Ready to learn more about AAC?
People can be very intimidated by AAC and this is something I get a lot of questions about from other SLPs. I decided to bring an expert on the topic onto the show to talk about all things AAC so that you can become the best SLP you can be.
In this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, I sat down with Laura Hayes to dive into this topic so we can learn more about AAC, who needs it, teaching students advocacy, and so much more.
Laura Hayes is a speech-language pathologist with over 14 years of augmentative and alternative communication experience in both school and medical settings.
Laura has presented locally and at state, national, and international conferences such as MSHA, ATIA, AAC in the Cloud, Helix, TalkingAAC, and the Pediatric Perspectives Conference. She has been published and supported both inpatient pediatric and educational augmentative communication research. She loves providing training, implementation resources, and guided direction to help with success using AAC. She can be followed for more resources and ideas on Instagram.
In This Episode You’ll Discover:
- How Laura became an SLP
- How to collect data with AAC
- Ways to help unmotivated students
- Who could benefit from AAC
- The first step to AAC usage
- Why it’s never too late to start with an AAC device
- How to help students acquire an AAC device
- Tips for teaching students to advocate for themselves
- Favorite activities for students with AAC
- Using singing in speech therapy
I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Laura! Remember, don’t be intimidated by AAC. There are so many resources available to you so that you can help your students communicate and advocate for their needs. You just have to go find them!
If you want to learn more from Laura, make sure to follow her on Instagram where she shares tons of tips. You can also get her AAC for Gestalt Language Processors freebie here. If you want to reach out to her personally, you can do that at aacinnovations01@gmail.com.
If you want more help finding fun activities that you can plan in minutes, make sure to check out my SLP Elevate membership so that you can get new activities every single month!
Joke of the Week:
Q: What did one snowman say to the other snowman?
A: Can you smell carrots?
Resources Mentioned:
Get the free AAC for Gestalt Language Processors PDF
Where We Can Connect:
Listen on Your Favorite Podcast Platform
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