Ideas for Instruction
Practical Ideas for Building Language
AssistiveWare
An extremely comprehensive collection of activity ideas to support learning and using vocabulary. Includes core word ideas, ideas for home, and for activities across the day. It is a tremendous resource for ideas that will provide meaningful engagement for AAC users.
School Year of Core
by PRC Language Lab
The series has two levels of monthly vocabulary words along with a comprehensive set of ideas, resources, and materials.
Building Language Where do I start?
by Speak for Yourself
A detailed graphic organizer to guide the collection of words associated with an activity to support modeling / aided language input. It includes prompt questions that are really helpful for identifying the most meaningful vocabulary across language functions.
Core Is All Around
by Lesson Pix
Lesson Pix is a website for making visuals for your students. In addition to the paid services they have many materials that are pre-made and available for download. The “Core Is All Around” graphic maps out how core vocabulary can be used across the day in an early childhood setting. Educators can see how they might create maps across different grades to plan for the use of core vocabulary all d
AAC Made Easy
Vocabulary Lists
Suggestions for vocabulary to model on an AAC system for nearly 40 activities. Each activity includes ideas for words and phrases to communicate for different functions such as commenting, asking questions, directing others, etc.
What I Know graphic organizer
by Maureen Nevers
Prioritizing GE Curriculum Vocabulary – Descriptive Language
by Maureen Nevers, M.S. CCC-SLP Vermont I-Team
Instructional program outlining the process for identifying descriptive vocabulary related to curriculum content.
Core Vocabulary Activity First
by PRC / Saltillo
From Chat Corner resources page, select:
- “Activities to Teach Core”,
- “Choosing CORE Vocabulary Activity First Approach”
- pdf link
- A single pdf document includes separate pages for each activity entry. Each page is a graphic organizer of a target activity in the center, surrounded by different parts of speech such as: feeling words, questions, recurrence, negate/stop, nouns, describing words, people, and actions. Some activities also include an additional “communication script” handout.
Aided Language / Modeling
Communication Tips & Strategies: Aided Language Stimulation (ALgS)
by Autism Association of Western Australia
Nice two-minute overview of what Aided Language is, how to do it, and why it is important. Shows pictures or recorded images as examples of aided language.
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Aided Language Input Project Core PD Module
by Center for Literacy and Disability Studies
Department of Health Sciences
UNC-Chapel Hill
(18:16) Overview of how to use aided language input strategies to show students what is possible and encourage their use of graphic symbols. Part of a larger set of video training modules aimed at supporting students with communication and emergent literacy..
Speech Without Limits
YouTube Channel created by Jeanna Antrim
The Speech without Limits YouTube channel is a great source for ideas about how to use target core vocabulary across the day. Each video is short (about 2 minutes) and focuses on a single core word. You’ll see examples of activities and hear how you can word things differently to incorporate the use of the target word more often..
Specific Interventions
Communication Partner Skills for AAC Learners
by from AssistiveWare blog
Short read of six ways to build communication partner skills: model, comment, pause, appropriate prompts, respond, and accept all forms. Clearly presented overview especially for new partners.
101 Ways to Use A Sequential Message AAC Device to Access the Curriculum
by Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs blog
A handy list of 101 ways that you could use a single-message communication tool/display in various ELA and math classroom activities. Most, if not all, of the ideas could also be applied to more robust devices. Check out the ideas to spark your own creativity and pick a few to try.
AAC in the Classroom Handout
Text-Based Aided Language: Making the Literacy-Communication Connection for Children with Autism
by PrAACtical AAC blog
This post describes an intervention called “Text-Based Aided Language,” or TAL. It describes how to integrate text into everyday interactions to support communication. The strategy is applied to individuals who have communication challenges who also have strengths in reading/writing.
What goes into teaching children to answer WH questions?
by by Alan Schnee, PhD, BCBA-D from Association for Science and Autism
This post helps explain what is involved in answering WH- questions, and why some of our students may struggle. They go through each wh- word – WHo, Where, Why etc. – and point out the challenges that particular word may present. Really an important read if you want to focus on answering wh- questions to know what is helpful wand what may not be.
