The Tennessee Association for Assistive Technology Conference (TAAT) was held virtually on November 5th and 6th. Speakers presented on a variety of topics surrounding assistive technology and AAC. From the many presentations, we learned several new tips and tricks to implement with our students. Here are some things that we learned:

AAC, IEPs and GPS:  Mapping a Route to Communicative Competence presented by Vicki Clarke and Holly Schneider

In this presentation, Vicki Clarke and Holly Schneider demonstrated how to identify appropriate goals for a student by reviewing the Dynamic AAC Goals Grid-2 and introducing the Classroom Communication Goals Grid, a new tool field tested in numerous school districts over the past two years. They stressed that it is important to move away from creating goals that only address “eating, drinking, and going potty” and to move towards goals that allow the child to express desires outside of their physiologic needs.

What we learned:

• Often, we create goals that only address the student’s physiologic news (eat, drink, potty). We should also create goals that address the student’s wants and needs, social needs, academic participation, ability to express opinions, and language development.

• We can select these goals by using the Dynamic AAC Goals Grid-2 or the Classroom Communication Goals Grid. 

• The Dynamic AAC Goals Grid-2 was created by Tobii Dynavox in order to help educators with “means to assess (and reassess) an individual’s current skills in AAC and to assist partners in developing a comprehensive, long-reaching plan for enhancing the AAC user’s communicative independence” (The Dynamic AAC Goals Grid 2). 

• The Classroom Communication Goals Grid  is designed to help special educators plan a student’s route to communicative competence. It is a shortened version of the DAGG-2 that allows educators to quickly isolate goals that are functional for the student. 

"Read it Again" - Incorporating Shared Reading Strategies with Children who use AAC presented by Jillian McCarthy

In this presentation Jillian McCarthy discussed the research behind shared reading and techniques to use when implementing it. She also discussed the importance of modeling phonological awareness activities during shared reading. 

What we learned:

• Approximately 70-90% of people with AAC supports do not have functional language or literacy abilities. This statistic was discovered in 1993, and it has not improved much in the last 27 years, revealing a problematic learning gap that educators need to address.

• Parents of AAC users reported that their children ask fewer questions about the book they are reading and need more wait time in order to make comments.

• Shared reading is a useful learning tool for AAC users. Research has found that shared reading contributes to improvement in syntax and vocabulary. Additionally, when AAC users learn new vocabulary through shared reading, they can take that vocabulary and generalize it to other situations beyond the book.

• Jillian McCarthy discussed two ways of implementing shared reading including RAAP (read, ask, answer, prompt) and put the CROWD (completion, recall, open ended, wh- questions, distancing) in the CAR (comment and wait, ask for participation and wait, respond by adding a little more). 

• She also stressed the importance of incorporating phonological awareness instruction into shared book reading. By teaching phonological awareness concepts (starting sounds, rhymes, syllables, phoneme awareness), AAC users will gain a better understanding of how words fit together. This knowledge can generalize to new words, thus improving their literacy skills.

10 Tips & Tricks for Successful, Inclusive Online Learning presented by Mike Marotta and Kelly Suding

This presentation discussed strategies to make the classroom more inclusive. The speakers discussed everything from accessible materials and media (captions, transcripts) to using built in a11y features to promoting UDL. They also talked about effective coaching strategies to use when educating people on how to make learning more inclusive

What we learned:

• It is important to use a universal design for learning (UDL) perspective when building inclusive learning environments. Educators should step back and think about all aspects of the child, the task, and the environment in order to figure out how to best educate the child.

• Think about SETT (Student, environment, task, tool). Many educators think about student, task, and tool, but they often forget to consider the environment. It is important to think about how the environment is affecting the child. Consider things like positioning, headphone quality, does the child have a quiet space, does the child have sensory needs, does the child have everything he needs to complete the assignment. 

• It is also important to consider the child’s executive functioning. It may be important to put things in place like visual schedules so the student may be able to complete assignments in a more timely manner. 

• It is also important to consider the accessibility of the classroom. In a virtual classroom, it is easy to implement tools such as captions. Captions allow for the student to read what the teacher is saying. This can help with engagement and promote literacy skills. 

Written by Emily Pierce