Practical, evidence-based AAC intervention guide

Essential for SLPs, OTs, PTs, educators, and other professionals in school settings, this book helps readers establish a beginning functional communicative repertoire for learners with severe disabilities. Professionals will start with an in-depth intervention framework, including a guide to AAC modes and technologies, variables to consider when selecting AAC, and how AAC research can be used to support practice. Then they'll get explicit, evidence-based instructional strategies they'll use to help children and young adults

• initiate, maintain, and terminate an interaction
  
  
• repair communication breakdowns
  
  
• match graphic symbols to objects and events
  
  
• request access to desired objects and activities
  
  
• escape and avoid unwanted objects and activities
  
  
• use alternative selection methods if they have severe motor impairments
  
  
• strengthen language comprehension and adaptive functioning
  
  
• enhance intelligibility and comprehensibility
  
  
• generalize communication skills across settings

To help guide their interventions, professionals will get a CD-ROM with more than 35 blank forms and sample filled-in forms, plus helpful hints, research highlights, case examples, and chapter objectives. They'll also have a step-by-step primer on monitoring each learner's performance, including an overview of different types of measurement systems and when to use each of them. The go-to guide to the latest evidence-based AAC strategies, this research-to-practice book will help improve communication—and quality of life—for learners with a range of significant disabilities.

Contents of the Accompanying CD-ROM
About the Authors and Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgments

I. Establishing the Framework for Intervention

1. Teaching Pragmatic Skills to Individuals with Severe Disabilities
Joe Reichle & Nancy C. Brady

2. Building Blocks of a Beginning Communication System: Communicative Modes
Susan S. Johnston & Joanna Cosbey

3. AAC Systems Features
Susan S. Johnston & Kathleen M. Feeley

4. Improving Communicative Competence Through Alternative Selection Methods
Patricia Dowden & Albert M. Cook

5. Instructional Strategies
Kathleen M. Feeley & Emily A. Jones

6. Intervention Intensity: Developing a Context for Instruction
Emily A. Jones & Kathleen M. Feeley

7. Monitoring Learner Performance
Kathleen M. Feeley & Emily A. Jones

II. Establishing Functional Communication

8. Teaching Learners to Correspond Graphic Symbols to Objects and Events
Joe Reichle & Krista M. Wilkinson

9. Gaining Access to Desired Objects and Activities
Susan S. Johnston & Joan Schumann

10. Escaping and Avoiding Objects and Activities
Emily A. Jones & Christopher E. Smith

11. Obtaining and Maintaining Communicative Interactions
Kathleen M. Feeley & Emily A. Jones

12. Using AAC to Support Language Comprehension
Emily A. Jones & Meredith Bailey-Orr

13. The Use of Augmentative Strategies to Enhance Communication of Verbal Mode Users
Kathleen M. Feeley & Emily A. Jones

Conclusion
Joe Reichle & Susan S. Johnston

Index

About This CD-ROM

Chapter 3

Device Manufacturers and Distributors List

Chapter 4

Technology-Based Web Sites
Form 4.1a: Assessing Prerequisite Skills for Scanning Across Control Sites (blank version)
Form 4.1b: Assessing Prerequisite Skills for Scanning Across Control Sites (filled-in version)
Form 4.2: Checklist for Early Scanning Practice Form 4.3: Checklist for Control Enhancers & Technique Modifications
Form 4.4: Checklist for Increasing Speed and Accuracy of Selection

Chapter 5

Form 5.1a: Rating Scale to Identify Potential Reinforcers (blank version)
Form 5.1b: Rating Scale to Identify Potential Reinforcers (filled-in version)
Form 5.2: Free Access Preference Assessment
Form 5.3: Forced Choice Preference Assessment
Form 5.4: Task Analysis Development and Performance Monitoring Form

Chapter 6

Form 6.1: Intervention Planning Form
Form 6.2: Performance Monitoring Form for Naturalistic Instruction
Form 6.3: Graph for Displaying Performance Monitoring Information
Form 6.4: Performance Monitoring Form for Instruction Embedded within an Activity
Form 6.5: Master List
Form 6.6: Performance Monitoring Form for Discrete Trial Instruction

Chapter 7

Form 7.1: Performance Monitoring Form for Frequency Data
Form 7.2: Performance Monitoring Form Illustrating the Collection of Response Rate Data
Form 7.3: Performance Monitoring Form Illustrating the Collection of Frequency Data with Limited Opportunities/Controlled Presentations
Form 7.4: Performance Monitoring Form Illustrating the Collection of Response Duration Data When Using a Stopwatch
Form 7.5: Performance Monitoring Form Illustrating the Collection of Response Duration Data When Recording Both Start and Stop Times
Form 7.6: Performance Monitoring Form Illustrating the Collection of Response Latency Data Using Stopwatch
Form 7.7: Performance Monitoring Form Illustrating the Collection of Data Describing Behavior
Form 7.8: Performance Monitoring Form Illustrating the Collection of Magnitude Data
Form 7.9: Intervention Integrity Monitoring Form
Form 7.10: Sample Form for Recording Response Reliability Information Alongside a Copy of the Performance Information Recorded by the Interventionist

Chapter 8

Form 8.1: Four-Item Reinforcer Preference Assessment
Form 8.2: Simple Discrimination: Verifying that Learners Can Distinguish Between Items
Form 8.3: Three-Choice Conditional Matching-to-Sample Task with Symmetry

Chapter 10

Form 10.1a: Performance Monitoring Form for Recording the Point at Which A Learner Desires To Avoid the Nonpreferred Object/Activity
Form 10.1b: Performance Monitoring Form for Recording the Point at Which A Learner Desires To Avoid the Nonpreferred Object/Activity
Form 10.2: Performance Monitoring Form for Recording Rejecting Responses
Form 10.3a: Performance Monitoring Form for Examining Situations in Which a Learner Seeks an Alternative (blank version)
Form 10.3b: Performance Monitoring Form for Examining Situations in Which a Learner Seeks an Alternative (filled-in version)
Form 10.4a: Performance Monitoring Form for Requesting an Alternative (blank version)
Form 10.4b: Performance Monitoring Form for Requesting an Alternative (filled-in version)
Form 10.5a: Performance Monitoring Form to Determine Amount of Work Completed Before a Learner Desires to Escape an Activity (blank version)
Form 10.5b: Performance Monitoring Form to Determine Amount of Work Completed Before a Learner Desires to Escape an Activity (filled-in version)
Form 10.6a: Performance Monitoring Form to Determine the Amount of Time the Learner Will Stay Before Desiring to Escape the Activity (blank version)
Form 10.6b: Performance Monitoring Form to Determine the Amount of Time the Learner Will Stay Before Desiring to Escape the Activity (filled-in version)
Form 10.7: Performance Monitoring Form for Break Requests
Form 10.8: Performance Monitoring Form for Requests for Assistance

Chapter 11

Form 11.1 Performance Monitoring Form for Recording the Point at Which a Learner Desires Attention
Form 11.2: Performance Monitoring Form for Recording Attention-Getting Responses
Form 11.3: Monitor Learner Progress During Conversational Exchanges
Form 11.4 Monitor Learner Progress During a Structured Observation
Form 11.5: Monitor Learner Progress During Communicative Breakdowns (Augmentative and Alternative Communication User in the Role of Speaker)
Form 11.6: Monitor Learner Progress During Communicative Breakdowns (Augmentative and Alternative Communication User in the Role of Listener)

Chapter 12

Form 12.1: Task Analysis (blank version)
Form 12.2. Task Analysis (filled-in version)

Chapter 13

Form 13.1: Intelligibility Assessment Form

About the Authors and Contributors
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