Guidelines for Designing an AAC Communication Board Vicki Haddix, M.S., CCC-SLP Clinical Assistant Professor University of Memphis vhaddix@memphis.edu

Introduction Started at University of Memphis in September 2015 Boston (Massachusetts) Public Schools AT/AAC Coordinator 128 Schools, 57,000 students, 150 SLPs

Why this presentation? A few years ago, I was asked to do a consult for AAC to a classroom teacher for a 5-year old boy. His first language was Vietnamese and his intelligibility was very poor. He’d recently been diagnosed with apraxia. Report from teacher: I’ve tried using pictures but they haven’t worked. Specifically said she wanted him to participate in circle time on Monday morning to say what he’d done over the weekend.

Find the Good Effort was made Found the Pokemon and Boston Red Sox graphics from the internet and imported Included the child’s interests Picked the people that looked like his ethnicity mostly nouns and labels no clear organization can’t make sentences can’t ask a question can’t respond to peers can’t disagree/negate ...

Thoughts about what to do?

Activity Based or Core Vocabulary Communication Displays? Not talking Visual Scenes here or PODD organization; Also talking predominantly paper based displays although there’s some relevance to communication boards on ipads and other devices

Activity Based Communication Displays (ABCD) Provide vocabulary for a specific activity Much of the vocabulary is useful only for that particular activity May not use the vocabulary in any other situation Can be posted around the classroom/home or placed in books/bins that contain that activity (e.g.: blocks, Mr. Potato Head, etc) Usually organized by the subject-verb-object sentence format

Preschool Environment, (Goosens, Crain & Elder) Example ABCD Board 1 From Engineering the Preschool Environment, (Goosens, Crain & Elder) more about the functional aspect of ears, eyes, noses, etc; harder to request specific body part

Example ABCD Board 2- SonoFlex App more along the lines of requesting the body part, commenting about how it looks; keep in mind is designed on dynamic display so assuming you can use “quick phrases” for those comments

Example ABCD Board 3- with Books via Zangari for retelling or answering questions about the story; I’ve found parents pick this up fairly quickly and can be a good way to introduce AAC; Caroline Musselwhite has the AAC reading protocol

Activity Based Communication Displays Why would you use them? Great for young developmental level for early AAC exposure “Context-dependent” communicators Temporary use to work on language while speech develops School teams pick up on their use fairly quickly See also Carol Zangari: http://praacticalaac.org/praactical/from-activity-based-aac-to-robust- language-part-1/

Core Vocabulary Communication Displays Core Vocabulary refers to a subset of basic words (in any language) that are used frequently and across contexts (Cross, Baker, Klotz & Badman, 2006) Research shows that 80% of what we say is communicated with only 200 words in the language (Baker & Hill, 2000) Core words for AAC have been chosen based on early language development research (Beukelman et al., 1989; Benajee et al., 2003) Optimized for language development- vocabulary and syntax reference Chris Bugaj ATTips podcast for “Better Speaking and Hearing Month.” reference “year of core vocabulary” therapy sessions on Praactical AAC blog

Core Vocabulary Example Board 1- Gail van Tatenhove

Core Vocab Example Board 2 TouchChat App Word Power 48 Nancy Inman

Core Vocab Ex Speak for Yourself App about 120 words- masking or hiding buttons to learn

Core Vocabulary Communication Displays Why would you use them? Core vocabulary is flexible enough to be used across situations, allowing for topic changes and a range of communicative functions Core vocabulary helps develop language use in AAC users For students with significant disabilities, who may learn a small amount of new vocabulary each year- focus on the words that have the most impact Given all this, why would you want to use ABCD at all?

Use Activity Based AND Core Vocabulary? Learning Curve: Core Vocab takes practice Activity Based easier at 1st more buy in = people actually using it and modeling on it- take that any day over the “perfect” system, at least to start

MASH UP- one option is to have 2 different displays

Activity Based AND Core Vocabulary? elements of both to be user friendly

Use Activity Based AND Core Vocabulary? Another option is to identify some core vocabulary words (often pronouns/verbs) that you can consistently include in the same location of all the activity based vocabulary boards SOMETHING DIFFERENT- so useful, we teach it early

Guidelines When Designing Consistency of location for the core words like “I” and “you” Organize by sentence structure as much as possible- pronouns/people on the left, verbs next, etc Color code by by parts of speech (syntactic categories) Originally this was done b/c we thought it would help syntax- research not clear on that Has continued b/c research has shown we’re more efficient finding words when they have a color and spatial relationship (verbs are green and we expect them left-middle) Some debate about whether just the border or the whole background should be in color Thistle & Wilkinson, 2009; Wilkinson, Carlin & Thistle, 2008; Stephenson, 2007 see also: http://praacticalaac.org/strategy/communication-boards-colorful-considerations/

Guidelines When Designing 4. Include variety of parts of speech 5. Choose words by REASONS to talk, not just labels 6. When you think you’re done, go through the board and see if you can generate meaningful phrases for a variety of communicative functions- Can you request? Can you say no? Can you comment? Can you ask a question? 5: like the reasons behind the Mr. Potato Head boards: learning body parts, following directions, learning functions, intro to absurdity

Quick Practical Tips Don’t laminate immediately- put the display in a page protector while you try it out. Once you’re satisfied, then laminate Unless you’re working with someone who requires the color background, the border colors use much less color ink If you only have a black and white printer- use a light color for all the borders and then go over them with a marker LOTS of FREE displays available online, ability to personalize can vary if you don’t own the program used to make them

Design 1- would you use it?

Design 2- would you use it?

Design 3- would you use it? Board used 1st with the little guy from the example earlier in the presentation

Time to Make Your Own