PDF (Smarty Symbols) Hi friends, I have updated this book somewhat. The Boardmaker version is no longer available. The pdf version is now in Smarty Symbols, and free to download for your own use. (I pay for a commercial license, so you can not use the symbols for your own products.) This Smarty Symbol version also doesn't have any valentine images, so it's good to use all year long! There is so much stuff out there for Valentine's Day, it's hard to narrow down possible activities to the few you can actually do with the kids. I try to narrow things down, so that the focus of the activity is centered around IEP goals, and not on a super cute product. One goal which is ongoing is for the children to identify and talk about feelings. The goal should go beyond merely identifying facial expressions, but for the child to tell others what makes him feel certain ways. The reasons are different for every child. I found a nice little activity on Boardmaker Share that I was able to convert to a simple book. Although there are only three feelings identified in this book, if you have Boardmaker, this is easily expandable to include other feelings. The icons for examples of why they feel certain ways can also be changed to fit the specific environment of the children you work with. Click here to Download the Feelings Book in pdf Have fun with this!

Introducing students to News2you helps them meet ELA standards and creates connections to the world.

Step 1: Determining A Child’s Readiness Many parents are eager to start a toilet training program for their children. However, some parents may be ready to start before their children are ready. Starting before a child displays the necessary readiness signs will most likely increase the amount of time it takes for the child to […]

Over 60 PECS included with the purchase. This features a wide array of preferred items/motivators for use for alternative communication. Utilize these so your learner can tact or mand for varied preferred items/activities or motivators. Some of the many preferred items/activities PECS included with this purchase: Tablet Train Car Doll Phone Marbles Blocks Ball Music Game Walk There are two sizes of icons/PECS provided with this purchase. Small icons and larger icons for those who need larger images to identify or larger images to grab.

Today, we turn to the UK in a guest post by Laura Tarver. a London-based Speech and Language Therapist working with children with ASD and other complex needs. She previously worked in a primary sch…

This activity is meant to help children use the “I want” phrase to request. I find on my caseload I have a percentage of students that have a fascination with letters. By using letters as a motivator, I am able to easily work on the carrier phrase “I want”. I will have the student either verbally request the specific letter or I will use it with students that use a picture exchange (i.e PECS) program/AAC device to communicate. They can use the “I want” picture icon along with a letter to construct a sentence to request. This is typically Phase 4: of PECS: Building Sentence Structure (i.e. “Johnny says I want A”). Also I can set up a page on an augmentative device to work on requesting. I’ve added a slightly faded match for the bold letter so students are easily able match the letters and “spell” the word in the correct left to right progression. Included: 10 3-5 letter words "I want: picture icon

In her preparation of curriculum for a 7-week, graduate level course on AAC, Tami Brancamp, Ph.D. (Univ. of Nevada, Reno) asked the ASHA Community SIG 12 for input on the content of her course. I couldn't resist! and would like to share my personal soap box shpeal with you, too... (From Gwendolyn Meier, Pasadena, CA) I hope that you will dedicate at least one class session entirely to AAC in autism. I recognize two primary issues that are of great importance when teaching nonverbal and minimally verbal folks with autism to use AAC: 1) expanding pragmatic functions right from the start, and 2) de-emphasizing symbol recognition and association in exchange for emphasis on motor patterns for expressive communication. It is my experience that much graduate instruction as well as continuing education courses focus on providing AAC to persons with intact social communication desires (i.e., disabling conditions other than ASD). In autism, as I'm sure you have also experienced, early pragmatic functions of communication are restricted by the lack of intrinsic motivation to communicate socially. In addition to teaching learners to make requests and to protest using AAC, I find that even at the 1-word/hit language stage, the functions of commenting, interjecting and sharing opinions can be very powerful when sufficiently modeled in motivating interactive contexts. Some examples of content follow: Early Non-Verbal Language Stages 1. One word/picture card/button/hit at a time - Cause-and-effect, One-word/hit requesting (More, Mine, Want, Go, Turn, Open, In, Out, object or action labels) - Rejecting/Protesting (Stop, No, All done, Break) - One-hit comments, interjections, sharing opinions, greetings (taught through modeling; Oh man!, Oops, Sorry, Help, Be careful, Funny, I like it, I don't like it, Cool! Hi, Bye) 2. Two- and three-word/picture/button/hit phrases - Specified requests ("I want" + item/action, "More" + item/action) - Specified protests ("No" + item/action, "All done" + item/action) - Directing others' actions using core vocab (Help This, Give Me, I Go, You Go, Put in, Open it, etc.) 3. Building phrases and early sentences (3+ words/hits), moving toward grammar, morphology, etc..... In addition to this content, I think it is important to emphasize that when teaching learners who have complex communication needs, with our without autism, receptive symbol recognition should not be considered prerequisite to the teaching of expressive language concepts through modeling in meaningful interaction. In the teaching process, consistent location of motivating vocabulary can reduce the learner's reliance on visual recognition, symbol iconicity and metaphoric association - particularly learners with autism. Learners don't need to be able to recognize/"point to"/"give" a symbol that is named before they can use that symbol to get something done in the world. This concept may seem counter-intuitive to some, but is supported by the fact that nonverbal individuals with autism and related disorders have inherent challenges in abstract association of meaning and, in general, their motor systems are relatively more intact than their conceptual and linguistic systems. Picture communication books or other Velcro-based displays often lack a consistent placement of vocabulary from one use to another, which can put a strain on the cognitive demand of communicating any particular message. If clinicians and teachers capitalize on the benefits inherent in consistent motor patterns when creating and maintaining visual displays for communication in different settings or activities, motor learning will reduce the associative demand. In fact, for all learners, motor planning plays an important and often overlooked role...This is not to say that receptive identification of photos, drawings, etc. is not an important skill to teach! It just may be less important than we think when teaching use of a visually-based expressive communication system. The Center for AAC and Autism's LAMP program (Language Acquisition through Motor Planning) talks more about this. There is also a wealth of practical and well-organized information on the evidence base for speech generating devices in autism at this site: http://autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/content/speech-generating-devicesvoca