What do you have to say?
When we are working with children who use augmentative communication systems, many of us struggle with what to put on the device. If you only had 8 things to access at a time, what would be most critical? Test it for yourself. Use only 8 words or short phrases to communicate with others throughout the day. Is it possible? Did you have to sit and listen a lot or use gestures to get more specific information across? I bet it was frustrating! Caroline Musselwhite’s Tip for November 2007 on her site http://www.aacintervention.com has a book to down load comes from Jane Odom, PRC consultant in Phoenix, and an amazing group of people who use AAC devices, who worked to share tips to younger AAC users. When talking about what would have been useful for them to learn during their many years of therapy, this book offers a range of sample messages, often in form of a social script, for a variety of community situations. These messages were created by AAC users themselves, which is much more beneficial than teacher created scripts.