Tag: Angelman Syndrome
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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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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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The AAC Language of Love
The other day, I was on the bus with a student for an outing. We were going to a local convenience store, and on the way, I asked him what he wanted to get from the store. This was his first time riding the bus in a wheelchair. He adjusted the iPad on his lap and selected his favorite…
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Core Vocabulary: Phrases You Can Model Today
Yesterday, I wrote about Modeling for the Moment When It All Comes Together. Today, my hope is that after reading this, you feel like a modeling plan is manageable. If you’re just starting out, here are three posts you may want to read first. This one explains core vocabulary. This one is an introduction post…
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Should Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Be Considered?
Sometimes this happens to me: While talking to a speech-language pathologist (SLP) about one child using AAC, she’ll pause in the conversation, raise her eyebrows and say something along the lines of “You know, Johnny has been acting out a lot lately and he can say about 25 words, so he can talk, but do…
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AAC Mythbusters: Your Child Has Enough Skills
Last week, I posted a blog called “The Myth of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Pre-Requisite Skills.” Some of the responses I received were from parents of adults with Complex Communication Needs (CCN) saying that their son/daughter is still so frustrated as an adult. Others are concerned about “giving up” on verbal speech, and some have…
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Finding Her Own Voice
You may remember the mom who was “Voiceless But Still Talking” earlier this month at the start of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Awareness Month. If you missed it, Mary used the Speak for Yourself (SfY) AAC app and her daughter’s back up iPad to communicate for the week. She provided us daily journal entries…
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Journeys are Best When Shared
This post is a footnote to the Voiceless But Still Talking (With AAC) Challenge that Mary completed yesterday. For those of you who may have missed it, Mary is a curious and ambitious mom who used her daughter’s back up iPad Mini and Speak for Yourself Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) app to communicate for…
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The Final Day of the Voiceless But Still Talking (with AAC) Challenge
Well, today was the last day of Mary’s Voiceless Week. She is the mom of 21 year old Jess who uses the Speak for Yourself Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) app. Mary spent this last week using Jess’s back up iPad Mini to communicate. Thank you, Mary, for letting us into your life and sharing…
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Day 7 of the Voiceless But Still Talking (with AAC) Challenge
We continue to follow Mary, as she spends the week voiceless and using the iPad mini with the Speak for Yourself (SFY) Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) app to communicate. Her daughter, Jess, uses SFY to communicate. Here is Mary’s journal entry for her 7th voiceless day: “Husband is still trying to guess what I’m…