This is to you. This is to the parents, therapists, teachers, support personnel, classroom volunteers, grandparents, and anyone else that directly interacts with someone who has complex communication needs (CCN). This is especially to you if you are frustrated, scared, worried, or maybe even angry that skills are not coming together as quickly for your child as you had hoped. This is to you if you are feeling this way and haven’t told anyone or if you’ve told everyone. This is to you if you are looking for some kind of “sign” or a message to keep going. If you model language relentlessly or if you have never modeled a word, this is to you too.
We decided to put together a little “series” (meaning there will be another blog post tomorrow with phrases to model) to help with modeling core vocabulary on an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) system. Here’s the thing…your child can benefit from core vocabulary modeling, even if he/she is not using AAC. So, if your child is verbal, but language is delayed, you can use this information to focus on modeling the most frequently used, generalizable words to expand utterance length.
If you read about Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), you’ll read a lot about modeling, or Aided Language Input, or Aided Language Stimulation…they are all different ways to say the same thing. It all comes down to this: If you want to teach people how to do something, show them how to do it.
It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? When you want to teach your child to pour their own cereal, you let them watch you first. Even if you are not actively engaging them in a teaching way, they see the steps you take to get them cereal in the morning. It becomes natural. You show them the whole process and then gradually, they begin to feel comfortable enough to get the bowl and spoon out.
Then there’s that moment when it all comes together.
Your son wakes up on a Saturday morning, and everyone else is still sleeping. He’s hungry and the Lucky Charms are sitting on the counter. The milk is at a manageable level…not so heavy that he can’t lift it. He decides to give it a try and pours the cereal into a bowl, dumps some milk in (spilling a little but mostly hitting the bowl), and sits at the table, happily eating his cereal. You wake up and celebrate his independence and praise him for taking the initiative to try something new, you clap for him and he beams with pride. You subtly wipe the counter and put the milk away…after all we don’t expect perfection, but you make a note to yourself to emphasize the “putting the milk away step” next time you pour cereal. Now that your child has this successful new life skill, he wants to do it all the time. His skills and confidence build with each success, and he realizes he can have his needs met on his own terms. When he pours his own Lucky Charms, he trades some of the less preferred oats for colorful marshmallows and the bowl is that much sweeter, in a literal and metaphorical sense.
When we look at how students learn to use AAC, these same concepts apply. They need someone they trust to show them how to do it. They need to have exposure so that it becomes natural that AAC is going to be used to say “want more” every time they lunge across the table for something or that “need help” is going to be modeled every time they are having a difficult time with something. Even when you do not realize it, children are paparazzi…they are always watching and monitoring you. They notice everything and take snapshots that they can use later. Even if it seems like a child is not paying attention to you or you think that he doesn’t understand what you are saying, he is taking it all in, and waiting for something to resonate with him.
So, when professionals talk about Modeling and Aided Language Input, it’s because the more things you show him that he can say, the more situations that you model a way to promote his comfort or meet his sensory needs, the more words you show him, the more natural it becomes…for both of you. The more he looks to you to help him problem solve or show him an alternative to difficult behaviors through communication, the more likely you are to find something that resonates with him. When you find that, there is a link between you and the child. A place where he realizes that you are not going to give up on communication, and there is something in it for him. There is control over what he wants in his life and what he doesn’t. There is a way to get his thoughts out and tell people how to help him. There is the freedom to determine the ratio of marshmallows and oats, and to assert independence and preference over when he eats instead of waiting for someone to guess that he wants to be fed. There is the opportunity to choose his own words instead of hoping someone will guess what he has been wanting to say. It is the time when you get it exactly right, and it is the moment you have both been waiting for…it is the moment when it all comes together.
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