AAC Talks 2019 - Accessing AAC: Competence through the Lens of Activity and Engagement

Providing a means of access to AAC for students with complex bodies is challenging for teams. In our efforts to teach access first, we often miss the crucial step of making sure that a student is developing competence in the activity. This is a process that comes over time from practice with and knowledge of the activity - anticipating the beginning, the middle, and end. For our students, sensory processing directly affects visual convergence, focus, attention, or postural control, each of which can be misread as “disinterest” or “lack of communicative intent”. This brief session will share strategies and insight for teaching - not testing- so that AAC users can be increasingly engaged in meaningful learning activities, both academic and functional, as access develops.