AAC on Primetime!

Outside the bubble of speech-language pathology and special education, not many people witness Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) in action.  Thanks to a new sitcom called Speechless, that's about to change.

The show stars a teenager with cerebral palsy who uses AAC as his primary method of communication.

This article, from the Disability Scoop website, is a great overview:  

Aside From Laughs, ‘Speechless’ Committed To Raising Awareness

And here's a quick sneak peek at the AAC used on the show and how it works.

Newborns Cry with their Mothers' Accent!

Recent research suggests that babies are learning, or at least paying attention to, language while in the womb.  Multiple studies have been conducted comparing the cries from babies in their first week of life.  It was determined that the tone of the babies cries mimicked the tone of their mother's language!

For example, the cries of babies from Mandarin speaking mothers were more melodic, with higher high tones, lower low tones, and more rapid pitch changes.  As compared to German babies, whose cries did not have as much variation in tones.  Mandarin is considered a 'tonal language' - meaning one word can have multiple meaning depending on the tone that's used, therefore the baby is exposed to a large variety of tones while in the womb.  Whereas the German language is much more limited in it's tone variations.

This discovery suggests that newborns are already learning the nuances of speech before they're even born!

Meet Megan!

Hello everyone! My name is Megan and I am the newest addition to Rock Therapeutic Services! I thought I would dedicate this post to sharing a little bit about myself. I am 22 years old and a recent graduate from Eastern Washington University with my Bachelor’s in Communication Disorders. I grew up in Bonney Lake, WA and enjoy spending time with my family, working out, traveling, camping, and cooking with my boyfriend Mat.   

The transition from being a full-time student to working full-time was bizarre. My entire life, all I have known is how to be a student. The thought of not attending classes in the fall made me want to crawl into a hole and never come out, which I felt was common feeling among most of my fellow peers who were in same situation. I knew that I would not be attending graduate school in the fall and wanted to immerse myself into the field to gain as much experience and knowledge as I could. What better way than becoming a speech-language pathologist assistant, right? Somehow, I was lucky enough to be hired by Rock Therapy and am in charge of scheduling evaluations, therapy sessions, and will soon be a licensed Speech-Language Pathology Assistant (SLPA). I could not be more thankful for the opportunity that this clinic has given me.

During the two years in my undergraduate program, I had some idea of the population I wanted to  work with. I had nothing against working with kids but I felt that I was better suited to work with adults. Within the first couple of weeks working at the clinic that quickly changed. I immediately fell in love with all the kids, especially the younger ones! That really peaked my interest in the possibility of specializing in working with birth to three year olds as well as tongue thrusts in the future. I still have much to learn but am so thrilled and grateful that I have the opportunity to do it in such a supportive, friendly clinic with incredible clinicians and co-workers here to help me along the way. 

Feel free to come say hello the next time you are in the clinic and have a wonderful weekend!

--Megan

Helping a Child Who Stutters in Their New Classroom

Hello All.  Only a couple more weeks until it’s back to school. I thought I would dedicate my blog post this week to discussing fluency, concerns and strategies, with your child’s new teacher.

The Stuttering Foundation has compiled an excellent list called 7 tips for talking with your child.  Let’s start with my number one suggestion, which happens to be the first suggestion on the list, to improve fluency at home:

.        Reduce the pace. Speak with your child in an unhurried way, pausing frequently. Wait a few seconds after your child finishes before you begin to speak.  Your own easy relaxed speech will be far more effective than any advice such as “slow down” or “try it again slowly.” For some children, it is also helpful to introduce a more relaxed pace of life for a while.

Please visit stutteringhelp.org to see the rest of the list.

The Stuttering Foundation is a helpful resource for teachers as well.  Here’s what they recommend to help teachers improve their student’s fluency:

1.     Don’t tell the child to slow down or “relax.” Be patient and let her finish.

2.     Don’t complete words for the child or talk for him or her.  Once again, be patient and let him finish.

3.     Help all members of the class learn to take turns talking and listening. All children—especially those who stutter- find it much easier to talk when there are few interruptions and they have the listener’s attention.

4.     Expect the same quality and quantity of work from the student who stutters as the one who doesn’t.

5.     Speak with the student in an unhurried way, pausing frequently.

6.     Convey that you are listening to the content of the message, no who it was said.

7.     Have a one-on-one conversation with the student who stutters about needed accommodations in the classroom. Respect the student’s needs but do not be enabling.

8.     Don’t make stuttering something to be ashamed of. Talk about stuttering just like any other matter.

I would add a few more:

9.     Develop a system with the child who stutters, or implement class-wide, to decide who gets to answer questions.  Randomly calling on students can put them on the spot and increase the likelihood of stuttering. This could be raising a hand if they would like to be called on or walking around and tapping on the arm to signal that the student will be next to answer. 

10. To improve fluency when reading aloud have small groups or pairs of children to each other instead of to the entire class.

11. Teasing is unacceptable classroom behavior. It’s best to deal with teasing swiftly, whether a child who stutters is being teased or someone else.

12. Once again, focus on the content, not delivery, of the response or comment from the child who stutters (and all students) to positively reinforce respect in the classroom.

Wishing you a happy and healthy week,

Elizabeth

Visualizing the Autism Spectrum

A common saying among people who know or work with people on the Autism Spectrum is, "If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism."  Roughly translated, this means that each person on the Spectrum is unique, and that knowing one person with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) doesn't mean you necessarily know much or anything about any other person with ASD.

Because it's such a multi-faceted condition, ASD is often difficult for people to fully understand when they're first introduced to the concept.  Recently, artist Rebecca Burgess (who is on the Spectrum herself) created a new visual to help illustrate what ASD is all about and how much it varies from person to person.  Below is a sneak peek:

For the entire comic, look here.  

Where do you think your traits fall on the spectrum?

--Sarah

Welcome Megan!

Rock Therapeutic Services welcomes a new member to the team.

Megan is an aspiring Speech-Language Pathology Assistant (SLPA) and will be observing speech-language therapy sessions at the Maple Valley office, scheduling evaluations and therapy sessions, and being a general assistant to clinicians and administrative staff.

She is a recent graduate of the Communication Sciences and Disorders program at Eastern Washington University and is working toward becoming a certified SLPA.

Megan is friendly and capable.  We look forward to working with her and continuing to serve our clients and their families together.

Enjoy the lovely weather and be sure to meet Megan at your next appointment,
Elizabeth

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC): Two Approaches

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is a growing part of the field of speech-language therapy, and it is my absolute favorite part of the job.  AAC is used by individuals who cannot use natural speech as their main means of communication, so they use other methods to add to or replace their speech.  Recently, many AAC users use a communication app on a personal iPad or other tablet.  They select words or phrases by touching the touchscreen, and the device says the words or phrases aloud for them.  One of the most common AAC apps, Proloquo2Go, looks like this:

Learning to use a system like this is a lot like learning a second language.  It takes time and effort on the part of the learner, and learning happens faster if the learner is surrounded by other people who are competent communicators with their AAC system. 

While immersing myself in AAC for the past few years, I’ve come to recognize that there are two main approaches to learning how to use AAC that parallel two methods for learning a second language.  I call these two approaches the Phrase Book Approach and the “Take a Class” Approach.

The Phrase Book Approach

Imagine you’re planning a vacation to Japan.  You’ll start in Tokyo and hit the most popular tourist locations while you’re there.   You’d like to learn some Japanese to help you get by while you’re there, but you don’t have much time to learn before your trip.  So you pick up a phrase book.

You quickly learn a lot of really useful phrases that will serve you well during your trip.  But you only learn the phrases that the author of the book predicted you might need.  Surely you’ll run into situations where you’ll want to say something that the book’s author didn’t think to include. 

An AAC system that follows the Phrase Book approach might look something like this:

Most of the buttons contain phrases or sentences – not single words. 

The Phrase Book Approach has many advantages for AAC learners.  It can be learned and implement very quickly.  It doesn't take much time for the AAC learner to figure out how to make highly-motivating requests or statements with the touch of a single button.  Phrases that create access to or participation in highly-preferred activities can be programmed in, which makes the AAC learner more motivated to use their AAC system.  Phrases can also be programmed in that are meant to replace negative behaviors that sometimes occur when the student cannot communicate effectively with speech or gestures alone.  The Phrase Book Approach is hands-down the best approach for reducing the frustration that many AAC learners experience when they cannot express themselves to others.

However, this approach does have some downsides.  Since the message are all whole phrases or sentences, the AAC learner is limited to being able to say only what the person programming their system puts there.  There is no easy way to create their own messages.

The “Take a Class” Approach

Now imagine that you’ve just received a job offer for a position in Japan, lasting at least a year.  You know that you’ll need to speak Japanese with most people at work and in the community, since you won’t be in a place like Tokyo where a lot of people speak some English.  The job doesn’t start for at least another year, too, so you have plenty of time to prepare for the move.  So you sign up to take a Japanese class.

You begin learning basic vocabulary and grammar rules.  You also spend plenty of time listening to your instructor speaking fluent Japanese.  It’s slow going, especially at first.  It takes awhile before you feel like you’d be able to make yourself understood to the average Japanese-speaker. 

By the time the class is complete, however, you’ve built up a respectable vocabulary and a good understanding of essential grammar rules.  You may not sound like a native Japanese speaker, but you can express yourself in most situations.  You can combine the words you know into a huge variety of messages that, while they’re maybe not grammatically perfect, clearly get your message across.  You’re likely to continue to improve your Japanese skills the more you practice and interact with native speakers.

 AAC systems that follow the “Take a Class” Approach often look something like this:

 

The majority of the buttons contain a single word each.

The “Take a Class” Approach’s major drawback is the time and effort it takes to learn.  It takes a good long time – sometimes multiple years – for the learner to learn enough vocabulary and basic grammar rules to be a truly spontaneous communicator.  It works most efficiently when the AAC learner is surrounded by other people who also use their AAC system to communicate with them, “demonstrating” how the learner can eventually use the system themselves.  This is a similar concept to immersion programs for language-learning.  So there is not only an investment of time but also of effort.  The AAC learner’s friends, family, teachers, co-workers, etc., need to learn to use the system themselves in order to be effective AAC “role models.” 

The advantages of this approach, however, are numerous.  While the process of learning a new language word-by-word and rule-by-rule can be slow and often frustrating, it leads to a worthwhile result – Spontaneous Novel Utterance Generation (SNUG).  This is an acronym used in the AAC field to mean the ability to say anything you want to say by combining the words you know – without having to be taught the word combinations.  The “Take a Class” approach is typically the only way for an AAC learner to achieve SNUG. 

The Best Approach?

Like many things in life, there is no One Right Answer when it comes to AAC.  Generally, the best approach tends to be a combination of both the Phrase Book Approach and the “Take a Class” Approach.  That way, the AAC learner gets the advantage of being able to say a few highly-motivating phrases immediately but also begins the longer process of developing truly independent language use.  But each AAC learner is different, so the approach or combination of approaches should always be tailored to the specific needs of the AAC user.

--Sarah