AAC in the ASD Class

1. Honour to Teach – If the student’s goal is to ask for preferred items and you’ve put an ipad on their choice board, it must be honoured at all times – outside, during instruction, during work time etc. Be prepared for this! If a child requests help using a Big Mack button, help them EVERYTIME – even if you’re sick of hearing your own voice 100x a day.

2. Set Limits Later– once the student has a handle on requesting and trusts that you honour their communication, slowly start to increase their flexibility. Perhaps an assembly isn’t the right time for ipad, or incorporate waiting for a teacher’s help as a skill.

3. Spread Out – When appropriate, expand and generalize communication skills to different locations for different purposes (i.e. a PECS binder in the classroom, a snack mat in the cafeteria).

I currently have 3 communication programs in my classroom:

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2. Touch-to-Talk

A Touch-to-Talk communication system prepares students for augmentative technology devices such as ipad’s Proloquo2Go or a Springboard. Gone are the days of tearing PCS from velcro (none needed!) when students can simply point to the pictures they want and and the device will speak for them. To prepare them, we need to start small, gradually adding pictures as students get more comfortable with the idea. In order for touch-to-talk to work, students must have the Fine Motor skills and precision to point to the pictures.

I use a flipbook for a verbal student who requires prompting and visuals to organize her speech. A FlipBook can also be a pre-requisite to a technology device down the road.