Tag: autism
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Voiceless But Still Talking (with an iPad) Challenge…and Giveaway!
Have you ever lost your voice? Maybe you had laryngitis or had to be on vocal rest? Have you ever just tried to be silent for a day? An hour? One of our amazing parents has decided to go voiceless for a week using only her daughter’s (back up) iPad with the Speak for Yourself…
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What Do Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and Zumba Instruction Have in Common?
I am not a good dancer. It is a well-known joke in my family, and my sisters stop dancing at times to laugh at me. Actually, sometimes one laughs so hard that she has no choice but to stop dancing…But I have fun, and it is an area that I will readily admit needs improvement.…
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The Evidence-Based Research Behind Speak for Yourself
For the most part, we try to post information regarding Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) that can be applied to any app or language system. However, in this post, we are going to tell you why we think Speak for Yourself is the best AAC app on the market, and link some of the research…
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What Your Child on the (Autism) Spectrum May Not Be Able to Tell You…Yet.
We attended the Autism Society of America Conference earlier this month in Pittsburgh. One of the things we quickly noticed is that a majority of the people at the conference who had “individual with autism” ribbons had crossed the original message out and wrote “Autistic”. So please don’t think we are ignoring “people first language”…
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What a Difference a Year Makes!
We’re spending this week in Pittsburgh for the Autism Society of America National conference. Last year, we were in Pittsburgh every other week battling a patent infringement lawsuit. We spent countless hours with attorneys (well not really countless…someone was counting) and were scared to death to step into the exhibit hall of ISAAC 2012 for…
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An AAC Analogy: More Than Just Pushing Buttons
There have been online and “in person” conversations recently about the expectation of children using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to form sentences in a relatively short amount of time. We give “typical” verbal children at least two years before we expect them to combine two words, but AAC devices are frequently abandoned before a…
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A Favorite Father’s Day Story
As speech language pathologists working with AAC, we are privileged to meet a lot of parents. As part of that privilege, we hear a relatively even number of stories that warm – and stories that break – our hearts. Every Father’s Day, I think of a story that starts with a meeting about 3 1/2 year old…
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A Letter to Students Using AAC: Remember These Five Things
As we prepare for the end of the school year, we are thinking about our students using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) who have brightened our days and challenged us to be better speech-language pathologists. Here are some things we want them to know… To our students who are using AAC, We know you are listening. We want to start by saying thank…
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Our Roles as Moms and Speech-Language Pathologists Collide at the Autism Walk
The Southern New Jersey Autism Speaks Walk Now for Autism was this weekend. It’s a great opportunity to see the children we work with outside of the classroom…in the fresh air, surrounded by bubbles and bouncy castles. We were involved and attended the walk before the creation of Speak for Yourself, and actually before the…
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The AAC Version of The Emperor’s New Clothes
This is the time of year where everyone gathers to discuss the progress and goals for children in IEP meetings. In some of these meetings, the discussion is about a child who is nonverbal and does not have any way to communicate his wants, needs, ideas, feelings or thoughts. So the meeting begins, “He is…