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help me talk

notice what i am trying to say

and what you think i might want to to say

ask me if i want to say what my friends say

everyone says the same 400 words for over 85% of everything they say

so 8 or 9 words out of every 10 words you use with me should come from a core vocabulary list like this one, or this one

if you use these lists for target vocabulary you will save me from you just giving me words that label things, like only giving me lesson nouns

and it will save you from having to guess which words i need to use and learn

hardly any core words are nouns, and only a few are adjectives

core words are the building blocks of our language

i need the chance to use these words in real life and set up situations

help me find these words on my Pathfinder by 'modelling' and 'prompting' until i learn their locations by heart

but don't just help me to find words

help me to combine them in meaningful ways so i can say what i want to say

children who speak practice this verbally when they are toddlers

children who can't speak don't get this chance and need help to go through the stages they missed

you'll be surprised how much i know already and how quick i learn more

here are some tips on facilitating my language development and AAC

we should also meet someone good at communicating with their AAC

If no one around me ever meets a proficient AAC communicator how will they ever see the goal posts?

AAC Role Models will show you what my future could be (Read Robin Hurd on this)

and learning from the people who got them where they are today

and following in their footsteps

is the best thing you could do for me

AAC role model Dawn Seals has been waiting for my head teacher to give her a date to talk to teachers and children at my school for four years now. Mum often reminds her, but so far we only know that 'perhaps' it will be in Assembly or PSHCE one day

meanwhile you can see video of Dawn speaking at a 1 Voice gathering here

and meet other successful AAC users from PRC's archive of Success Profiles here:

http://www.prentrom.com/profile%20campaign/tommy1.html Tommy:

One-on-one therapy work has changed since Tommy first received his Vantage because he has simply learned so fast. The initial plan was to follow a strictly systematic approach, give Tommy practice opportunities and then slowly integrate into a generalized setting. Now, however, Heather works with Tommy to automatically generalize vocabulary as it is needed rather than following a specific list or hierarchy.

Heather plans to continue to work on building sentences and questions with Tommy so that he has the skills to carry on a conversation and participate with his peers.

http://www.prentrom.com/profile%20campaign/leland.html Leland:

With a goal of increasing Leland's use of the Pathfinder in all environments, his therapy sessions have focused on building core vocabulary and reinforcing the icon sequences to increase the rate of communication. This approach is supplemented by other activities that increase natural language such as discussing the social events in his life, girls he is interested in, etc. At the end of each session, Leland has an assignment to use his vocabulary to invite a friend to lunch, practice greetings and partings or ask his peers questions about school activities.

here are the 20 most common reasons for inappropriate abandonment of AAC vs long term success in its use. It is rarely the child's fault when AAC is abandoned

and here is an article on aac assessment and therapy techniques, good and bad

children with all different conditions are succeeding with their AAC

i want to talk at home about my day at school and at school about home and a million other things. i want to talk to my friends

Here's another quote from Robin Hurd:

"When we are talking about language development, we are talking about learning what words mean and how to put them together, as well as how to make new words form a root word (example: friendly from friend). Language development is not learning to make your mouth or in our children’s case, the AAC system, say things. Language development is understanding how words work. Those words can be written, spoken, accessed by an AAC system, but our understanding of language affects them all.

When young children first begin to put words together, we see this same type of progression from child-like speech to adult ways of saying things. A child may begin telling you she wants to go by saying, “bye-bye car”. As she learns more about language, she will progress to “want go car”, “I want to go in the car”, and finally, “I want to go to grandma’s house in the car.” What helps children progress through these stages of language development is hearing others use words and practicing using words themselves.

When children rely on AAC instead of speech for communication, they need to progress through these same stages of learning how words work. The AAC system is just a different way of saying the words, and most of our children are learning language at a different age than a typical child".

Me on my Pathfinder - some video clips