With school back in session, it has come to our attention that many are asking, “How do I model AAC when I do not have access to the client’s communication device?” We were wondering the same thing when we started telepractice back in March, and through some trial and error, we have found a few helpful ways to organize sessions and model AAC!

Organization with Google Slides

When first starting teletherapy, one of the first things that we struggled with was keeping our therapy materials organized. We found ourselves struggling to navigate the tabs in our browsers and miscellaneous powerpoint activities. One method that we found to be helpful in keeping sessions organized was to link all therapy materials (including activities and communication boards) within a google slides deck. By having all therapy materials in one place, we found it easier to move from one therapy activity to another. In order to add activities to slides, you will first add a photo of the activity to the slide then you can link the activity website to the photo. That way, you can just click on the picture in the google slides deck to access the activity! You can also embed YouTube videos to your google slides deck and play them directly from the slide. Playing a YouTube video from your google slides deck can help minimize distractions such as pop-ups and ads that occur on YouTube. Here is a helpful video that explains how to use Google Slides to organize a teletherapy session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=cObS6yg0G9I&feature=emb_logo 

Modeling AAC

JamBoard has become one of the most useful tools we have found to model AAC. JamBoard is a free google product that can be accessed from any computer with a google account. It is a virtual whiteboard that allows you to add any picture. In order to model AAC, you can add a picture of a communication board then use the laser pointer tool within JamBoard to circle the symbols you would like to model. The laser point shows up as you’re moving the mouse and then disappears, so there is no need to erase! Jamboard is also helpful because you can add photos of pages from any type of device, making it applicable for each child that you are working with. Usually when we use Jamboard, we have two windows on the screen- one with Jamboard and the other with an activity. As the client does the activity, we use Jamboard to model. 

Another way to model AAC without having access to the client’s device is to embed videos of carrier phrases, such as “I want”, “I put”, “I like”, and “I don’t like”, into the Google Slides presentation. You can record a video using zoom. To do this, simply join the zoom meeting with your iPad and share the screen. Start recording on zoom and create whichever carrier phrases that you would like to model. When you have finished the carrier phrase, stop the recording and exit out of zoom. The recording will save on your desktop. From there, you can embed the carrier phrase into the Google Slides presentation. Like Jamboard, we usually will set up two windows when we play videos of the carrier phrases so that the activity is on one side of the screen and the video is on the other. PrACCtical AAC recently posted a blog post that details how to use carrier phrases to do predictable chart writing with clients. You can access the post by clicking on this link: https://praacticalaac.org/praactical/aactual-therapy-aac-predictable-chart-writing/. 

Another way to model is to embed a photo of a communication board directly into google slides. Once you add the communication board into google slides, you can add a shape to model. When you add the shape to your slide, make it transparent with a thick colored border. You can use the shape like a pointer by moving the shape over the symbol you would like to model. This will show the child which symbol you would like them to attend to.

Finally, you can use Tarheel Shared Reader to model AAC while you read a book! Tarheel Reader is an interactive website with hundreds of books that are appropriate for all ages and cover a variety of different topics. One beneficial aspect of this website is that it has AAC symbols at the bottom of each page. You can choose what symbols you want to display and how many appear on each slide. The website has 36 possible symbols and can display 4 to 18 symbols on a page. When you press the AAC symbols, the website speaks to give auditory input. Another great feature on Tarheel Reader is that it has a suggested word or phrase to model in the top left corner of each page. You can also change their suggestions to add cues that are relevant to your therapy session.

These aren’t the only ways to model AAC via teletherapy, but we hope it gives you somewhere to start. For more modeling ideas and instructions on how to use each of these methods, you can click on the following link to access a google slides presentation that we created on AAC modeling (Ways to Model AAC during Telepractice).