Hey guys! If you are like me, you are getting ready to go back to school, or not go back to school, or sort of go back to school. Either way, I’m excited to connect with the families of AAC users on my new caseload. I’m working on lots of Google forms and docs to share with families so that we can communicate differently and easily from all sorts of platforms, and it feels a bit overwhelming. So, I’m starting with what always works…processes and measurable steps. And forms. I love forms.
AAC implementation can be so overwhelming because finding a starting point, an ending point, and a first step can be hard to put on a map. I often feel paralyzed by the potential of what we can achieve that I have a hard time getting the AAC team started. I was recently inspired to try to turn AAC implementation in the classroom into a measured, systematic and repeatable process after I met with an SLP and a high school special education teacher. I had shared my whole spill about why AAC was important for building authentic communication. Spontaneous and novel communication is crucial after graduation for employment in the community or group center. She looked me square in the face and said, “I’m in. I get it. Where do I start?” She had the first step down pat…she had shifted her MINDSET to believe that all of her students could communicate and that she was ready to do the work to make it happen.
And then I looked back at her. Where do we start with AAC implementation in the classroom? Choosing vocabulary? Choosing communication functions to target? Evidence-based practices for teaching a new AAC language? Communication partner training? Writing goals? For the students without a communication system, an AAC evaluation, of course. I’ve been doing AAC for a long time, and it hit me like a brick wall…AAC implementation in a special education classroom is HARD. What was the first step for her? How did we make a plan that we could chart, measure progress and maintain those new skills into transition to the community. It wasn’t my classroom or my caseload, and I needed to be able to hand her a framework; a step by step framework for implementing AAC in the classroom. That framework needed to include training for the adults as much or more than strategies for the students. That framework needed to include parent training and involvement. That framework needed to plan for when the teacher changes and the brilliant SLP in the building gets a different job. We start ALL OVER again with communication partner training. Who manages that?
Right then, AAC implementation in the classroom absolutely felt like rocket science, or inorganic chemistry, or both.
So, I pondered. I actually pondered for several months. I realized that there were so many moving parts to AAC implementation in the classroom that most of our students who require AAC never really achieve their potential. There are so many transitions between teachers, therapists and communication partners that even when a good start happens and progress is made, an unexpected transition occurs and the implementation resets.
There had to be a way to “begin with the end in mind,” using Stephen Covey’s habit. There had to be a way to categorize, chart and claim the challenges that go with AAC implementation in the classroom, home and community. Families had to be leaders on the team from the beginning, because families are the only constant team member for AAC users.
And so, curate™ began to emerge in my mind. A framework for AAC implementation in the classroom, home and community that could be used by teachers, SLPs and families. However, in Richard Branson’s words, “Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simple.” I’ve written and erased many times because it started getting complicated.
Curate™ is a framework for AAC implementation in the classroom. It’s also for implementation at home, in therapy and in the community. It will work for early intervention and group day centers for adults. I’m still working it, but the three foundational principles on which I’m basing every form, every poster, every tool are: practical communication, communication partner training, and transition planning.
If you are excited about any of those ideas, join me as I complete the framework and the tools that will make AAC implementation in the classroom SIMPLE, MEASURABLE and REPEATABLE. The six steps that curate™ will cycle through are Mindset, Messages, Mode, Methods, Monitoring, and Maintenance.
I decided that DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT, and so I’m starting by sharing my favorite form that I share with teams that are evaluating for AAC for the first time or are stuck and trying to find some motivating messages for an AAC user to communicate. It’s my Message Inventory.
Today, I’m introducing my favorite tool for getting starting with AAC in any setting. It’s just a simple systematic observation tool used to introduce practical communication to families by helping them identify how their loved one is already communicating MESSAGES that are important to them. MODES are all of the ways that we all communicate. We use facial expressions, vocalizations, gestures (I can’t even talk without my hands), phones, texting, and email just to name a few. People who have communication disabilities require just a few more MODES to be understood. During an AAC evaluation, we can often identify unconventional ways that a student communicates. These often include: gestures, signs that only a few people understand, actions, pulling, pointing, standing in a certain room, throwing, yelling and even hitting. Sometimes they use pictures, sign language, picture notebooks, and speech generating devices.
When you ask a family specifically how their loved one communicates, sometimes it is hard to think of all of those on the spot, during a meeting at a conference table with strangers, or in a small evaluation room. The Message Inventory is a systematic observation tool that you can share with families and teachers. They can jot down what their loved one does and what it means over the course of a week or so. By keeping it with them all day long, we start to see some patterns emerge around communication. And families start to see that their child is REALLY communicating pretty specifically.
This is my favorite tool for three reasons:
- It is simple and repeatable.
- It provides an opportunity for parents and teachers to observe differently and appreciate students’ current communication.
- It provides an immediate treatment plan, home plan or lesson plan that is communicator-driven.
How often do you hear, “But we understand her at home!”? The truest statement of all! And when we introduce AAC, we do keep honoring ALL COMMUNICATION MODES! We will accept current communication, and use it as an opportunity to model how to say the message on a device or with a notebook. Families begin to understand that they can honor current communication, but teach their child how to say it in a way that unfamiliar listeners will also understand. Using this tool, the other ah-ha moment that families have is that they realize how much they understand as familiar listeners their child and how little unfamiliar listeners can understand. I call it conventional communication…I think that if most people understand the message, then it is conventional communication. If a toddler walks up to me and holds up his hands, I know he wants to be held. That’s conventional. I had a mom tell me once that her son offered one hand to her when he wanted her to come with him, but when he offered two hands to her, he wanted to dance. THAT is specific and only Mom knew what he meant. COME and DANCE were the first two words he learned to say on his AAC device! And suddenly, he was able to get help and dance at school and at home.
It’s a hard job, but I always feel like it is my job to remind teams that we are teaching with the end in mind, adulthood. It’s not easy to remind families that there will be times that a familiar listener is not available to interpret unconventional communication messages. Substitute teachers may not know that pointing to the second cabinet from right means that Josh is thirsty. A new babysitter, a new Sunday School teacher, a new boss on the job, or a new caregiver to help with activities of daily living are all likely to happen at some point in time.
The most important thing that we can do as a team is to start to replace unconventional communication actions with communication that can be understood by most people either using pictures, notebooks or a speech generating device. That is a gift that we can give to our loved ones with communication disabilities. This chart, if repeated and updated often, could also be a tool to ease the pains of those transitions because instead of verbally going through a litany of “what this means is”, a parent could hand the tool to a new caregiver and let them know these were some of the unconventional ways that messages are communicated (until he learns them on his new AAC device).
As an SLP, this systematic observation tool gives you almost all you need to complete the expressive language section of your speech language evaluation and your AAC evaluation. It also gives you your treatment plan and home plan for choosing vocabulary for whatever MODE you decide to start with….a notebook, an app on an iPad or a dedicated communication device.
It’s pretty simple to complete. Teachers and families can complete it throughout the day. You guys can share it with each other, then you can meet as a team to determine which messages are the priority for implementation. You can decide which vocabulary words that you’ll target so that you can add them to the AAC system or MODE that you’ve chosen.
The Message Inventory is the beginning of the curate™ framework: Mindset, Messages, Mode, Methods, Monitoring and Maintenance. It’s a start to systematically implementing AAC in the classroom, community and home.