Episode 337: TWT Live: ArkSHA 2024 (Part 2)

This week, we share Part 2 of Chris and Rachel’s TWT Live episode recorded at the 2024 Arkansas Speech and Hearing Association! In this half of the episode, they share about modeling, teaching AT tools, strategies to support language development, and more!

Before the interview, Rachel shares about her experience teaching her grandmother to use a screen reader to regain independence despite vision loss. They discuss the broader implications of teaching technology usage, advocate for integrating tools like the Pomodoro Technique into education, the need for accessible design, and more!

Key Ideas this Episode:

Overcoming Barriers to AAC Adoption: The hosts emphasized the importance of asking questions to uncover the reasons behind resistance or challenges in implementing Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). This approach helps identify specific roadblocks and creates opportunities to educate and empower teachers, paraprofessionals, and parents.

The Role of Coaching and Modeling: The conversation highlighted the importance of hands-on coaching and modeling AAC use directly in classrooms. This strategy allows educators to learn by example and practice implementing AAC tools effectively, fostering better long-term adoption and skill development.

Inclusive Decision-Making and Customization: Engaging all stakeholders (teachers, parents, service providers, and students) in a structured decision-making process ensures that AAC tools and strategies are well-suited to the student’s needs. This collaborative approach builds ownership and buy-in, making implementation more successful and sustainable.

Transcript of the Episode

Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.

00:00:08 Chris Bugaj
Welcome to Talking With Tech. My name is Chris Bugaj and I'm here with Rachel Madel. Rachel, you got a story for us this week?

00:00:13 Rachel Madel
I do, Chris. I'm really excited to share this story and it was something that I was not expecting. So I was back on the east coast visiting family for the month of September, and I had organized. Whenever I'm home, I try to see as many friends and family as I can. And so I organized a get together with my grandmother who's in her 90s. And I just, like, love seeing her. She's so vibrant and full of life. She goes to the gym, Chris, every morning at 5am like, religiously. Like, she's been doing this for years and like, she still, like, sticks with it. I'm just like, always so in awe of her and impressed. So anyway, I went to visit. She lives in a community now for older individuals and she has tons of friends and the place is really great. They have all types of kind of classes and support. And she was telling me that she is taking a class all about her computer, like a computer class. So we're sitting there, we're just visiting. And she also has macular degeneration, so she's not. She's losing her vision, basically. And I was asking her, you know, like, just how you doing? And she shared that she's like, really struggling because she used to be able to read the newspaper and she's not able to read it anymore. And she kind of has all these magnifying glasses and lights in her room and she was sharing about it. And I was like, my little, like, assistive technology brain started working and I was just like, I wonder if I could help her with some type of supports. Like, there has to be like, some accessibility things I can do. She already had kind of enlarged text on her phone, which was great. So I was like, did you know, Grammy, that you can take a picture of something and you can have it? You can have the screen read the text aloud? And she's like, no. She's like, what do you mean? And so I like, take my. I'm like, give me something that you're. Not able to read. So she pulls us. She's like, pulls like a letter out and she's like, I just can't see what it says. And I'm like, okay, great. And so I like, take a picture of it and like, of course, like, enable the feature for screen reading. And I show her how to do it and she's just like, blown away. She's like, oh, my goodness. I can't believe it. Like, I can't believe it. And so I'm like, do you want me to teach you how to do it? And so I'm like, of course. Like, I'll teach you how to do it. And so I go through each step, and she's like, so cute. She's like, okay, hold on. And she has a little notebook. She's, like, writing each step down. Like, take a picture. Step one, touch the screen, highlight the text. Hit, select, all hit. Speed. Of course, I had to, like, open up that feature, the iOS feature. So over, you know, the course of, like, a couple hours, we kept kind of circling back and practicing the skill. And she's able to do it. She, like, got a little tripped up. She called me after I left, and she's like, I can't remember one of the steps. And so I was kind of talking her through it on the phone, and I have to check in with her because that was last week. And I'm wondering how she's doing. But it's opened up this whole world. To her where she wasn't able to read, you know, a letter in the mail or, you know, they have kind of like, a newsletter for that community that she's living in, and she can't read it. And so, you know, just being able to kind of empower her that she can still access the information and showing her how to do it. And I just loved it. She was so committed to the process, and she's like, no, no, let me try again. Like, she was so kind of tenacious in, like, her eagerness to learn how to do it. And it was just so cool. It was just like, I never thought about it until she started saying, like, I can't read. And I was like, I work with plenty of individuals who have visual impairment and can't read, you know, something on a screen or a piece of paper. And so it was just such a cool experience to be able to support her. And it just got me thinking. Like, there's so many, you know, older individuals who are losing their sight. They might not have macular degeneration, but, like, reading is hard for them. You know, they need a magnifying glass. They need a super bright light. And it just, like. It got me thinking about, like, all the different tools that could be so useful to, you know, so many different people. And it just takes someone willing to kind of sit down and, like, teach them how to use it, like I did with my grandmother. And it just, like, it was just one of those moments where I was so grateful for the technology and so grateful that I had the information about the technology. And she just thought it was, like, the coolest thing. She just, like, could not get over how incredible and, like, magical it was that, like, you could take a picture and it could read it to you.

00:05:04 Chris Bugaj
Well, you know, Rachel, you gotta be careful with those things because she might get addicted to her cell phone.

00:05:09 Participant
Yeah.

00:05:10 Rachel Madel
She might use it as a crutch.

00:05:12 Chris Bugaj
Right. It's cheating because it's not really fair to all the other people in that facility that don't know that tool. Right. They're trying to read it with their eyes. I'm sorry, you taught your grandmother how to cheat at reading? No. Something you said there. And I know I'm joking around, but that is so awesome. Right. Because it brings back her autonomy. She doesn't have to go and wait for someone to read it to her. Right. She can do these things independently when she wants to. Now that it opened, it gave her back portion of her life that she didn't have before and more control over it. Right. But something that you really honed in on there that I want to highlight is it took someone to teach her. She didn't even know what she didn't know. Right. Like, she knows how to use her phone for what she knows for, but she doesn't know all these other features. And you taught her how to use it. You took the time to teach her how to use it, and now she uses it appropriately. Right. Like, all joking aside, she's not addicted to her phone. She's using it to read her stuff. Right. I'm tying back to a larger issue that is really resonating with me. It's something that's happening in schools all over the country is, oh, put those cell phones away. Don't use them, don't use them, don't use them. You're addicted to them. It's hindering your learning of me standing here giving content to you as opposed to, let's spend any moments, any amount of time teaching kids how to use that technology. Right. Like, that's what you did for your grandma. You said, let me spend some minutes. We had these. Now I have this awesome memory you got to share with on the podcast. You really helped her. All this good comes out of it with some instruction. And I was like, that would be the same thing if we did that with kids. But there is no cell phone curriculum. Right. There's cell phone jail, but there is no cell phone curriculum where we're teaching Kids how to use those things again for power of good, right? To, to, to help with their, the jobs of getting their, their life organized or getting their work done or to help them with their learning. It just seems to be something we're just like, put that thing away. You're not allowed to use it. And it's just. I just feel like we're missing the boat there.

00:07:23 Rachel Madel
Totally, totally throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. And it's so interesting to me too, because I feel like I look at, whenever I'm looking at things, when it comes to students and how we're teaching them, I'm always fast forwarding to what these kids are gonna do as adults and like, what we all do as adults. And like, I understand the difference between like, adults and children at that. Like, you know, there is some teaching that needs to go alongside of using these tools and not being distracted by a text message on our phone and things like that. But the reality is, like, we're all using our phones to do basically everything at this point. We're checking our email, we're talking to our family, and we're making orders. We're organizing our life on a calendar, we're writing notes in our notes app. You know, it's just like we're using this tool all the time, and we're using it to be productive in our lives and get ourselves organized to support our executive functioning skills. And it's like such a missed opportunity when we're not thinking through that lens, when we're trying to teach our students how to use it, you know, and also I recognize that there are some things that will come up, but that's when you have to teach, right? Like, you have to teach kids how to navigate that. And then I, and I think it's just, it seems easier to just be like, absolutely not. Put it away. Right? It's harder to be like, you know, teaching the class and, you know, spending extra time with that one student who might feel very distracted by some other things on the phone. You know, it's just, it's harder. But in the long run, it's doing our students more of a service to prepare them for the real world when they get out of school and they have to, you organize their life, they have to follow a calendar, they have to do all these things. And those things aren't usually taught in schools. It's kind of like content is taught and then what about all the organizations, systems that we have in place? It's like, even if I think about myself, I Didn't learn that until I was in college and I had to. It was like sink or swim, baby. And I would have sunk if I didn't figure out systems for myself to know when these classes were and when these assignments were due and all of those things. And so I feel like we have an opportunity to really help kids and support them in creating systems for themselves. And we can utilize technology to do that.

00:09:43 Chris Bugaj
I want to give you a very specific example, and the world is a very specific example. So I just got back from the United Ability Conference and I had mentioned earlier that I had presented on Generative AI, but the other session that I presented on was Executive functioning and organizational tools. But really not tools, the strategies that go with tools. So imagine this, right? One of the things that I mentioned was a strategy called the Pomodoro technique. And what that is, you're nodding. You're familiar with the Pomodoro technique. Yeah. So for those who are not, what it is is it's a strategy to say, I'm gonna focus on something for 25 minutes and then I'm gonna take a five minute break. And then I'm gonna focus again for 25 minutes and then another five minute break. And you do that repeatedly, you know, as much as you not need to or want to to get your thing done. Right. So imagine if you're studying. Okay, I'm gonna study for 25 minutes. I'm gonna take a five minute break. Well, what is the problem that a lot of people have with cell phones is kids doom scroll on it, right? That's the term. Right. Just before I know it, three hours has gone by with my thumb just going up, up, up, up, and I'm watching video after video after video. Okay, so what if we said, okay, we know that's a problem. We know that people are doing that. And without instruction around it, that might be an outcome. What if we said, all right, let's marry the Pomodoro technique with how you use your cell phone. So 25 minutes on of doing something and now the timer goes off on your phone, right? You set a reminder and now you have five minutes to do doom scrolling. And then when that five minutes is up, oh, I gotta get back to it. Right? If we taught that explicitly in a course, that could be a portion of this course that you're talking about, right? Or teaching kids how to do this, what would the outcomes be? Like, what? Because right now I have to say, I don't know, because no one has done it, or if people have Done it. It's been in small pockets.

00:11:30 Rachel Madel
Right.

00:11:30 Chris Bugaj
It's not widespread that this is the practice. It's maybe one off situations with a teacher or specific schools, maybe a private school that has that built in. It's not the widespread pract, but that is just one particular strategy, the Pomodoro technique. Imagine multiplying that for an entire course about how to put things on your calendar, how when something's not working for you, how you might consider questions, you might change it, or going over to AI and saying, hey, let me ask, this thing is not working for me. How could I do it differently? Give me three different strategies to learn, blah blah, blah. Right. All of those would be ways that we could help people learn the technology to use it in an appropriate way.

00:12:09 Rachel Madel
Totally, Chris. I feel like we don't do enough teaching kind of that metacognition, that idea of thinking about our thinking and building that awareness. Because part of utilizing technology is having that kind of awareness and consciousness around like oh wow, I just caught myself doom scrolling. We all have to kind of learn that and navigate that and. And I feel like teaching kids at a young age how to engage with technology, noticing when they got sucked in and then changing courses. I love the idea of a timer to kind of help set up a habit and a routine around it. Kind of like when you listen to a meditation and the reason you're listening to a guided meditation is because the moment you kind of lose track and you start thinking, someone pulls you back and you're like, oh, that's right, I'm meditating, let me focus on my breath or whatever it is that your focus is on. But I feel like having that timer is a good way to kind of pull you back in. But again, thinking about more than just the content, having kids create systems and create and develop these skills feels really important for long term success.

00:13:22 Chris Bugaj
Well, thank you for sharing the story about your grandma. How exciting for her and that she's going to be reading more and reading more content and I bet will she have conversations with her friends that she's made there at that and show other people how they can use their phone and spread. All because you took a few moments to teach her and show her technology and how it can be used to open up her life.

00:13:47 Rachel Madel
Totally. I was just like already thinking like who can I find that's like an AT specialist that's like near my grandma so I can have them go teach her because she's so willing and open to learn and she's going to this computer class. But I'm thinking, who are the people teaching this technology class that haven't thought about assistive technology? So it's like, it's really got me thinking. The other thing I looked at, I was on her email thinking, like, oh, I can do a screen reader for her computer. And they had the newsletter from the building, and of course it was image only, so it was not able to screen read. And I'm like, this isn't accessible. So I'm like, I'm gonna send an email. So it was just. It opened up this, like, really beautiful conversation, like me teaching my grandma about, like, what does it mean to be accessible? I'm like, see, like, if they thought about this and they understood access, they would understand that an image only with text on it is not able to be read with a screen reader. And that becomes really important when we're thinking about making sure this media is accessible. And so she's like, you know what? They should be thinking about this. And I'm like, absolutely, grandma. They really should. And so it just opened up a beautiful conversation. So I'm excited to check back in with her, see how it's going. She definitely. I could totally see her sitting around a little circle teaching all of her friends how to use this feature. And I was like, I need to come back and teach a class. I'll come back and teach everybody a class on how to do this with their phones.

00:15:18 Chris Bugaj
Rachel, Madel's grandma, Advocate for change. I love it. I love it. Rachel, what's the episode today? What are we talking about?

00:15:25 Rachel Madel
Chris, I'm so excited. This is part two of the Talking with Tech Live we did with Arksha. Super excited, always to do a Talking with Tech Live and Arkansas was awesome. So let's lead into part two of our Talking with Tech Live with Arksha.

00:15:50 Chris Bugaj
If you enjoy talking with Tech, we could use your help in spreading the word about the podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review on itunes. The more positive reviews the podcast gets, the easier it becomes for others to find it. The more people who find the podcast, the more the word spreads about how to effectively consider and implement aac. And who doesn't want that? If that sounds good to you, please take a moment and give the podcast a quick review. We'd so very much appreciate it. Now let's get back into the episode.

00:16:26 Rachel Madel
I love when what Tammy just said too, about asking a question, I feel like one of my favorite ways to get buy in is to actually lead with more questions. It starts to reveal what roadblocks are actually at play. So the question becomes like, why is a teacher or a paraprofessional, like, why aren't they using aac? It could be because they don't think the student needs it. It's like, well, they have verbal speech, so like, why would they need this thing, right? It could be that they think, oh, like, you know, that's too high tech for them. They couldn't possibly use it. A limiting belief. It could be that they're just so overwhelmed in their classroom that they can't even imagine doing anything else. So the more questions we ask communication partners, the more clear it becomes as to what the roadblock actually is. And when we have more clarity around what the roadblock actually is, we're better able to come in and figure out how to support, how to educate, how to empower.

00:17:30 Chris Bugaj
Sarah writes, I have found pushing into the classroom and showing by example and modeling. I have had the best success with buy in from paras and teachers. Just to comment on that for a second, Sarah, Rachel and I talk a lot about the concept of coaching. The idea that you might go, you might do some sort of training about modeling on a device or what core vocabulary is or what descriptive teaching is or whatever that strategy you might be teaching. And then there's sort of an expectation that teachers just do it right? And we make the analogy that's sort of like watching a football game and seeing, well, that's how people throw a football. That doesn't mean, because you've watched it, you can throw a football. There's actually going in and seeing someone do it in the game. And then there's kind of standing back as a coach and helping the other person do it. Okay, now, Sarah, I've seen you do it. Now I'm going to step in while you're there. And Sarah, can you kind of give me some ideas about what I'm doing wrong or what I'm doing right and, and ask some questions to me so that I can give responses to think through how I did that. That's the basis of coaching. And we see that at least I see a lot in my neck of the woods and in the presentations that Rachel and I do, in the conversations that we have that we do a lot of training, but coaching is sort of like gestalt language processing. It's developing in how many people are actually using that or knowing about it or doing.

00:18:58 Rachel Madel
Mm, love it.

00:19:04 Chris Bugaj
We'll red. Dr. I can't see the. Oh, it's. Yeah, we'll read that in a second. But I have a comment too about, about the biggest frustration and get that buy in something that we've seen work really, really well in our school district is Rachel mentioned this idea of, of asking questions. Right. That was based on what Tammy said. Well, we do that too in our neck of the woods, but we do it in a very structured way. Decision making process. Meaning when we're considering AAC and we're trying to choose what that AAC might be, a sort of a traditional model around that is someone who had, has some, I'll put in quotes here, experience with AAC is usually called in, looks at a student, maybe tries a few things and then Raymie writes up a report that says this is the thing that we should implement. And the people that are actually working with the kid might have little to no say or maybe have a little input, but they're not really there making the decision. We turn. So let me stop there. Is that fair? Like is that what's happening in your neck of the woods? Is that usually how the paradigm works? Is that it's. Somebody comes in, maybe it's even you that does the evaluation, chooses something and then sort of dons it onto the people and then they try and implement it with you maybe giving advice as people put that in the chat, whether that's their approach or not or that's what's happening in their neck of the woods. What we do now in our neck of the woods is we have a structured conversation where we ask some structured questions to help choose what that tool might be with the teacher, with a parent, with any of the related service providers, the team, like any outside service providers. If Rachel's a private slp, we'd invite her in to give input as well and then we'd ask those sorts of questions in a structured format. Okay, we know we want lots of words because so do we all agree we want lots of words. Do we agree that what do you guys think about a consistent motor plan? We would ask some questions or. And we have more questions than that, but we ask these questions and then we fill out sort of a chart, a feature matching chart to find what's the best, or I could say the least, not the best, what's the least restrictive option for the student. And when we're done, everybody has had a part in choosing what that thing is. Now you have some ownership about the decision so that you have buy in to actually implement it. Otherwise you're wrong. You don't want to be wrong. You want to help the kid. So, so that Helps inviting people to be part of the decision making process. Helps on the back end with buy in and follow through to that point.

00:21:42 Rachel Madel
Erin says, I have the parent come in with a representative who brings several devices so I can see what will work for the child but also get parent input. Yes, the more people we can get to be a part of that process in the initial stages, the more we have that buy in when we're going into the implementation phase of whatever tool that we sel. Also, Tammy says, I've learned so much this year by going into the classroom. Not just the content, but the responses and needs of the students. I feel like I've been writing goals and working with students, but not meeting their academic needs in the classroom. I think this is such a good point simply because, you know, integrating into a child's day, whatever that looks like, whether that's into a classroom or into the home environment or, you know, whatever the student is doing, being able to weave our way in and support in those moments and model and code, coach and integrate with what's happening is for sure one of the most effective ways to help support students. Just because we know, in a therapy room, you know, even if we can get a student to do something in our therapy session, you know, in a controlled environment, how do we get that skill to generalize outside of our therapy room? So taking the time to see what's happening in the classroom room and someone else said, making those relationships happen, taking the time to build relationships, absolutely. Those things are all really great ways to support that buy in.

00:23:11 Chris Bugaj
All right, I gotta comment on that too. So another great resource that is often underutilized when Tammy, when you go into the classroom or someone goes into the general a classroom, is the other learners in that classroom. So if we could maybe say, hey, teacher, could I do, could I partner with you to do a, you know, 45 minute experience with the kids where, where I take the screenshot of the home screen of what the student's using, or if you can get some loaner devices that you could use, bring it into the classroom, do a modeling session for all the kids in the room. Because even if you do get teacher buy in, especially in general ed, next year they'll probably have another teacher and then they'll have another teacher, another teacher. But the people that move with them, the bubble that they're in, is the other students. So when you're thinking about the pie chart of your time and how you spend your time, it might be better to spend your, your time working with the other kids. In the room and developing their skills as communication partners and friends and just to become good friends.

00:24:14 Rachel Madel
Yes. It kind of leads us perfectly into the next question. Chris, you talked about screenshots of devices. The next question is, what are your favorite low tech AAC tools to use very early on until you can get a feel for the child? I'm so eager to hear what people are thinking in that respect. I do think that. And Jennifer, I'm curious, when you say very early on, are you talking about, like young students, are you talking about just the initial stages of aac? If you're willing to come on mic, I'd love to hear more. I have some questions that I want to follow up with with this one.

00:24:59 Participant
Let's see.

00:25:04 Rachel Madel
Yes. Preschool setting. Okay. Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons I liked what Chris had said about the screenshot is that one of the things that we oftentimes are doing with preschool classrooms is we're introducing core boards. Put in the chat if you guys are using core boards with students. And one of the challenges with core boards is that how do we. Yes, an overwhelming. Yes, core boards are the thing. Yes. But there is something better, correct? I'm curious if you want to expand on that. Yeah, I feel like core boards are like the thing now, which is great. Like we have students who have access to paper based aac, you know, early on. Great.

00:26:01 Chris Bugaj
The person in the chat said yes, but is there something better?

00:26:05 Rachel Madel
I'm asking, please.

00:26:08 Chris Bugaj
The answer is yes, there is.

00:26:14 Rachel Madel
I like to start with high tech that we use a lot in the room and the teachers see, are familiar with and then modify from there if the student can't. I mean, I think that we have this idea that we need to start with low tech or late tech aac. And I'm here to tell you that you don't, you know, if. And I recognize sometimes we don't have, we don't always have access to high tech aac or it takes us time to get it in the hands of students or, you know, I understand that there are limitations. However, I also think there's this idea that we have to prove that a student can use low tech AAC before they get to graduate to high tech aac. Or the student is so young that let's just start with a paper based communication board and then we'll move to high tech. I don't think that's true. I work with very young students. Early intervention, birth to three, where, you know, the student is still developing the fine motor to be able to kind of even activate a high tech AAC device. But it's not, it's not something where we need to use paper based or light tech AAC and then move on to high tech. You know what's so amazing about high tech AAC is the auditory output. You know, it's so powerful for our students to see an icon on, touch it, and then hear the word. We don't have that with paper based aac. And so it's really important to have backup systems and screenshots of devices and core boards if you don't have access to anything else. But I'm just here to say that we can start with high tech AAC and be very successful. And there's no yes, like Tracy says, no proving. We don't have to prove that we now have earned our right to high tech aac. And if we know that's what we want for our students, we want a robust AAC system for them. That's what our end goal is. Why would we not just start there if we could?

00:28:28 Chris Bugaj
I think it might be helpful to add two other components. The first is, especially if you're not, if you're not someone who specializes in aac, you might not realize that if you take a historical perspective, AAC used to mean an $8,000 device. And the price point has come down to get, to get robust vocabulary. It was $8,000. So all these different constructs were created to help with the financial situation. We have to trial three things to get to insurance, for instance. And these are sort of legacy practices that maybe we don't need anymore because we have a price point that is much lower than $8,000. It can be $800 if you purchase the right time and an iPad at the right time. And that's significantly less, less expensive. So the other thing that as core vocabulary sort of took off and we sort of recognize, and it's proven here in the chat that people know about core vocabulary. What didn't kind of grow with it, but should have is that concept that Rachel brought earlier of motor planning. So a lot of people went out and said, yes, core vocabulary. I got it. Now I can make core boards. But the words were sort of randomized on some sort of piece of paper. And if we think someday, eventually kids are going to be able to learn to say whatever they want to say, however they want to say it. They'll be able to put ing and ed and plural s and possessive s. They're going to learn all these things, which is the end game. We believe every kid can do that then. We know now that we need to keep the motor plan as consistent as possible. There are ways you can change it, but you really don't want to. If you don't have to think about how frustrating it is whenever you have to change your motor plan, something has changed and you're like, oh, man. So why we frustrate a kid like that? So the idea now is take the core boards and to make a core board. So you want to, like I said, bring core boards into a general ed classroom or put them all, make an entire environment in your school of core boards. Take your most frequently used application, take a screenshot of that, and use that as your sort of tier one universal support as you build up and get the funds and convince people that it doesn't. Everything Rachel just said, it doesn't talk out loud. How come I can't hear it? It doesn't have a consistent voice. The core boards might. That I chose might not have ING on it or ed. How are they going to learn that? So it's a good thing to have a consistent core board. That then at least relates to the. An app they might get eventually or the app that they might. Because other people might be using it in their environment. That might be a consideration of why this might be an app they would use in their environment. Environment or use for themselves. So you might take a screenshot of that app and use that as your sort of tier one universal core board.

00:31:26 Rachel Madel
And two, there was in the chat, I like to start with high tech that we use a lot in the room and the teachers are familiar with. And I feel like that's such a great consideration when we're thinking about what are we choosing. And I put that so high on my list just because we know that, that getting people to buy in, to become familiar with, to understand how to model on a device. We know that if it's a device that they're familiar with, it's a system they've seen. If it's a system that another student in the classroom has, can we start with that? And then if it's not the right system because this student needs, you know, something, some other feature, then we pivot and we can adapt as we need to, but we know that we're more likely to get that buy in if we have something that's familiar. And if we create a culture around AAC and we have one system that's primarily used, all of a sudden those teachers and paraprofessionals in the classroom are becoming really comfortable with that. System and where the words are and how to model on that system. So I do think that's a really good point and a really great consideration.

00:32:33 Chris Bugaj
That's one of our structured questions is what are people in the room already familiar with? And if it doesn't mean you can't learn something new, like you said, Rachel, maybe there's some instances that there's very specific reasons why we might need, for instance, Vietnamese. This student speaks Vietnamese at home. How do we. The tool that we use most frequently in our classroom doesn't have Vietnamese. Well, that's another question. What languages are spoken at home? So there's some things that might outweigh another, but that certainly is one of the considerations that we put in our structured copy conversation.

00:33:10 Rachel Madel
Alexa says we're already answering her the question. I know how great. Yes. So. And that's actually kind of leads into the specific language system first approach, Chris, which is the gift you gave away. This idea. Chris goes into a lot more detail and of course, in his course, but also on the podcast, if you just search specific language system first, like, lots of episodes will come up. Actually, no, we have a blog. We have a blog on our website that talks all about it. And I definitely would recommend kind of thinking through that lens and, you know, to the point of what has traditionally been done and how that's evolving. I think we are evolving in our fields to think through the lens of universal AAC and then tweaking as we go. And, you know, it's kind of something that most AAC specialists and practitioners have already been doing, but they feel guilty about. They're like, well, I know this system and this classroom has this. It's like, we don't need to. To feel bad about that. Like, we just need to get robust AAC systems in front of our students who need it and figure out the best way to support the implementation. So definitely recommend kind of doing a deeper dive into that. We only have. Oh, my goodness, there's only 15 minutes left. How is that possible? So we're having so much fun. Time flies when you're having fun.

00:34:32 Chris Bugaj
All right, Rachel, I'm going to read the next question then. With technology changing every day and new companies being introduced. Introduced, how do you suggest we stay up to date on what each platform offers so that we are best able to help identify what method may truly best serve a client? And we aren't always recommending the platforms that we as SLPs, are most familiar. Yeah. So I think, of course, we want to hear everybody's ideas here, but this also, like you said, Rachel, this sort of plays into the multi tiered system of support model of the specific language system. First approach is that we don't have to feel guilty that we're used to something and we're really good at something. We can lean into that and still say, okay, this something isn't the right tool for somebody. I have to go find something else. And the way we would equate that is sort of like shopping on Amazon. Are you familiar with shopping on Amazon?

00:35:19 Rachel Madel
Like you, Yes, I am, Chris.

00:35:22 Chris Bugaj
You could just go to Amazon and kind of like, I don't know, let's tool around here. Prime day is coming up. Let's see. Is there anything I need you. There's a billion things on there. How would you find what you need? You can never keep abreast of all the different things that are coming up and new on Amazon. So don't. You don't have to. Instead think through. Okay, let's ask a lot of questions about what I'm searching for on Amazon. Geez, you know what? I'm really. I'm really looking for this kid, a birthday present. My cousin's birthday is coming up. The kids, he's five years old. You know, I think we talked about Star wars last time. I think he's big into Star wars and his parents are always talking about how he's constantly built, building things. Why don't I look for Star Wars Legos? You asked a series of questions about the kid. Then you went to Amazon and found what kind of Star Wars Legos you were going to buy. Same idea with aac, you can't keep up with all the toys out there in the world. So ask some questions about, okay, what. What language is spoke at home. What has a consistent motor plan or has the least number of hits to get to words. What has access to all the morphemes, like the grammatical morphemes, like I mentioned earlier, Ed Ing what. What' most frequently used. And then once you have a list, oh, my gosh, this kid needs Vietnamese. Now you can go shopping. All right, let me go see what kind of AAC exists out there. And there are tons of places you can ask. There's all sorts of AAC for the SLP on Facebook is a great place to post questions like that. Very specific focus. Questions like that can gather garnish, really robust answers. Oh, this has it. This doesn't. You know, that's. That's how you can approach it. Rather than try and keep on top of things.

00:37:07 Rachel Madel
I want to Add one more thing to this, because I feel like what happens in the world of technology to this, you know, to Lauren's point in this question, is that we feel inadequate because we're not on top of all of the things. And I want to just tell you that when a family comes to me and they start talking about, you know, oh, you know, we have have Snap Core, we have Lamp or we have this, it's like I will be the first to admit that, like, I am not on top of all of the updates. There's new features added all the time. There's so many things that are constantly changing. But what I feel very confident in is taking any AAC system and knowing how to support language learning through aac. And so just remember that you have the tools to support language learning and the system. You know, you don't have to know all the specific details about that system and the things that you don't know. Is it one Google search away? Like, these companies have so many resources about their products and their systems and their tools that if you don't know something, you'll find it. You have to rest assured that the information that's technical that you might not know, you can figure out. But what, what we need to spend our precious time doing when we're with communication partners is how to actually support language. How to know how to pause and ask less question and provide more comments. And, you know, all of those things is where we become very skilled as speech language pathologists. And sometimes I feel like we feel like we have to like, teach how to program a button and do all these kind of more mechanical things. And the way I frame it is like, if I can like, you know, send you a YouTube video on how to program a button, I'm going to spend my precious time talking with you about how to integrate into your already existing routines and what word to model and, you know, all of the things that you can't Google search. So I do just want to kind of reiterate that idea that we don't have to know it all, especially because the technology is always changing and to really think through how we're using our time with that communication partner, with that paraprofessional, with that parent, and making really the use of our time to be towards the things that you can't Google search. Like, all the implementation strategies that we know can be so effective.

00:39:31 Chris Bugaj
Hear, hear. All right, Ready for the next one?

00:39:34 Rachel Madel
Yeah.

00:39:36 Chris Bugaj
One of my clients is very bright, able to spell almost anything. All right. Yes. Let's assume every Kid can eventually learn how to spell. Awesome. However, when using her AAC device, she is not interested in using the icons. She will attend to me showing her the location, hits, etc. And at home, she doesn't have anything because she is using a school iPad with lamp.

00:39:57 Rachel Madel
Help.

00:39:57 Chris Bugaj
Help, someone. It's H E L, L, P. Okay, first thing I'm going to say here is there's no reason the school iPad can't come home. Maybe there is a reason, but whatever that reason is, they can erase her and erase it because let's let them take it home. Right? We, all of our students in, I should say the vast majority of students in our school district take the AAC home and use it at home. So let's wrestle with that barrier and figure out why they can't take it home. And the second thing here is, is she's not interested in using the icons. Yes, I've had a number of students not interested in using the icons too, because none of their peers are using those icons. None of the. None of their friends are using them. I'm going to guess here. Is this, is this elementary or middle school? Definitely by middle school, a number of kids are like not using the thing with symbols. I'll just. The only symbols I use are the Alphabet because other kids are using the Alphabet, which. Okay, let's respect that. Let's start teaching the Alphabet. So I think it's okay to lean into the Alphabet and word prediction. Maybe teaching her word prediction, but then also later on. And again, you say this student is really smart, but again, a really bright. I like to think any kid is. Imagine having a race with her. All right, you do it and I'll do it and we'll see who gets through the most fastest. Right? Or comparing that with other AAC users who are using the assistant. That takes three hits to say a word versus typing out all the letters and finding it. Right. So there might be teaching strategies that we can use to illustrate. Sometimes you use the keyboard, sometimes you're faster if you use your AAC and find the. And find the icons.

00:41:46 Rachel Madel
I also, I have some more questions about this student. I'm curious if you've tried modeling spelling. So, like, it sounds like you're trying to model the icons, which makes sense. But I would lean into the fact that this student strength is spelling. And I'm always trying to identify strengths and build off of the strengths that students are showing. And so I'd be curious. One, what is the student saying? You know, communicating spontaneously through spelling. Are they able to communicate through spelling. And then how do they respond when you model through spelling and word prediction? I. I don't remember who it was, Chris, who we had on the podcast, but we had an autistic adult who said they actually think way faster and better through spelling than they do through symbols. And so I think that it's just individual preferences based on what I know from autistic adults who have shared their experience. So I would lean into whatever the student is showing and try to kind of adapt around it. Yes. Like, the icons can be a lot faster, but if that's not the way that the student's brain is kind of processing and thinking, then, you know, we need to kind of lean into what the student is showing interest in and building off of their strengths. Yeah, I have, I think it's a very common. A lot of students. I have a lot of students who are spelling, but they're not using symbols. And it's interesting, but I, I think that those students can be really successful with, you know, using literacy, but making sure that we're modeling in that modality. Because I think if we're always modeling in symbols and the student's not using symbols, but the student spelling, it's like, well, what happens if we start modeling through spelling?

00:43:43 Chris Bugaj
Yes. Michelle wrote. DC okay, so catching up in the chat a little bit for the, for the listeners at home, someone wrote, I have a student who I model with by using word finder on lamp Words for Life. He now uses the word finder himself if he doesn't know how to find a word or if he hasn't learned the motor pathway yet. Yes. What a great strategy. Right now I can learn the motor pathway myself. Right. Awesome. Awesome. And then later on it says, same person says his teachers were not even aware he could spell some of the things he can. And then Michelle writes, sites least dangerous assumption. Right. We should just automatically assume they couldn't do that and they show us that they can do it way more than we think they can. Right. Let's. What happens if we assume that they can? Right. And we. And. And assume that they maybe. Maybe that they can't yet, but they will if we teach them.

00:44:35 Rachel Madel
Yes. And also Dr. Angelyn Franks. Yes. Says texting is such a common way of communicating these days. I think there could be a lot of opportunity there once they start Communicating via television. Text. 100%. Yes. Are you guys familiar? There's a website called I like the letter if text message.com. it is awesome. It's a. It's a screen like A phone screen and you can input like kind of this text conversation. So I work on texting with my students with that website. Even better if you can actually have a phone and you can actually send it to someone and they can hear it. But yes, like how powerful is it to have a student learn how to text, you know, potato chips and then mom comes home from the store with potato chips. Like how, you know, amazing and powerful does language become when we teach our students how to, you know, use literacy, spell text, all these things. I'm going to put the, I'm going to find the website for you guys and I'll put it in the chat. It's called iFake text message. There's a bunch of them though.

00:45:47 Chris Bugaj
While you do that, Rachel, I'm going to quickly summarize the last. Well, there's, the last question is, do you have any personal favorite systems? Maybe we do, but we're not going to say it because we want to be agnostic on the podcast and again, lean into those strategies, spending more time focusing on going slow and doing self talk and descriptive teaching and least the most prompting. And if any of those strategies that we just, just mentioned are like what are those? Then listen to the podcast or reach out because those are all strategies to focus more on rather than what's your favorite system? And the last question was Alexis said, we already answered it, but it was about the sped. Teachers at my school are fairly new to AAC and it can be overwhelming for them when they have lots of different systems in the classrooms. Would you recommend sticking to a main AAC app so staff feels comfortable modeling and incorporating one app during lessons? Or would you recommend doing an AAC eval for each student to determine the most most appropriate app and train staff as needed? I'm often the first person to introduce AAC to families, so I feel a lot of pressure to make sure I recommend the best language app and device. So I think we did cover this. If you think of it as a multi tiered system of support, what is your tier one? What is everyone used to using? What can I get everyone used to using? And then what can I. If that doesn't fit somebody, then you can move up the MTSS triangle. A tier three. Three. What would be individualized for this particular kid? What are some. Because this kid's not going to put together a fit, it's not going to particularly work for this kid.

00:47:20 Rachel Madel
Amen. Awesome. You guys have been so great today. You guys know where you can find us. You have the slide deck that has Our contact information, we would love if you listen to the podcast. It's a completely free resource. And yeah, we're just super passionate about sharing all that we know and we have come to know about aac and it's a lot. But just know that you are not alone in feeling the overwhelm. Myself, I like eat, live and breathe aac and sometimes I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, I didn't know about that new, you know, app or that new tool or that new technology update. And so kind of, as I mentioned before, just knowing that you can find the information that you don't have and we can hopefully be a resource for you in learning that information. And, and I think today proves that we all have a really rich experience that sometimes we don't, we don't remember. We're like, oh, like, I feel like I don't know enough. And then we realize when people start asking questions in a, in a forum like this, actually, I do have a lot of ideas. I do have experience. So it's been a really great collective conversation with you guys. And thank you so much for joining us.

00:48:28 Chris Bugaj
Thanks, everybody.

00:48:29 Participant
Thank you guys so much. I know that we all really, really enjoyed, enjoyed that. It's like meeting superstars because I listen to you all the time.

00:48:37 Rachel Madel
I love it. Thank you so much, Wendy.

00:48:40 Participant
You're welcome. And I personally have experience with your AAC ally course and I, I mean, it's amazing. And then, Chris, I, I have your, your 365 book that I, that I use all the time. So thank you so much for supporting ArkSHA and being here today. We couldn't be more thrilled that you agreed do this.

00:49:00 Rachel Madel
Yes, thank you.

00:49:00 Chris Bugaj
Listen to the podcast. It's going to be out in a couple months.

00:49:05 Rachel Madel
You guys are going to be famous.

00:49:08 Participant
Thanks, everybody. Thank you. All right, everybody, thank you so much for attending the final day of the ArkSHA Summer Schools conference. We want to thank all of our presenters for their time, their knowledge, and their support of ARCHA over these past three days, and supporting you, all of our SLPs and audiologists, and our state. And we also want to thank you, our participants, for being so engaged throughout the entire conference, through the chat and through the Q and A. We really appreciate that and that just helps us all learn from each other. Please don't forget to complete the survey for today's session. So you'll do, you'll do two surveys today. You'll do the Wednesday survey, and then at the top of the dashboard, you'll see a conference survey where you can give us feedback and including things that you would like to hear about in the future. So we'd really appreciate that to make this conference even better next year. Let's see. If you're not a member of Arcsha, we do encourage you to join today through arcsha.org be sure to use that promo code SUMMERMEM10 to receive 10% off a recurrent membership. And also we would greatly. Oh, already mentioned the conference surveys. Okay. And then we hope to see you all again soon as ARCSHA continues to advocate for and provide professional development for those around the state. Be on the lookout on our social media sites for the annual convention that will be in February. February. We'll stay on for a few more minutes. If anyone has any questions or anything that they would like to put in the chat. But we appreciate you all so much.