By Liz Heisler, MA, CCC-SLP, PRC-Saltillo Consultant
AAC goals are hard, right? They have to be specialized just because the client has an AAC device. You can only use an AAC goal bank and you have to see a lot of success to show growth. These statements are all FALSE!
Writing AAC goals can be easy! As SLPs, we can get so concerned with the technology that we tend to overthink what our clients using AAC truly need. We can compare about writing AAC goals to writing goals for any of our language clients. Of course, there are some caveats to this statement like writing specific goals for operational or strategic use of the device (i.e. carrying the device or using introductory statements about their device). However, the majority of AAC goals can be written for linguistic and social reasons. For example, the client can work on building mean length of utterance or answering social questions from peers using their device! And you can use typical milestone charts/resources to figure out where you client is at and where you need to go!
As we are doing AAC therapy and making progress on our goals for our clients using AAC it is important to remember: we do not need to ‘test’ our clients. We do not write our goals to constantly probe our clients (find this animal, find that color) and make them use their devices for evaluation purposes. We write our goals to GROW their language, to make them BETTER communicators, and have them engage SOCIALLY with others – because isn’t that what communication is all about?
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Stories and Strategies fo... - aac, literacy, school, writing, goals, iep, communication, social, pragmatic, operationals, strategic