By Tracy Custer, M.Ed, SLP, Regional Consultant, PRC The school year is quickly winding down and the summer months are soon here. One thing I know for sure is that the summer gives us the ability to rest, relax and engage in some of those activities that we never have time for during the school year. It also is the time...

By Sarah Williams, classroom teacher Some of the realities of teaching in a K-1 (in reality Pre-4th grade), self-contained classroom for students with intellectual disabilities are as follows: Communication is extremely important: receptive and expressive communication from students, communication with parents, commun...

_ By Jane Odom, M. Ed, Director of Implementation Resources_ The vocabulary available to AAC users can have a huge impact – both positive and negative- on their writing. There are three basic categories of vocabulary sets (Musselwhite&Hanser, 2004) Closed Sets consist of a small number of pre-programmed words a...

_ By Jenni Koebel, PRC Ambassador_ Like any other teenager, I used to try to take the easy way out in doing certain things. One of those things was communicating my needs and wants to my care givers. I would try to get away with typing a word or two to express what I wanted to say, instead of typing a whole sentence. ...

Jeanne Tuthill, MA, CCC-SLP AT Specialist, Collaborative for Educational Services, Northampton, MA Adjunct Faculty, Simmons College, Boston, MA jtuthillslp@gmail.com Jeanne Tuthill Each time I teach my graduate class I try to invite at least one AAC user in as a guest speaker to share their story with the students in the ...

By Helen Canfield, MA, SLP, Augmentative Communication Specialist We teach parents and caregivers the best way to help their child to learn to use a communication device to talk is to respond, respond, respond. That means no matter which button gets pushed and words spoken the parents are to respond as though it was pu...