Monday, April 21, 2014

Augmentative Communication System Designed for the Home and Community Settings


Providing support is very important with a student has an augmentative communication system at home or in the community setting. The next step is to design the system to meet the demands and needs of the student in the home and community.

For the home setting, in addition to the training that can be provided to the family about the augmentative communication system, it is important that the family members encourage the student to use the system as much as possible. Working with the students’ teacher to learn specific techniques is also a great idea. They have experience with using these systems and can really help give input on transitioning them to different settings, such as the home and community.

For the community setting, like mentioned in the previous post, having field trips set up that are designed to bring awareness to using augmentative communication systems is a great way for the student to gain new experiences.  Especially if the student gets the chance to work with someone who knows little about such devices, it allows the student to have that experience and a chance to work through that challenge of communicating with them. They need to have such experiences, because not everyone they come into contact with will know what to do or say.

Lastly, the greatest accommodation that could be made for a student with an augmentative communication system is to have deigned boards that match the activity they are about to do. For example, if they are cooking something in the kitchen have a board that has cooking vocabulary. As seen below.

References:
Dell, A; Newton, G and Petroff, J. (2012). Assistive Technology in the Classroom: Enhancing the School Experience of Students with Disabilities. Pearson Education

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