Course Description:

Long-perceived as a last resort intervention, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is now understood as an important component of a practitioner’s toolkit for supporting communication, language, and social-emotional development in young children including infants and toddlers. The ubiquitous nature of technology has prompted development of tools and resources that make it easier than ever to access and implement a wide range of communication tools, from paper-based to technology-based, to support both receptive and expressive language development and foster high-quality interactions between children and their caregivers.

This session will focus on the transactional nature of communication and the importance of meaningful connection between children and their caregivers. The beneficial characteristics of AAC as a visual, tangible, concrete, organized, and pattern-based representation of language are multiple and varied:
•   expands receptive and expressive language experiences,
•   slows interactions which can foster comprehension,
•   explicitly guides caregivers to engage with language that supports natural language development processes, and
•   often expands the quality and duration of communicative exchanges.
As the communication partner is more than 50% of an interaction with a young child, the role of communication partners in shaping interactions that elicit communication rather than compliance will lay the foundation for specific discussion on creating communication opportunities across daily activities and routines. Participants will engage in brainstorming and critique exercises to apply their learning, and problem-solve addressing families’ unique needs.

This session is the third in a 3 part series to inform practitioners of the characteristics of AAC tools and strategies that support the natural language development process, expand understanding about the flexible nature of AAC as a “tool for for many”, and inspire appreciation of the discovery of a child’s authentic voice through AAC.