not possible without participation." Access to social opportunities is only actualized when an individual participates. Access goes beyond the provision of the tool. Being offered the opportunity is not enough. 
"...a piano alone doesn't make a pianist...An AAC device alone doesn't make one a competent, proficient communicator" (Beukelman, 1991).


...Narratives are used to socialize children into our culture and our families. We ask 'What happened?' in order to help children make sense of the world.

...Speaking communicators don't talk about routines; these are scripts. We also don't tell about experiences or information that is already known by our listener (or at least we try not to!). What we choose to talk about what is new and novel. Things that affect us. When predictability is applied to all aspects of life (in order to prevent behavioral dysregulation) there is nothing to get excited about! 

The desire to communicate is directly associated with the affect or emotion we feel toward an experience. Its important to add-in some surprises and out-of-the-ordinary experiences to get some affect going.
"Let's give 'em something to talk about" (sung by Bonnie Raitt, 1991).

...Vocabulary instruction in AAC often begins with 'I want' choice boards, whole-phrase messages, opportunities to respond to Yes/No questions, and highly scripted interactions. A best-effort language sample in response to the question, 'What did you do for your birthday?'
"Music guitar friends eight pretty flower white one blue picture doll my_little_pony book cupcake"

Without pronouns, determiners, verbs and prepositions what else can an AACommunicator say about her party? It's impossible to extract the specific narrative from this string of mainly nouns and the communicator is reliant on the partner to piece together the story. 

• We provide communication tools in an effort to develop more independent communicators
• Then we teach them in a way that produces dependence on 1) a known context, and 2) on a competent, familiar partner to fill out the story
• This makes it impossible for the AACommunicator to generate messages that are unknown to the listener
• We create vocabulary-related problems for learners of AAC
• One-word utterances
• Absence of grammatical morphemes
• Small expressive lexicon 
• Problems with morpho-syntax
• Poor vocabulary knowledge
• Context and partner dependency (G. Soto, 2013)

(to be continued in Thoughts on Access, Part II...)