Aided Language Input When working with children that are using an augmentative communication system it is important that every child has their own personal communication system. It is also important the adults that are interacting with the children are using a similar symbol system so…

As speech and language pathologists,  we evaluate student’s speech and language skills. Although there is a wealth of evaluation tools for students for speech and language it is sometimes difficult to find tools for our students with severe disabilities. We especially want a tool that…

One of the shifts in working with students with significant disabilities has been the selection of vocabulary that we teach and how we introduce that. Previously we would teach concrete nouns that were in the child’s environment or were part of a lesson. It would…

I have been a speech and language pathologist, for now, forty-one years and over that time I have experienced changes in how we conduct therapy as research further defines best practices. One area that has been rapidly changing is in our work with students with…

  Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is constantly evolving not just the technology surrounding it but also the vocabulary that we emphasis as we teach it. I have been in the field for forty-one years and have seen the transformation of how we think of AAC.…

There are many areas for challenges for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. No two people have the same communicative challenges. Some children with autism spectrum disorder have echolalia. Echolalia At one time the thought was Echolalia was a behavior to eliminate but we have a…

What are pragmatic language skills? Pragmatic language refers to the social language skills that we use in our daily interactions with others. This includes what we say, how we say it, our non-verbal communication (eye contact, facial expressions, body language, etc.) and how appropriate our interactions are in a given situation.

Not all of our communication is verbal. When we examine a child’s speech and language skills we need to include observations and descriptions of how the child is communicating non-verbally. Eye Gaze: A child might look at something they want and then back to the…

The concept of language is a difficult one. According to Bloom and Lahey, language can be defined as “a knowledge of a code for representing ideas about the world through a conventional system of arbitrary signals for communication”. Language is hard to describe but if…

Parent-teacher conferences can bring new referrals as parents wonder if their child has a speech or language disorder that may be impacting their school work. Giving them some information on normal development and ways they can help their child is sometimes all that is needed.…