Learning to Speak AACtion Plan: Week 8

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

~Arthur Ashe

Welcome to Week 8 of the Learning to Speak AACtion Plan! If you’ve been following along each week and doing all of the practice lessons up to this point, you have learned 35 core vocabulary words in your child’s augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) language system and you’re able to put together some basic – even grammatically correct -sentences! If you’ve missed a couple of weeks, jump back in!

This week, we’re going to add some nouns (also called fringe or extended vocabulary). While core vocabulary words are essential to language, often nouns are the lure to AAC for the users. It’s great and generalizable to be able to say “eat,” but sometimes being able to say “cookie” or “Nutter Butter” gets the child’s attention. “Play” is a great core word for young children to learn, but the AAC system speaking “Mr. Snuffleupagus” may be the thing that turns your child’s head. So this week, make sure your child’s favorite people and things are in the AAC system and learn the location. If you’re working on Step 1 and your child is showing zero interest when you’re modeling, consider adding some favorite nouns to your modeling.

Here are the Week 8 words (many of the specific nouns are going to be based on your child’s interests and passions):

Here is the Master List which includes the Week 8 words:

The week 7 survey is active until midnight tonight, so if you haven’t already, please take a few minutes to complete it. Here is the Rafflecopter link:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hope it’s an exciting, productive week for everyone!