Author: Heidi LoStracco, MS, CCC-SLP
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Speech Segmentation and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
We are often asked about the reason that words are spoken individually in the Speak for Yourself augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) app instead of allowing the user to compose their message and then speak the full sentence. The reason it is set up that way is so that the AAC user gets immediate auditory…
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Setting Goals: A Reach, A Stretch, and a Leap
When I was in second grade my grandmother told me to write down what I wanted to be when I grow up and put it somewhere so that I would see it every day. I took a small piece of paper and wrote, “When I grow up I want to be a teacher” and slid…
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Evidence-Based Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Advocating
I know…it’s the middle of summer and I’m writing a post about advocating for AAC in IEP meetings. It may not be timely for most of you but maybe it’s something you can save in your “notes” and use it when/if you need it. Meetings are overwhelming. Hours of preparation leads to hours of professionals…
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The Ever-Evolving AAC Voice Options
When I was an undergraduate, pursuing my Bachelor’s degree in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, one of the required courses was Speech Science. It was the mid-late 90s and we sat in a small “speech science lab” and shared large desktop computers with “high tech” software. We studied formants and looked at sounds and words…
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Speak for Yourself AAC App Now Has Multi-User Capability!
Version 2.0 of the Speak for Yourself Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) app has just been released…FINALLY! We’ve been working on this update for a long, long time. If you were at the American Speech, Language, and Hearing (ASHA) conference in November of 2014, I may have shown you a test version. Seriously. The irony is, at…
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Say ‘Maybe’ to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
Last week, my newly 12-year-old “typical” daughter asked to go to the movies with her friends…alone. I pictured the group of giggling 6th graders, dangling between confidence and unspoken anxiety in their independence. I offered to go with them and sit in a different row, but she refused. So, I said the first thing that…
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ReAACtion Therapy and the Proof of Competence
If you read the title, and thought, “I’m pretty knowledgeable about Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), but I’ve never heard of ReAACtion Therapy,” you’re probably right, but you probably know what it is. I *may* have made up the name, but the-AAC-technique-where-you-respond-to-what-a-person-says-as-if-it-was-intentional is kind of long to write. If this technique has a different name,…
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Comparing Bluetooth Speakers for AAC Use
In the beginning of this school year, I purchased some iON Clipster portable Bluetooth speakers. Over the months, I’ve left them with students who do not have amplified cases. When you’re working so hard to learn to use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), your voice has to be loud enough to be heard, even in…
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Using Aided Language Input to Elicit Verbal Speech
This post is combining two important concepts in the world of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC): Aided Language Input (which may also be referred to as Aided Language Stimulation or Modeling) and the relationship between verbal speech and AAC. Sometimes I hear people say that they’re afraid to use AAC because they are worried that…