AAC in the Cloud - Highlighted Sessions

Using CoughDrop Goal/Data/Reporting Tool for More Quality IEP Outcomes

This presentation will compare and contrast 6 common and robust AAC iPad apps. 3 sentences will be inputted in each app revealing just how intuitive each is. Although every feature of each app will not be able to be discussed, key features of each app will be reviewed.

Brian Whitmer

STE'A'M Partnerships Make Robust Language Systems Available for Toddlers

Gemma White

We All Worship Together – Making Places of Worship Accessible to All

3D printers create amazing Items supporting multisensory teaching and home made keyguards. Create visual, sensory and tactile cues to exploring and understand the language system. Let’s face it not everybody has a 3-D printer….it’s about partnerships: local high schools, generous engineers, community colleges. Come learn about 3D printing and AAC and see how I came up with novel ways to teach robust language systems to toddlers.

Naomi Herman

Lighting Talks (& Hack Night on Slack)

How to not just build ramps but to include all people in all aspects of the life of a faith community (especially AAC users)

Categories and Motor Planning and Pragmatic Function, Oh My! Understanding Organizational Set-Ups for AAC Systems

Anyone who wants can do a 1-5 minute session on anything they'd like to share! More details in the Slack chat channel.

Beth Poss & Kelly Fonner

Supporting Emerging Communicators

If you have ever been confused about the ways that vocabulary robust AAC systems are put together, this is the session for you! Follow us down the Yellow Brick Road of AAC to explore the organizational features of some of the most popular robust systems. We will examine the rationale of different ways that vocabulary is organized as a way to structure an AAC system and the implications of the organization on communication success.

Jenna Williams

Managing Multiple AAC Clients from your CoughDrop Management Dashboard

Tips and tools for working with the emerging communicator!

Steven Helland

Tell me More -- Descriptive teaching methods for instructors of AAC users

Nicole Wingate & Angie Sheets

Powerful insights from Adult AAC users that challenge how we practice AAC

“Tell Me More” will provide instructional tools to utilize while developing teaching models for AAC users. Descriptive teaching poses inquiry phrasing that elicits responses that may be composed through of core vocabulary but still challenges the academic content presented. Descriptive teaching helps teachers meet the demands of State standards/assessment while respecting the domain of AAC users.

Amanda Hartmann

Meet the iPad-based ProSlate – A Funded AAC Device with Your App of Choice!

In 2018, AssistiveWare embarked on a project to create support materials for users of text-based Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC). After conducting a comprehensive literature review, we realised how little specific support and knowledge there is. Following this we conducted interviews with a range of AAC users and their supporters, including users with developmental disabilities and Autism, acquired physical disabilities, aphasia, and traumatic brain injury. The insights and knowledge gained from the group of AAC users changed many assumptions we had made about AAC.

Clayton Smeltz of FRS Solutions

Home Grown – Planting Seeds for AAC Growth

Hannah Foley, Sarah Gregory, & Joanna Holmes

What's New With CoughDrop

Communication opportunities are everywhere. While therapeutic AAC intervention may be valuable to provide clients with foundational skills, it is certainly not the only way to encourage skill development in those with AAC needs. This session will explore manageable and accessible strategies for selection and implementation of AAC systems at home.

Brian Whitmer

The Meaning of Voice -- The Lived Experience of SGD Users

We're always making changes to CoughDrop, based on new research and what we learn from our users. Come see how new integrations, built-in modeling ideas and other new features keep making CoughDrop better and better!

Kathy Howery

AAC and the Transition to Adulthood

What is the meaning of voice in the life of a young person who speaks using a SGD? This presentation provides a glimpse into the lived experience of people who use speech generating devices, drawing upon their first hand accounts. “Giving voice”, both literally and metaphorically, will be explored.

Kathryn Hellend

What are Tangible Symbols? Use of these AAC Supports Across Settings

This presentations will run through steps, concerns, and consideration regarding students who will be transitioning from school-based services to adulthood. Adult vocabulary, funding, and resources will be considered.

Emily Macklin

Literacy and Learners with CCN Using UFLI

Learn what makes a "good" tangible symbol including considerations when making them that I have found to be successful. Demonstrating how this form of AAC can be powerful tool to provide access to AAC, not just in school, but also at home and how they can be used to facilitate and open doors for community interactions.

Kate Ahern

Visual Supports Using LessonPix

Bill Binko

Eye Gaze Access for Autistics

Saoirse Tilton

Fostering an AAC-affirming classroom

Eyegaze AAC is often primarily considered when a disability affects the use of hands, arms or multiple limbs! When thinking of eyegaze most people think of ALS, cerebral palsy or similar disabilities as they are well known for impacting motor and coordination! rarely if ever considered for autistics, however many autistic speak at length about the brain body disconnect where our bodies don't listen to our brains, this ranges from person to person but is widely discussed and well known in the autistic community, the brain body disconnect effect motor movements, speech coordination ect. However despite it being widely discussed by autistics. As well as Spoken a fair bit about by many non speaking autistics eyegaze still doesn't seem to be looked at as an AAC access method for autistics

Cheri Dodge Chin

AAC and Heritage Language

AAC users may be the only child in their classroom with a communication tool... but they don't need to feel alone! Learn strategies to affirm and celebrate AAC with peers and educational staff.

Janet Callahan

Literacy Connections -- Reading, Writing and AAC

A Heritage Language is a language that is not the dominant language, typically learned or used at home, by people who have cultural ties to that language. Through our family’s journey to achieving fluency and a working AAC device in an endangered language, this presentation will address common issues.

Beth Poss & Kelly Fonner

Implementing Dasher for the First Time in an AAC App

For students AAC communicators, the development of literacy skills are essential to unrestricted access to ALL the words. Too often, Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening are taught in isolation. In this session, participants learn ways to connect and integrate reading, writing and language into instructional routines across the student day.

Brad Jordan

¡¡Encuentra el tesoro!! Recursos y estrategias para alfabetización emergente en español

Dasher is a fluid, continuous gesture text entry system implemented for the first time in an AAC app in Predictable, as an access method. It is accessible via direct touch, as well as head and eye tracking, and features a letter prediction engine.

Claudia Marimón R. & María Soledad Cuesta G.

Overcoming Barriers to Communication

La evidencia confirma que las personas con Complejas Necesidades de Comunicación necesitan aprender a leer y escribir. La búsqueda y creación de materiales y recursos para apoyar la alfabetización integral de lectores y escritores emergentes, nos invita a compartir recursos para las necesidades de estudiantes y adaptadas a español.

Jill Senner/Matt Baud/Shelley Harris

Fostering Independence of AAC Users in ALL Areas of Life

Providing successful home, school, and community communication experiences for individuals who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can be challenging, particularly in environments that do not easily allow for use of high-tech AAC systems. This webinar will provide participants with an overview of innovative strategies collaboratively developed by family members and therapists to overcome environmental and positional barriers to communication. This "show and tell" will highlight some of the creative adaptations that have allowed children and young adults to communicate in bed, in the shower, horseback riding, swimming, and more!

Naomi

Intro to CoughDrop AAC- Enabling Parents to Model on any Device and Platform. -Beyond the Device Mentality

I am going to look at home, school, community, friends and special events and how the user can be as independent as possible with the support of others.

Scot Wahlquist

Plain Language for AAC -- What It Is and Why It Matters

Donnie TC Denome

Using Eye-Tracking to Access Predictable

Plain language is a type of writing that uses clear, simple words and sentences. Plain language can help people understand a piece of text better. You should use plain language when writing and talking about AAC. This presentation will teach you the basics of writing in plain language. This presentation will talk about how to write about AAC in plain language.

Gabrielle Flahault

Giving CoughDrop a Second Look - What You Haven't Seen CoughDrop Do Before

Predictable is a text-to-speech app designed for people who are literate but don't have the ability to speak. In 2020, we introduced three innovative access methods relying on Apple technology. This year, we worked with Irisbond and integrated the first iOS eye-tracking solution!

Brian Whitmer

Pretend Play Power -- Integrating Literacy Modalities & Tools

CoughDrop has added some great new features over the last 18 months, all focused around helping communicators and their support teams be more successful. Check out what we've done around goals, modeling support, messaging, integrations, etc.!

Kelly Fonner & Donna McNear

Helping Patients Preserve Their Vocal Legacy

Pretend play is critical to many areas of child development, including communication, language and literacy learning. There are essential benefits to launching emergent literacy learning during pretend play routines. Join us as we share materials, adaptations, tools, and supporting research on the potential of developing early literacy through pretend play.

Elisabeth Nuboer

Communication in the Community

This session is geared mainly toward clinicians

Sarah Weber

AAC is Everything, Everything is AAC -- Why Guided Access & Other Methods of Locking Tablets Remove Autonomy

Community based instruction is an essential piece of today’s life skills curriculums. Unfortunately, supporting students who use AAC in the community setting can be a difficult and daunting process. This presentation aims to provide resources and support to help professionals provide the best possible services to the individuals they serve.

tuttleturtle

Jose Perez of Assistiveware

To many, there's AAC apps for communication, and other devices for everything else. But, we use other apps (on the same device!) for communication, and AAC as non-communication assistive tech. The lines between AAC and everything else are fuzzy. Denying this, and locking us into one app is harmful.

Bilingual AAC

Putting the other "A" in AAC: The Augmentative Part

Anne Page

Communication and Literacy in the Secondary Special Education Classroom -- It CAN Be Done!

In the world of AAC (Augmentative Alternative Communication), we tend to really focus on the alternative piece. As an SLP working in the public schools, I work with a lot of students who are partially verbal. That is they are speaking words but it might just be one or two word sentences or telegraphic speech. Oftentimes these students really benefit from the structure of a low tech communication board to give their sentences correct grammatical structure and by having a multi-sensory method of expressing themselves. This presentation will give you some tips and ideas for ways you can help your students "augment" their communication.

Laura Taylor

AAC and Verbal Individuals: How AAC Impacted Our Lives

This presentation will detail the introduction of literacy and communication to a classroom of four young men with autism and a history of ineffective education. “Never too old to start” is a motto that rings true in the classroom that had one year to prove that intensive teaching works.

Chloe Rothschild & Lydia Wayman

All Hands On Deck for Touch Access

My friend Lydia Wayman and I both have a diagnosis of autism. We are both verbal; AND we are both AAC users! We use AAC to supplement our verbal communication. Come hear us talk about how we use AAC to help us; even though we are verbal.

Kristen Powell & Mary Katherine Dally

Keep it fun, Keep it Flexible, Keep it Available -- AAC All Day in the Special Needs Classroom

Calling all hands-on deck for touch access! There is so much to consider and explore for clients who use touch access. This session is led by two assistive technology consultants and speech-language pathologists ( SLPs) to review ways to encourage touch access, low-tech to high-tech device modifications and DIY ideas to trial touch access methods with your students. One small change can make a big difference when using touch access. Get ready for this hands-on course and leave with a touch access resource guide for editing tips, checklists and trial ideas.

Anne Page

Tips for Helping Parents Thrive With AAC in the Home

Naomi Evans

2020

AAC in the Classroom...for the teacher

Alyssa Hillary

Feature Matching in the AAC Assessment

“AAC in the classroom” usually means AAC for students. Sometimes, however, it's the teacher who needs AAC! I'll be talking about AAC in the workplace, specifically the classroom as a workplace, based on both my experience and that of other teachers I know of. Practical tips incoming!

Katie Threlkeld