AAC for Pediatricians
This is the second in a series of blog posts highlighting the great work of the University of Memphis graduate students in speech-language pathology. For their AAC class with Vicki Haddix (one of the TN Talks project leads), they choose their own final projects, and many of those final projects are potentially very useful for those of us working with students who use AAC. With the students’ permission, the work is being shared here.
This project was done by Marisa Ewing. She was concerned about the gaps in knowledge that some pediatricians have regarding speech-language therapy and writing prescriptions for AAC devices when they are needed. Unfortunately, there are too many times when pediatricians don’t refer to speech-language pathologists when a child isn’t talking because they want to “wait and see.” This approach ends up costing valuable time. And for those children who need AAC devices, the pediatrician doesn’t always realize that a prescription is required before a report is submitted to insurance for funding. This causes needless delays in what can already be a lengthy process.
So Marisa made a narrated presentation, which was turned into a 20-minute video, to educate pediatricians about these issues. She also created a handout that a parent could take to a pediatrician to guide the discussion about AAC. If you’d like to share with the pediatricians in your life, you can find those resources here:
AAC Handout for Parents to Give to Pediatricians
Videos referenced in the presentation:
Aided Language Stimulation Explained
Assistive Technology in Action - Meet Elle
Non-verbal children living with autism learning to communicate via electronic devices