When it came to working with students who needed AAC, I was in a state of panic for the first few years of my career.
I used to walk out of sessions drenched in sweat because I found them so stressful.
I remember one particular kiddo who really threw me for a loop.
I thought I’d start the session by seeing if he could identify pictures. I expected that he’d probably wiggle a lot and get a bunch of them wrong.
What I didn’t expect was that he’d try to bite the pictures…and my hand…or that he’d take a swing at me.
I left that session with a bite mark on my puppy flashcard and a blow to my ego.
As communication specialists, we know how frustrating it must be for students who have no way to communicate.
But we aren’t always sure how to help them…even though we’re the ones who are supposed to have the answers.
This is why many of us end up in a panicked state thinking, “Oh crap, an AAC referral…what am I supposed to be doing here?”
I got sick of that feeling REALLY fast.
Which is why I invested a lot of time and money in to a doctoral program and a couple post-masters certificates; one of them focusing on assistive technology like AAC.
Over the course of my studies I learned a few things about AAC implementation which I’ve been able to apply to real therapy situations.
There’s a right way to do it.
And there’s a not-so-right way.
The right way can result in you changing your student’s life and giving them a voice.
The wrong way can result in your student’s device getting used as a paperweight on their teacher’s desk.
As a result, devices that cause hundreds; maybe even thousands of dollars go unused.
And even worse, many kids go through life without a way to communicate.
If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone (which is why I wanted to share this video case study where I coach an SLP through avoiding this very issue).
What many practitioners don’t realize is that preventing AAC device abandonment involves so much more than figuring out how to use the device.
According to Johnson et al. (2006), there’s quite a laundry list of reasons people abandon their devices.
It could include things like:
👉Poorly matching the user and the system.
👉Not getting support from stakeholders.
👉Struggling to use the system across settings.
👉Lack of training for the user and stakeholders.
👉Difficulty using the system features and characteristics.
👉Negative attitudes of users and stakeholders towards the device.
And this is just the beginning.
But here’s the problem.
Even though we “know” we need to get everyone on board and do trainings…that can seem damn near impossible with a full-time caseload.
Which means our knowledge and expertise needs to extend WAY behind just therapy techniques (like consulting, counseling, managing).
Here’s what I realized after through working through cases like this first-hand with a full-time school SLP caseload:
When it came to working through complex cases, I couldn’t do it alone.
I knew for a fact that I had huge knowledge gaps when it came to AAC.
That’s exactly why I went back to school after my master’s to get a doctorate and a couple post-master’s certificates; one of them being in Assistive Technology.
I can tell you this: I never would have gotten through those early AAC cases without my mentors who helped guide me through it.
Those mentors, who’d spent years in the trenches before on top of sorting through all the best strategies and techniques were my ticket to success.
It’s hard to see our own blind spots when we come a cross a tricky case we’ve never seen before.
And we don’t have hours to spend digging through materials and strategies.
Nor do we have time to go digging through tons of research to find what’s relevant.
And I was able to cut through that clutter because every semester I was in school, I had an expert at my fingertips that could guide me through the challenges a long the way.
My way of getting mentorship was through a formal degree…but not everyone wants to go that route.
Let’s face it; most of us don’t have thousands of dollars to spare on another degree.
Nor do we want to spend tons of time and money on on travel, hotels, food, and gas when you travel to conferences expensive certifications.
The good news is that it’s possible to confidently navigate those tricky cases (like students who use AAC) without investing thousands of dollars on another graduate degree.
You can even do it without missing time with your family and friends…and without leaving the house for that matter.
That’s why I’ve created SLP Learning Academy.
SLP Learning Academy is a coaching program for SLPs to give you a go-to place to go for working through your toughest case studies.
This past summer, we’ve had a couple tricky AAC cases we’ve worked through.
On this call we through a case of an elementary school with a handful of AAC users in secondary school.
We talked about:
✅How to get students using their devices across settings.
✅An evidence-based way to facilitate language growth.
✅The mindset shift we need to teach stakeholders so they buy-in to the process.
✅How to navigate logistics when you have multiple device users on your caseload.
✅How to build students’ language skills, without having to stop and program the device in the middle of a sentence.
You can check out the case study in this video here.
AAC has been a hot topic this summer in SLP Learning Academy, but it’s just one of the topics we’ve covered in our member Q & A calls.
When you join SLP Learning Academy you can bring up your trickiest workplace challenges, from scheduling logistics, to managing IEPs, to clinical questions, we’ve got you covered.
Click here to join us in SLP Learning Academy today.
References:
Johnson, J. M., Inglebret, E., Jones, C., & Ray, J. (2006). Perspectives of speech-language pathologists regarding success versus abandonment of AAC. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 22, 85–99. doi: 10.1080/07434610500483588
