Episode 116: Kathryn Dorney: Using Core Words and Aided Language Input to Teach Preschool Children with ASD

This week, TWT presents Rachel’s interview with Kathryn Dorney of AAC for the SLP! Before the interview, Rachel shares about a young client she is working with whose family was modeling using Rachel’s free communication board before their first session!

Key ideas this week:

🔑 Kathryn Dorney discusses her recent researchwith Karen Erickson investigating attributing meaning to behaviors, using aided language input, and core vocabulary for preschool students with ASD.

🔑 For aided language input to be more successful, you need core words so that the communication partners have access to more of the words they use themselves. You can also teach intent better with core words - nouns often don’t indicate the intent of the speaker, but core words do.

🔑 When implementing AAC, we should encourage development, not performance. It can quite a while for some students to learn to communicate, and if we require early success to continue implementation, some students don’t get enough time to learn.

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