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They spend their days and nights deciding on features and grammar access and so much more so that you don't have to and their systems align with best practice/research.
#Touchchat with wordpower low tech how to#
They agonize over whether to allow activity pages (which are not research supported for teaching long term language skills) or how to arrange less frequently used verbs or adjectives. The high quality AAC systems - be they paper based, on a dedicated device or an app - have SLPs and others whose specific job it is to move research into practice. Color Coding is deliberate and usually matches either the Fitzgerald Key or Goosens, Elder and Crain color coding. They attempt to keep symbol placement consistent across pages.
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Well done, core language based systems, have been researched to show the most frequently words used regardless of the grid size chosen. Robust AAC systems have research behind them. And we realize they need to have a robust communication system to learn to use a robust communication system!Ĥ) Evidence Based Practice/Research Based are the words of the decade! We realize they need to be on a bike to learn to ride a bike. We stand beside them and help them learn, running, out of breath, to keep up. We put them on a bike! We add supports like training wheels that we quickly fade. If you feel like your student isn't ready for "the big time" of using a robust application thing about this: when a child needs to learn to ride a bicycle we don't send them back to practice on a Big Wheels. Remind yourself that AAC is for ALL the functions of communication. And if you make your own vocabulary on a speech system there is a decent chance you will, probably, create choice boards. They cannot replace communication robust systems. They belong alongside robust communication systems for quick, in the moment, decision making. Language is messy!Ĭhoice boards have their place. The answer isn't to get back on the plane and leave and it isn't to hide in your hotel watching Netflix in your native language while just gesturing and pointing to clarify your wants and needs to the hospitality staff. You have just landed in the airport in a country where you don't speak the language. All new languages are overwhelming at first. So you think, maybe I will make something myself. You try to make a sentence and can't find the words you want. You can't wrap your brain around this new system. You are overwhelmed and you fear your staff, the parents and the child will be overwhelmed. Maybe it isn't like the other systems you have taught.
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I know looking at any robust system is overwhelming at first. You have enough to do without recreating the wheel.
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However, the rest of the work has been done for you! Now you can focus on sharpening your language teaching skills, modeling, developing descriptive classroom labels, making low tech versions of high tech displays, training peers, parents and teachers and so much more. Designing and programming a robust and well-researched vocabulary system is also a labor intensive task, but, with the right system, it is a task that has been done for you! Hurray! You will likely need to do some basic customizing like adding the users personal information and user specific frequently used words and phrases. Teaching a child to communicate via augmentative and alternative communication (or to repair unintelligible speech with AAC) is a labor intensive task. If you aren't using a robust lanugge system with your students you should be! If you are wondering if your system qualifies as a well researched AAC System with a robust vocabulary please check out Jane Farrell's AAC app evaluations (3 stars or bust!) or the Does Your AAC App Measure Up handout and YouTube Video. In general, a robust vocabulary means at least 100 words organized in an understandable, predictable manner (categorically, pragmtically, or semantically) using a consistent and meaningful symbol system. For example (but not limited to): Proloquo2Go 3 or even better 4 with Crescendo Vocabularies using at least 15 buttons per page, TouchChat with Word Power 42+ or Pixons, Compass with Word Power, Gateway or PODD, Avaz, LAMP Words for Life and other Unity based lanugage systems, and PODD books created and used according to PODD trainin g. The post below applies only to high quality augmentative and alternative (AAC) systems with robust vocabularies and a well researched effort behind how the system works.