Episode 290: April Wallace & Christina Stader - Specific Language System First Approach Q&A

Join Chris and Rachel for an Interactive Pre-Conference Session at ATIA 2024! 

This week, we share Chris’s interview with April Wallace & Christina Stader! They are school-based SLPs and AAC Specialists with Aiken County Public Schools who are considering moving their district to a Specific Language System First Approach (SLSFA). They discuss the merit of pilot programs, whether starting with just preschool, research that supports the principles of the SLFSA, and more!

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel discuss a listener question about a high school student only hovers over words and refuses to touch the device after using it to communicate for multiple years. Chris and Rachel share some strategies for teaching him it’s OK to touch the device, and how, in their experience, it may stem from a compliance-based element creating anxiety about choosing the “right” word.

Key ideas this week:

🔑 If you want to roll out a new program like SLFSA in your district, consider starting in a few classrooms first as a pilot. Then, you can measure their improvement to demonstrate your success to the rest of the district.

🔑 In Chris’s district, they give teachers 6 coaching sessions that records teachers and measures how much modeling happens. Teachers watch the videos and reflect on how they could do better, and the AAC team uses this data to measure success.

🔑 If you are moving to a SLSFA, there will be some students who received good implementation on a different system; often, these students should remain on those systems. If there wasn’t much success and/or implementation on the previous AAC app, it might be worth trying out the new AAC app.

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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
Welcome to Talking Tech. I'm your host Rachel Madel, joined, as always by Chris Bugaj. Hey, Chris.

00:00:12
Rachel, it's been a hot second since we've done a listener question and people send us questions all the time, so. Let's dive into one, shall we?

00:00:19
I'm excited, Chris, because this is a really good one. So the question is, I have a student who has been using high tech AAC since I started working with him in 2020. He's a high school student and I'm a school based therapist. When I started working with him, he was transitioning from Proloquo to touch chat on his device. He had a dedicated device with Proloquo that was set up with primarily nouns and more and all done, but appeared to be solely requesting and focusing with very few core vocabulary words.

00:00:47
At some point YouTube was unlocked and became very aggressive when transitioning away from videos. His previous therapist then introduced a new dedicated device with touch chat that had core words but still mirrored some of those preferred items and kept them in the same spot to support motor planning. He did well the past two years using the device for primarily requesting, but we provided a lot of modeling for other communication functions and was gaining some interest from him. However, this year he's not touching the device. He will look at the device, hover his finger over a very specific word, but will not touch the device itself to generate speech.

00:01:23
We prompt and model, but he refuses to physically touch the device. We've provided a stylus to help bridge the gap and also adjusted the voice settings and volume to see if that will support him, but have seen no success. If you have any suggestions we would love it.

00:01:37
I have one. So first, how sad right? Because we know what led to this is this is him participating in a therapy model that is compliance driven right as opposed to neurodiversity affirming he. I think my 1 strategy here that I would go to is to teach him that it's OK to touch the device. So I'd be thinking about some sort of social situation story through like writing books that that either you write or you write with him that that you then make into a video that he watches about how people communicate and how he doesn't need to wait to touch the device.

00:02:22
That's my first go to is a multi modal.

00:02:25
And therapy intervention campaign to teach him that it's OK to touch the device without waiting for somebody to give him direction to do so, yeah, I've actually worked with quite a few students who have been in a similar situation where they just were using the device and then stop using it. And I find that there's often times, as you mentioned, Chris, some type of compliance based element here that that is there's a right thing to say and a wrong thing to say. And if you say the wrong thing, then I'm going to tell you to try again or you know, not respect the communication that you are using in that moment. And when we give corrective feedback like that, we're really creating in some situations a lot of speaking anxieties like, OK, if there's a right and a wrong thing to say, I want to make sure I don't say the wrong thing. And so I'll hover my hand over, but I'm not sure.

00:03:26
And I have this, like internal struggle with, you know, being able to communicate what I'm thinking. And it's just, it's really a sad situation Because you know, if we if we approach communication with curiosity, with openness, with attributing meaning to whatever it is that a child decides to communicate with us, we can kind of prevent some of this, some of these anxieties from developing. I also think it's just really important to recognize that there are anxieties around communication. If I'm if I know that communicating is hard for me and someone's putting pressure on me to do it, that just intensifies my anxiety around it. And so I think we do need to be really cautious and have a lot of empathy for that experience, for our students using AAC, because it can feel very intimidating to feel like you have to perform or feel like you have to say the right thing in a situation.

00:04:27
And so for us as educators, what we can do is try to create a really safe space, a safe space to try a safe space to say whatever you want to say. And so I wonder if there's a way that we can help this student by, you know, creating that safe space and not putting so much pressure on actually touching the device.

00:04:48
And then realize that this student, I think he was described as a student who is in high school, right? The situation as a student is in high school, so the student is likely had. Let's ballpark at it. 15 at least 15 years of this compliance driven approach and now you're trying to undo that and a safe space is certainly a place to do is is creating an environment like that. It's a start but recognize it's going to take some time to undo what has been done.

00:05:19
So give yourself some grace, yeah. And I also wonder like how are, how are there ways that we can start, you know, creating fun opportunities for language? It sounds like it's been very much focused on requesting and I'm happy to hear this person had said we're modeling other communication functions and that he was gaining interest. And so I'm really curious because it says this year he's not touching the device. So I just wonder if something happened, I'd be definitely having conversations with the family at home and, you know, the team just to see if there's any anything that like, happened.

00:06:00
Because it's not, it's not usually common to see like I'm using the device, I'm using the device. All of a sudden I refuse to touch it, right. That, like, the warning bells go off like, huh, was there some type of really, like, traumatic event that happened with this device that now is producing this kind of response and this anxiety?

00:06:19
Certainly having those sorts of conversations to try and see if something like that happened, I could also see depending on the the student, like now I'm just done, like well, I'm not doing this anymore. I have made a decision in my own head that this is not for me generally. This is very very general statement here. Is that in your teen years is where you become the most rebellious. You know, you you you fight the man.

00:06:46
You fight the system. You know and maybe this student is doing that. You know, like I'm just not doing this anymore. I'm not going to be your. I'm not going to just follow the rule that you set.

00:06:58
This doesn't seem to. Make any sense to me?

00:07:00
Well, also, how can we incorporate more language that a teenager would want to use, like go away? This sucks, right? Like, I mean, can we teach language like that so that he has the ability to really communicate what's going on inside? He also loves YouTube, so how can we incorporate that into what, you know, we're working on and having him learn how to comment about YouTube videos and specify if there's specific YouTube videos that he likes? Can we pull the keyboard open and see if he'd be willing to type?

00:07:34
I don't know what the literacy skills look like but there's it's never too late to start working on literacy and how can we start, you know having creating different experiences with this device because at the end of the day like he had for whatever reason and not a good experience that's why he's not touching it And So what are the things that we can do to make it fun, to make it engaging to make it feel different. So I, I, it's it's a tough situation though. I've been in this situation, actually have one student on my caseload right now and I did an assessment and he didn't touch the device at all. Like not once. And I was talking to there's a student with me who was observing and I was just like she's like, is this common?

00:08:15
I was like, no, it's not. And he's still not touching it. So I was like, you know, I was doing, I was pulling out all the stops. He loves Pirates of the Caribbean. And I was like, all right, let's put Jack Sparrow in the device and like, really trying to get him engaged.

00:08:30
And he, you know, it's also fair to say part of it was just building rapport. He wouldn't even come in the room to start. So by the end of the session, he was sitting next to me. We were watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I was modeling Jack Sparrow and all the different characters for him.

00:08:45
And so we did make some progress. But you know, it's been, it's been, it's been a challenging case. It's been hard to kind of get him comfortable with the the device. He's, he's a high schooler. He also, he had some regression.

00:09:00
So he had a lot of verbal speech and he's lost a lot of that and he's definitely lost intelligibility. And so he had these skills and then he lost them. And so I think there's an acute awareness around that and a lot of anxiety around things feeling different and him not being able to communicate what he used to be able to communicate. And so, you know, this is, this is something that that really speaks to me, this question, because I'm dealing with this exact thing in my own practice. But sometimes these things just take time.

00:09:30
And we have to be really, we have to be really relentless in searching for ways to help get our students feeling safe and comfortable. And it's not always immediate the the the, the wins that we see. Sometimes we have to really think outside the box and we have to talk with the whole team and really brainstorm and troubleshoot together to figure out situations like this.

00:09:54
One last idea I would share, and this is a, a Plan B, not a plan A. So OK, we've done this, we're trying this. Everything you just said is what we've been doing. You could consider changing the device. Yes, on this old device, that's how it was.

00:10:09
You had to look at us before you could push a button. This student device. Now let's do that marketing campaign. This is totally different. Here you get to do it because this one is blue, not yellow, and this one is this app rather than this app, and it's sort of like wiping the slate clean.

00:10:26
Again, I people might be wondering, why is that Plan B, Chris. Well, he does have some language skills on this first AC system, so I'd be curious. How many words does he have? How deep, how deep is he invested in this? You know, I would totally be thinking about, well, how can we change the environment first, right?

00:10:44
We all often say that together when we do our presentations is look to change the environment, look to change the instruction before you change the app. So that's why I would suggest that this is Plan B. But just know it's a card that you have in your back pocket that at some point you could pull out and suggest to the team is yeah. What if we change the app? What if we change the actual hardware that it's on?

00:11:06
Or what if we change the casing that it's around the hardware that it's on?

00:11:09
That might be something that could kick him out of and it could be kick him out of how he thinks of AAC as this sort of a negative and turn it into a positive one. Other idea I have Chris that I just thought of as you were talking was and I did this with the student that I had mentioned on my caseload is if he likes specific YouTube videos. I recorded like a little audio clip from one of the videos. I don't know if it was Jack Sparrow, one of his other videos that he liked. And and when I did that and I programmed that in today, you see, he wasn't touching it, but he was smiling.

00:11:46
And so I felt like that was a win. I was like, OK, he likes this. Like, he likes when I touched the button. And you know, as we were like watching the video, I would pause it and I would like hit the button with whatever the dialogue from the character was. And so yeah, I mean something like that could be a way.

00:12:01
Again, I think you might need a new device because he has such a negative experience with this that like make it a different app, a different case, like everything about it different. And then incorporate really fun things, like some clips from his YouTube videos to get him engaged.

00:12:17
Love it, love it. All right, let me tell you about the interview today. So this interview is with April Wallace and Christina Stader, who had reached out to me to talk about early childhood special education. They work in that that sort of area. And they were thinking about how to present or to create a sort of universal approach, a specific language system, first approach to AAC, specifically for early childhood special education.

00:12:44
Before we jump into the interview, Chris, I want to talk about our pre conference. We are doing a pre conference at ATIA in January of 2024 and we would love for you to join us. It's so much fun at ATIA. It's like my favorite time of year and you can come to the conference a day early and spend all day with Chris and I learning all about AAC. And these pre conferences are so fun Chris because we get the chance to really have deep and meaningful conversations with our group.

00:13:14
It's it's usually a smaller group and we're able to really dive in and like you know have really rich discussions around all these things that you know come up in our clinical practice. And yeah, we would love for you to join us.

00:13:26
We'll ask Luke to put it in the show notes so you can just click on the show notes and go right to the website from there. See you there.

00:13:43
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00:14:20
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00:14:58
Welcome to the Talking With Tech podcast.

00:15:00
My name is Chris Bouguet and I'm here with April Wallace and Christy Stader.

00:15:06
Hi, April. Hi, Christy. Sue, can you tell everybody a little bit about who you are and what you do?

00:15:12
Well, I'm Christy Stader and I'm a speech pathologist. I work in Aiken County in the public school system and I am on the assistive technology team and I support all of our schools in the district, basically as far as supporting the use of AAC. And I've done a variety of things from, you know, direct caseloads to working in private practices and all that kind of thing. But I have landed here supporting assistive technology in Aiken.

00:15:42
Awesome. Congratulations in April.

00:15:45
If Christie is old hat at assistive technology, I feel like I am a little bit greener and a little bit newer to the consultant role for sure. This is my first year, but I'm learning a lot and so if I ask a question that is a silly question, it should reflect only on myself and not on Stader, because Stader answers a lot of my questions most of the time.

00:16:10
It's a long, long time ago my Aunt Sue, who is a math teacher up in Batavia, NY. My Aunt Sue once said to me I was she was tutoring me on math and I was asking a question. I said, you know, I think this might be a stupid question and she had this classic teacher line. She said, Chris, there are no stupid questions. The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

00:16:31
It's like right, right, right, Like this is a question of safe zone. So no judgement. No judgement whatsoever.

00:16:38
I'm actually a little bit like a grandmother when it comes to technical stuff. Sometimes I think I relate well to my peers that I'm supporting because they recognize quickly that I am not very savvy. But I do really understand the basics of how much language this opens up for our students. And said the more you see that happen, the more excited you get about being a part of that, the quicker you learn. But it definitely does not come naturally to me.

00:17:07
It is like give a mouse a cookie or whatever, give a moose a muffin or something like if you give someone language and you see. Their success, you're going to want to give more kids language and give them more success and it builds upon that. So you you emailed me with a bunch of questions because you're considering the specific language system first approach. So let's talk, let's just dive in here. What Give us a little bit of a story about where you are in your neck of the woods with language when it comes to learning language with AAC.

00:17:41
So we are a really big district and we have a whole lot of students that we support and we've actually done some really awesome things over the last five years probably. So we have a lot of AAC users. When I came into this role as assistive technology consultant, we probably had less than 10 kids using devices. And now our school district has about 140 a 150 kids using AAC and it has, you know, had its ups and downs. And we have the same problems that every school district has with turnover and there's always new teachers and there's always new SLPS.

00:18:24
And so we're, you know, taking three steps forward, 2 steps backwards, three steps forward, just constantly just running the same game over and over again. And so we're trying to figure out how to make things easier for all of our teachers so that we can continue with the awesome progress that we've made.

00:18:43
So first of all, April, give Christy a big pat on the back.

00:18:47
I mean, going from those numbers to those numbers is a huge accomplishment in five years, absolutely. And most of it, There was her and another team member that was here for most of those years who really drove the train, and it just accomplished a lot in a short amount of time.

00:19:03
So Christy, let's talk about it in those five years like you said you are you're you're doing in order to get the kids to have the access to the tools, what did that process look like?

00:19:16
So when I first came on board, I think we started in a place that a lot of districts start where there was like a hodgepodge of AT people and OT and SLP, maybe a teacher, maybe there's only one person half a day a week. And so my role was SLP half a day a week, essentially. And I was the, like, gift giver, like, oh, you want to try something? Here you go, good luck. Let's see how it goes.

00:19:41
And that's the experience that I had had before coming into this position. And it was OK, but it wasn't doing a lot. It wasn't finding kids. It wasn't supporting and getting more kids on devices. It was if somebody reached out, somebody responded kind of thing.

00:19:59
And so a reaction. And there wasn't a whole lot of reaching out because there wasn't a whole lot of knowledge. And so obviously things have gotten, you know, AAC is not this novel thing anymore, but you know, we provide a lot of teaching and support. And professional development and April always uses this phrase showings better than telling and it's that's kind of what my Co worker and I kind of took, not even realizing that's what we were doing. I had had a lot of success when I paired some services with another SLP in a school and we were tag teaming and we were really working with the teacher and had so much success.

00:20:40
And those two self-contained rooms we were supporting and we went from no AC users to like 5 or 6 AC users within a school year. And I was like what if we could do this with all of the self-contained classrooms. And so that's kind of how we supported the district, the two. There was two of us and we split the district in half and we went every other week to every self-contained room. And we provided a push and speech therapy lesson to teach about AAC, show how you could use AAC.

00:21:12
We used low tech, We used some high tech and we just modeled what that could look like. So people weren't as nervous about it. And then if there was somebody where we helped them, like, hey, I see this kid over here, he really likes this. What if we tried something specific for him? And so then we would start like a trial process for each kid that we kind of identified just just, yeah.

00:21:36
And then it's grown and grown and grown and grown so.

00:21:39
Christy, you, you the way you describe that sounds like you skipped a step that a lot of other places might be doing. You went right from and tell me if you're like, oh, no, Chris, wait, that's not what I really mean. So let me just see if I hear the story correctly. So you're working in the classrooms, you see it a a particular student that you're like, maybe this kid needs something for them specifically, and then you. Said, let's get them the thing and then let's try it with them, right.

00:22:08
And then what I think a lot of places do is they go someone, someone goes, well, I think they need a thing and then they do an evaluation to get a thing to determine what that thing is and then they start something. So is if you're like now actually Chris that's what we did or no we we had just had a discussion and said let's give them the thing.

00:22:27
So we kind of do like, yeah, I don't know if you would call it like an evaluation, we we would have conversations with team. Are we thinking that this kid could benefit from some form of communication? Obviously the answer is yes, and we would determine what that might look like. We would have them fill out some forms, like we would make some Microsoft forms, have them fill out what some of their skills are, and we would call that an evaluation. But it wasn't necessarily an in person, one student with the AT person or one student with the SLP doing an evaluation session.

00:23:04
It was just let's get some let's gather some information from our observations and our what we know about this kid and then let's get hands on with some devices and some apps and let's go through we did that was one thing that we did determine is we want to make sure we're not just handing somebody something we want to make sure we're making good decisions for each kid. And so we would we make specific rules we need to trial programs and we need to try it for you know we would 30 day trial kind of thing one month and then we'll switch to the next one and just make sure they don't like that one better than the next. And so that was our the kind of our evaluation process was the whole thing.

00:23:44
All right. Do you mind if I ask some clarifying questions here? OK. So it sounds like when you when the conversation happens that we want to try something, you send some sort of forms and though that sort of it helps them get gather their thoughts and gather information in an organized consistent fashion for everybody. And then you would look at those, that data data's not the right word.

00:24:12
You'd look at that information is the better word, right. So you look at that information and then you would based on your expertise, you'd go, sounds like maybe we need to try X. Is that the question that I really want to dig into is how did you decide? It sounds like you went to a trial, then how'd you decide what to trial first? Like we think we'd like to trial this first for 30 days before we trial.

00:24:40
We would like to trial X first for 30 days before we trial Y for 30 days.

00:24:44
I think it really just depended like initially we kind of said, well, what are you comfortable with because it was so new to everyone. And so like, if this person said, oh, I really know, like I've seen this program, I would like to try this one. Sure. If you're going to jump into that one and try that one, let's try it for 30 days and then let's try this one because it's different than this one. Like Prolico to Go was one at that time that everybody was very familiar with.

00:25:13
And so they that was usually what people were like, oh, well, let's try this one. It was and their minds simple. Everything was right there on that page. They could open folders and maybe find what they needed. And then we would say, OK, well now let's look at LAMP, because LAMP works completely different than Prolico to Go does.

00:25:34
So what worked for you maybe doesn't work well for that student. So maybe the student would do better with this motor planning aspect because Prolico to Go doesn't utilize motor planning. And then when Touch Chat came into the game, well this one uses this like you know word prediction method and makes communication super fast and maybe the kids would really like the symbol set on this one versus on lamp or And so we kind of would talk through those things, what's their disability category, you know, what's their learning style. But really it was, we pretty much had a big three that we would cycle everybody through. And depending on who we were working with and how comfortable they were, we would either say, you might tell within the first two weeks that this is a no go so we can move on to the next trial.

00:26:23
Or we need to stick with it for the full month to really make sure we're not seeing that. This kid, by the end of this 30 days has really shown us, Oh yeah, this makes a lot of sense to me compared to the other ones.

00:26:35
Let me ask that. So let's say this student, because it totally makes sense. Like this is not, this is not jiving. We need to change it out so we don't need to wait 30 days. That makes sense.

00:26:46
Am I hearing you correctly to say that after 30 days if a kid is making progress, you're still going to swap it out and give them something else just to see if that works?

00:26:55
We do because sometimes like our our, you know thing that we said to that question was they might do even better with the next one. And you never know like because that has happened where they might do pretty good with LAMP and then you give them touch chat and you're like, I had no idea they were going to be able to do all this because they're, they were completely different. There are a lot of students who are going to do well with any of them, but then they might excel with one more so than the other. So that was why we were like, well, let's just see and then we can go back to what they liked the best.

00:27:33
Interesting. That's so interesting because a question I would have is. If let's take this kid that you've decided you're going to implement lamp words for life and you're going to do that for 30 days and you're going to teach where the words are and you're going to have good instruction around and you'll be modelling and then the 30 day mark comes and you come and you say, I'm going to take that away, I'm going to give you touch chat. Now a question I would have is you've have 30 days to help the the students, the teachers get better at modelling and instruction and. The student has now had 30 days of learning where the words are and understanding that my teacher is going to be modelling to me is if we had swapped it and put touch chat 1st and then give lamp words for life, do we?

00:28:23
Do we know the outcome might be different? Do you know what I mean? Like it. They might also do better because they've had 30 days of instruction and now it's just trying to find where the words are in a different location. Do you know what I'm saying?

00:28:35
Because one influence the other. Yes.

00:28:37
So we have these questions all the time too. Like we we're always questioning is this the right way to do this are you know we have you know why do we need to move to a different trial. The same conversation happens all the time. And I think part of why we went with this is because everybody was learning and figuring it out and this gave us a process. This is the way we're doing it so that we can support you and we can help make sure we're making good decisions across the board.

00:29:05
We're not just saying well I like this program so let's go with this program. And so this kind of just help with consistency and five years ago there was no specific system approach circulating and if you looked and really tried to do what research suggested that models aligns pretty well with what research would have suggested. So I feel like your approach is an evolving it. It has evolved because AT has evolved to such an extent that your approach is a smarter not harder approach and the longer you go there will be research to support it. We just not there yet.

00:29:44
Yeah. And I think couple clarifying points here. So, Christy. I think you're spot on in April. What you're saying is that five years ago we we we didn't have a process it sounds like your school district.

00:29:56
So we created something and it's better to start and do something and then tweak it from there and just be like I don't know, we got nothing inconsistent or have anything right. So and there wasn't a lot, there was maybe to your point April one model to follow which was due trials based on what I think. Was either getting money or funding from insurance. So they were requiring you to try three things.

00:30:22
So if they're doing that, you know, in the medical model, the insurance drives everything. So that was the process.

00:30:28
Yes, but now that there's more that more models exists and now that you have an established protocol. This is why you're reaching out. It's like, is there, is there ways we can tweak?

00:30:37
What we've done in the past is that, is there a way that makes more sense? Is there a way that makes it easier for everyone while still keeping it individualized because every kid is different. And how do you find that balance? I think that's, that's what I'm struggling the most with is how do you keep the balance of making it easier for the teachers but also making sure that we're not just taking the shortcut to give everybody that doesn't have something this, and we're not necessarily taking that chance that maybe they'll do amazing with something else. So I'm I'm struggling with that question in my head.

00:31:14
Sure. That is a good assistive technology question beyond AAC. And then I'll even take it one step further. That's a good technology question. Or anybody, you know, how do I know that I've picked the right remote for my TVI could be a lot faster on a different remote.

00:31:30
You know what I mean? I How do I know I picked the right car? Man, maybe I need a Tesla because that has different features, you know? So your point there of how the process is built on feature matching makes a lot of sense to me is that I have the thing that sort of restricted me in the least way possible that and so having some sort of conversation about what we think is going to restrict the kids. In the least, in the least way possible to me is a good starting point.

00:31:58
And then of course you can always tweak from there, you know. So if that's not in your current form like you said you had sort of. If you're still using the the Microsoft Word forms, that might be a good question to ask is which of these which which of these applications do we think is going to restrict the student the least and why? And then that would be the one to start with.

00:32:25
I would also say that there's there's, unless you know something that I don't, I don't know if there's anything magical about 30 days like it could be that was just an.

00:32:37
Arbitrary.

00:32:37
Arbitrary day that we said we can get to this and we can get back to you and we can consult you because again 5-6 years ago there wasn't a lot of know how about what to do with AAC. And so to ask somebody what do you think the child needs. They didn't know and we didn't know the students very well because there's tons of students in our district and so we don't necessarily always have our eyes on them or we would be seeing them once a month. And so we don't necessarily know what they know either. So this was a way that everybody was trying to figure out what they might need, get their eyes on it without just saying, let's just pick this one and go with it.

00:33:19
And and then now five years into it, it does look a little bit different based on the people because they know they've been doing it and they know this kit's not going to do well with this program because they're not going to be able to understand how these folders are organized. And so we rule that trial out and we don't test that one. And then they say, well, they might do OK with LAMP and they might do OK with word power. So let's try both of those. And so now that we've built these foundations and our speech pathologist, but it does look different and it doesn't have to be as strict or 30 days and then we switch or whatever that would look like.

00:33:56
It's more of a conversation questioning what the student needs and they can actually respond to those because they've learned over the years with us and we've coached them. And so now it's a little bit more fluid.

00:34:08
Yeah, Christy, I think that makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, it also sounds like if something's working, you don't necessarily need to if the team doesn't want to stop.

00:34:18
And try something you could just implement and keep going selling. The selling point for system specific approach for me is this immediate access, like these students are not sitting waiting without a voice. This immediate access to a voice to me is what's very exciting about this approach, and it takes all that wait time out. And then one of my other isms is smarter, not harder. Like you work harder for better outcomes, but if you're not getting better outcomes, let's work some harder, not harder, let's streamline.

00:34:47
Let's That to me is more efficient to say you're non verbal. Here's a voice rather than oh you're non verbal, let's mess around and trial with you for a little bit.

00:34:56
So let's dig into that April, What do you think is the next step here? If you're going to implement a specific language system first approach, what changes do you want to make to the system?

00:35:05
How it works now so and kicking things back around, you know, we went and looked at our numbers in our district to see what app that we trial is the top who's running the highest numbers, which we already pretty much knew was touch chat. In our district, we have more than 50% touch chat, 60 percent, 60% touch chat. So when we're talking about what if we, what if we shifted to this, We feel like it would be really easy to implement in our preschools where we're just kind of right off the ground. Very rarely do we have a preschool student walk in who's already been trialled through, you know, their little Medicaid. They're coming in with nothing.

00:35:45
So I would say our low hanging fruit would be those preschool classes are our main opportunity. I think where we start seeing some complications and trying to figure out how would this suit our district is when we look at the older students where we already do have a mix of all these apps and they've learned. But I I think we believe that we would like to trial in our preschools this system specific approach and kind of start their grandfather that approach in as we go. But we've talked before too, about in some of our older classrooms where we feel like we've just had difficulty getting it off the ground, whether it's teacher turnover or whatever. Maybe this would streamline that process there too.

00:36:24
So yeah.

00:36:27
Do the so a couple questions and let's say so it sounds like you're you're thinking about honing in on preschool starting there and then see what happens. So currently in preschool, do you have low tech communication boards?

00:36:42
Yeah, that was something that we kind of rolled out as our tier one over the last couple years was everybody got I think Word Power has like a a bigger board that's based off of 60, but then it has all these extra words added on to it. And so we kind of started that as our tier one a couple years ago and you know it gets used or doesn't get used kind of thing. But that was our idea was everybody would have a core board that we started with.

00:37:08
So core board based on word power that would be similar to touch chat, right? Like a similar to like the home screen of touch Chat.

00:37:18
What did you say, 60, 60?

00:37:20
60 OK, So to me, you know, I'm going to say. I'm going to say you're already doing it. Exactly.

00:37:27
You're you're just, that's a good nuts and bolts question that I wanted to ask you about. When you're starting this in the preschool, do you go in day one and want everybody to be sitting there with an iPad? Because it's not realistic. How are you, you know, in these state classes, we're just trying to get them a set seat for two minutes, joint attention for two minutes, 30 seconds. So when you start this with those teachers, are you taking a device for each student or and and does everybody get one verbal and non verbal and that's how we're implementing this or how how does that look in the classrooms that you've been in where it's been most successful?

00:38:08
Here's how I'm going to ask you. Right? Because I'm going to ask you what would you like to see in your neck of the woods? What do you think would be most effective? Regardless of what other places do, what would you like to see?

00:38:22
And I went into the preschool room to do a push in lesson last week. For the first time since the beginning of the school year, pointer fingers were out. Like they actually knew me coming in that they were going to be out. You know that that device was coming out and there were all these little pointer fingers, and I can remember at the beginning of the year it was just octopus arms, right?

00:38:41
Yeah, they learned.

00:38:42
What if we could get to pointer fingers by Christmas instead of by the end of the year? Like, to me that would be a win like that. We've already gotten the pointer. We've gotten to the fact that they know that the touch is coming, you know.

00:38:56
How did they learn?

00:38:56
Point your fingers inside, Not octopus arms, just repetition over and over and over again of those core boards coming out, me coming in, modelling with that iPad, like and it's their team, not me. But you know, their speech therapist and their teachers, everybody they're seeing it, they're they may not have had a device, but their neighbour had an iPad that they saw out throughout that school year. So just by that exposure and the repetition we got to pointer Fingers, it just took us till May to get there.

00:39:25
Yeah, well, and do you wonder, I wonder how much faster does it happen if there's voice output tied to it, Right. I hit that button and I don't have to try and get someone to be looking at me when I'm pushing the. The piece of paper, right. So what does the technology look like in an East in an early childhood special Ed program right now? Meaning it does every teacher have an iPad with touch chat, word power?

00:39:49
Does Is it just individual students? If an individual student has it then that. Does a teacher get get one so they can support it? What is the beyond the core board? What does the technology look like in the environment?

00:40:01
So I want to say it was it was either. I think it was two years ago we purchased iPads for each preschool classroom for that purpose of introducing core language to them and modelling and being able to see like what child is responding well to the voice output. You know, they all have their little core boards and so that classroom teacher maybe, you know, student A has their device and student B and then they have six other kids. While that teacher can now have a device that she can, while she's doing her lessons, she can walk over and have them use whatever program it is that they want to use. Usually it is word power that we put on there, but some teachers have all of them on there that they're kind of playing with because maybe, you know, one of their students has Lamp or Berlico to Go, so they'll have that as a backup as well.

00:40:53
And so they do have an iPad in there and they have lots of low tech options as well. It just depends on the teacher what they're using, but that's available.

00:41:03
So it sounds like all the teachers have an iPad. At least one iPad with an app of their choice, with the ability to have maybe multiple apps if they need it. Is that a fair summary?

00:41:13
Yeah.

00:41:14
So, OK. So again, it sounds like you're already implementing this to some extent. What would be the next step of implementing? Like what would you like to see change?

00:41:24
So I'm, I wonder, like I do think starting at that preschool level makes a lot of sense. It's it would be faster. It could be immediate and we can, you know change as we see necessary. But you know, I I think it would be amazing if each kid in whatever classes we start with had an iPad with touch chat on it, whether they were verbal or not, because it's modelling that language structure and organization. It's going to improve their MLU and it's just going to have positive impact to reinforce all those basic concepts that they're learning.

00:41:59
That would be like if I were a teacher, I'd be like, oh, I love this, like we can all open this and look at colours at the same time. Yeah. And it can be maybe there's a rock star in there and they can be that pure model using the AC device for the other ones who are struggling a little bit. And then, you know, as they grow through that preschool program, they might not need to go to their next level of instruction with that iPad. It might be able to trickle away and start with somebody new while some of the kids still need it as they move up.

00:42:28
So I would like to see it that way. But some of the question I think that we will have is how do we justify that? Like where's the data supporting this and all that kind of thing, where how do we go to who we need to say, hey, we need to buy 40 more iPads, How do we get the information to say this is what we need? You know, like, we know why we need it. We know I want it, But what are some of those arguments?

00:42:57
That we need. OK. OK. It's so exciting. Yeah.

00:43:02
I don't know. It's this whole conversation is so exciting. OK. So because one of the things you hadn't mentioned but I think is a great what's what would happen is yes, there are kids that don't absolutely need it to guarantee a free approval public education and at some point they will probably turn it back over or when they graduate out of the early childhood special education program and they are primarily using speaking. That those group of kids will still be in the same bubble as the kids that absolutely do need it for a free or public education and they'll know how to be better communication partners and they'll be the ones advocating for their friends to continue to use it and they'll still be they'll they'll just they'll be more knowledgeable about about how to be with their friends.

00:43:51
Is that fair? You know, so then some other things to consider is April. You used the word research earlier, so. I don't know what's who you have to convince and what really floats their boat, right? That's something you'll have to to to dig into about, well, who holds the purse strings and what's going to move the needle for that particular person.

00:44:14
But something that research might help us with is that we know. And I bet your administrators, whoever holds the purse strings, know that visual supports are a good thing. It's likely. It's likely accommodations on bunch of people's IE PS already. You know if you were to look at all the accommodations listed on all the IE PS from preschool up through well, really high school, I bet you visual supports comes out as either well in the top five right?

00:44:44
And and what is an AAC device device if it's not a visual support? But OK, it's not just a visual support it's audio support right. So and. I guarantee you if you were to go look at your ieps and pull out all the the accommodations on your ieps and made a giant list of all the accommodations and then you did a quick keyword search for the word audio, I bet you that also comes out in the top five of accommodations, audio directions, audio supports, or something read aloud which would be associated with audio supports. Throw all those things in a bucket, Audio is going to come out to the top.

00:45:23
And what is AAC if it's not an audio support combined with a visual support? So now we've got audio plus visual and we're just saying we're keeping it organized. How many kids do you know that we're working with through executive functioning? Couldn't we take it and make it more organized? So what AAC does, if you break it down into its individual component parts, is it provides audio visuals in a consistent format.

00:45:48
So why wouldn't we provide that if it becomes an accommodation later on? It helps them organize language and make it into a visual way. Presenting it in that way or some administrators who hold the purse strings might be like, well, yeah, duh, of course that's what it is, you know? Others, they might need some other supports. You know, I don't know the next closest school district to nearby, but going like, you know what they're doing over in Augusta.

00:46:15
They're, you know what I mean? Like our administrators are going to hold us back. We just want to be sure that we, our administrators have a really strong focus on early education. I mean they have supported the growth from the five to the 140 that we have now. So they are.

00:46:33
I mean like we would love to snap our fingers and have it all done, but that's not, you know, that's just not how it works. But they are on board. They're growing with us. We just, you know, we know that research is one of the questions that people ask. What you just explained to us gives us words that helps us have the word explain.

00:46:49
That was really helpful.

00:46:50
Something sounds like you have a really supportive administration, so let's give them a big pat on the back for that. And let's hope they never leave because that is a barrier for some other places, but certainly not in your neck of the woods. So that's awesome. I would also say if. Funding 40 iPads is a barrier.

00:47:07
You don't have to start there. You could start with a again a pilot program. Let's pick two or three heavy hitter classrooms, fund that classroom get the numbers that back it up to to justify.

00:47:20
See, we did this and these are the output that the the outcomes that we that's where we're headed because we also feel like we could troubleshoot on in smaller pockets first before we try to do something, you know broadly kind of troubleshoot how this is going to work for us and what this looks like and training. And then you get some teachers who've had success in their classrooms so that when you push it to everybody, you got the teachers already saying, you know this is really working. So I think that's kind of the direction we're already moving with that.

00:47:51
For sure, April. I mean, it's one thing to come from us. It's another thing to come from another early childhood special Ed teacher. Oh, you're doing it. Well, then I can do it too, you know.

00:47:59
Well, you got those outcomes. How'd you get those outcomes? Yeah. Yeah, we got 20 fingers out by May though. I was really proud of that.

00:48:07
Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. And like you said, maybe with a different supports, they're out by January next year, you know what I mean? You're shrinking that time.

00:48:16
That's a big jump.

00:48:17
Yeah. OK, so do you think funding is an issue? Because then if once the administration knows that that's the thing that we're going to do, finding the money I find is the easier thing. Because yes, there's just taxpayer money that we get paid from public school, right? But then there's Donors Choose and grants and PT OS and community connections and and on all sorts of different ways to try and go get the money.

00:48:44
Yeah, I think it just depends. I think, you know, funding in public schools is different from year to year. Some years there's zero money in the budget because they have all these other things that have to be taken care of and we piece things together as best we can. And then there are magic years where there's like, oh, you can get that, absolutely no problem. I think we have all of the if we submit an idea and we have positive feedback from other examples and we have the arguments like you were helping us come up with, they're going to be on board.

00:49:19
It might not be immediate that it can happen because they might have to find the money with us. We might have to, you know, figure out where to get the supplies we need. But we're in the schools. And it's not like she said, it's not immediate, but it's something that we aren't writing as many AT trial summaries. We might could write some grants instead.

00:49:41
Exactly. It frees up your time to go look for that funding from another point of view. Let me ask you another question. So, so let's say, so now you get these 40 iPads or some number for a pilot.

00:49:54
If you can't do that, I think you already know that we have that. So we're we're going to have some pilot groups in the fall.

00:49:59
What does implementation look like from a support standpoint, meaning training and coaching? What do the teachers need from you or from other people to make it as successful as possible?

00:50:12
I think a lot of what we've already been doing, we would just instead of having this process where we know if a child needs a device, we're going to try these different apps and we would just go in and we would be modelling one app and we would be, you know, teaching them how to do implement that and do that in their classrooms. We would be doing the same thing we're doing now. It would just be streamed on in that we were just doing that one application instead of, well, here's LAMP and you can try this and here's this and we can try that. Just cut all that out and we're just showing them and demonstrating the one. Yeah, our current model is that we're us, there's a team of four of us right now that are SLPS that support the AAC use district wide.

00:50:55
And we each have our buildings that we support and we go in once a month right now and do these pushing lessons with the teacher and the school building SLP. And we're just modeling the use. We're troubleshooting on the fly. We're having conversations as we go. We're we're available to get these needs met.

00:51:14
Sometimes we might, we might go into a morning meeting and sit with a student and help them see how when they're conducting their morning meeting, this is how you could pull these devices in. And then if we had, we talked about next year, each one of us having a pilot class and we might support them more frequently, instead of just going once a month, we might go twice a month. And then we might, you know, have conversations more frequently with them. Because I would be willing to bet a preschool teacher with eight iPads and, you know, 3 year olds is going to feel a little bit overwhelmed. So we might need to be present more often.

00:51:50
And so that was kind of what we were kind of hashing out. What does that look like as a support thing for us? So those were questions that we were asking ourselves to do.

00:52:00
You mind if I make a suggestion here?

00:52:02
That's why we called you.

00:52:05
Well, so I think this sounds like a great plan and something you could. Weave into that fold is, again, maybe with a handful of teachers or depending how many, you could support a structured coaching model. And what I mean by that is, OK, you're coming in now and they're seeing you. Model on the on the AAC and then you're having a discussion with them about how they could be modelling on the AAC and how they can make some sort of slight micro adjustments to what they're doing right?

00:52:39
Is that a fair summary of what what the practice looks like Currently we're just giving them ideas of here. This is the way to use this, you know.

00:52:49
Yeah, So something we're doing in our neck of the woods is we're. Doing a structured coaching model where we'd use a, let's call it, let's call it a six session, sometimes we do seven sessions, but where session one is we come in and we say you know how we've been talking about modelling, we're going to record you modelling. So my my goal here is not to necessarily this first day to watch you and give you ideas, but just to capture what you're currently doing. And then I know already you're feeling, I can see it, like the bump, the the butterflies in your stomach. Yeah, our teachers are going to hate that.

00:53:25
Our teachers hated it too. And then session two is let's you know how we're I'm asking for about 10 minutes of your time to brainstorm about what you did and reflect on what you did. I need 10 minutes of your time to watch this video together and let's just What did you see here? Based on modeling what we've been talking about, what would you do differently and give them a chance to reflect on the video? And what we're doing in our neck of the woods is we're scoring it.

00:53:51
How many times did you model on the device versus just saying something out loud? Let's count that, Let's quantify it. Session three was doing exactly what you're doing is like, OK, let me jump in and let me model for a little bit about how we're doing this. Then you jump in and I'll watch you and then again, let's chat about it. How did you feel like that modeling went?

00:54:13
What would you do differently next time? Session four is just like Session 3, but maybe a little bit more of them taking the lead and us backing off again with a few minutes of reflection. And we know how busy classrooms are, so it's just like I just need 5 minutes to come out in the hallway. How'd you think that went? What do you think you'd do differently?

00:54:32
And then session 5 is another recording and session 6 is another analysis of the recording and comparing the data. Remember how I came on session one and you were we watched you and look how you weren't modelling at all or your modelling was really low. But now after a couple coaching sessions and there's no magic to six. It could be, could be, there could be more models in sessions. When I say three and four, it could be there could be more of those, right?

00:55:03
But a beginning and a middle and an end and showing that comparative data. This gives you a couple different things. One I should say in our neck of the woods, every teacher had that butterfly feeling at the beginning and also was like, when are we doing more coaching because they saw their skills get up, grow. They felt good about it. You seem like really fun easy going people that you're not like the the judgmental, you're doing it wrong, you know what I mean?

00:55:29
It's like, oh you're here. There's to support them and they see that and they see their growth. That's 1/2. It gives you those outcome numbers that you need for your pilot to say, look, we started modeling. We were only modeling 10% of the time, but by the end of this coaching with the all the kids having the devices and we're sort of building a culture around it.

00:55:49
Look, we're at now 33%. That's a huge growth in in a year and we're going to keep continuing. So it gives you some numbers to latch onto to show your success. So an individual person sees their own success, but the whole program sees some success. And I think again, I'm going to April you, yeah, you use the word research.

00:56:09
So I'm going to keep saying it. I think there's some research around coaching in general, that sort of model, not just even specific to AAC, but just in the world. Is a good. Is a good model.

00:56:21
So with all that said, what do you, what do you think about something like that that would have to come from our administration for sure because it's very different than what we do now. I think that's a lot more one-on-one and it and it really helps that person track their own growth. Again, that would be something we would have to take to our administration and ask if that if we were, you know, allowed to do that because it is going to pull that teacher from their class time. But I feel like it it definitely helps the teacher take ownership and track how they're doing. So how did you guys present that to your teachers?

00:56:58
Because, like, I can see the teachers not wanting that, but it being a good thing. So how did you guys present it? How did you spin it? Like what? What did that look like to get them a lot of less butterflies just drop the word teachers say SL PS.

00:57:14
What if we were just doing it with SL PS? I mean, I would be if somebody tell me I'm just going to come in and cold Turkey record you modelling, I would be like, whoa, did you slow down, tell me why I'm having to be recorded at work?

00:57:27
Yeah. OK. I can answer that. So first of all, when we did implement this, that's what we did. Quarter one was just the SLPS.

00:57:35
So then we did the rest of the quarters were for the teachers. And yes, your exact word you saw you could see it in their face and those are exact words. Whoa, you're going to record me. But we here's how we made it a little. So one, yes, it was sort of a A.

00:57:52
No requirement, but can you see my Air quotes? Right. There's no teeth behind it. There was no, like bad evaluation if you didn't do it. We just said, hey, it's an expectation that you do this and then here's how we sold it and make it a little bit easier.

00:58:06
One, you can record the videos on your iPad, the iPad that we're providing to you, or we're going to have it on iPad. We're going to keep it in your Google Drive or we're going to keep it on the. Device and we are not going to share it. The only two people that see the video are you 'cause this is for you and me. The coach so promised not to be shared unless we like this.

00:58:33
You did such a great example of self talk here. Can we use this in a training you know to show off how awesome you did then? But again, that that was an after the fact, not a before the fact it was a. So that that was one. Now today we have people that have gone through it.

00:58:52
So we did have a kind of Google Form. How are you feeling at the beginning and a Google Form, how did you feel like this at the end And give us some feedback. So now we have quotes from people, my kids are using it so much faster. I behaviours have gone down. You can imagine a little selling video with these these quotes flying up on the screen, right?

00:59:12
So and quite frankly. The data showed everybody growed, grew, but everybody enjoyed it.

00:59:21
Like, what can you say when it comes to special Ed stayed here when she was my ET consultant and said I would have been like, oh gosh, here we go, OK, let's do it.

00:59:32
And but by the end you're like wow, I got better like and then the the third thing that again is a small selling point but maybe for some people is. You're you have to do an annual evaluation of your, you know, you you meet with your principal and you go through your evaluation. You know what I'm talking about, right? Like and you have to come up with a goal every year and every year it's like, what's the goal going to be this year? I don't know.

00:59:56
What are you doing over there? Here's what it is. I'm going to right here's your annual goal. You're going to increase your modeling by 10% and then when you blow it out of the water by 25%. But now you've got a structured way supported by these, by, by other people that are kind of holding your feet to the fire, that you're actually doing it and they're helping you through it, you know?

01:00:16
Oh, OK. I'll just do that. All right. Yeah, what do you think?

01:00:24
I like it. Could we shift and talk about what this would look like in the older classrooms?

01:00:31
For sure I'll.

01:00:33
Let you do this because yeah, I just like with all the people that you have chatted with or everything that you have seen with us, like our district has so many devices already, so. I've struggled with what does that look like when there's already existing things going on? Do we kind of do a refresh and see if everybody actually needs what they have? Do we just, you know, if somebody doesn't have something and they're sitting in a classroom, do we just start there and say, OK, you don't have any, you know, functional form of communication, so here you go, here's touch chat or, you know, what does that look like? We like, I just can't.

01:01:14
I just can't piece together what that would look like for us because we have so many users. OK, well, I'm going to make some assumptions here. And then used to be like Chris, this is a that's a fair assumption or or not really. So because AAC is still so relatively new, we have a lot of kids. We we had a lot of recognition that kids needed something, so we gave them something.

01:01:38
And then the support around now we realize, oh, we really, it's about us as communication partners and teachers. And yeah, they probably would do well with maybe an array of things depending on we gave them. We have to spend more time supporting the teacher. So what has tended to happen is there's a group of kids that still don't have anything. So I think to your point, in April, let's get them something so they're not waiting, right?

01:02:06
So there's that group. There's another group of kids that were given something, but the support around that thing was Swiss cheese. So they might not be using it in any sort of functional way. And in some cases, it might even be like the way that was implemented was I hate those things, right? Like if it was forced upon me or I had to, it was more like compliance and I'm forced to push the button.

01:02:30
I might even reject it. To the other end of that would be someone gave it to me but didn't really know how to use it. And so I don't really know how to use it. And so I'm not really using it effectively. I haven't, I don't have established motor plans in touch chat or lamp words for life.

01:02:46
I only use it maybe for a glorifying requesting button. You know, there's probably that camp of kids and then there's the camp of kids that actually they're the the, the ones that have established the motor plans and they are using it to say a lot more and their language has expanded. And so those are the kids that I think you're a little bit worried about. Christy, right, Is that we don't want to make sure. We want to make sure we're not taking something away from them that works.

01:03:14
So what I heard you sort of to answer around in those questions was are we going to do an audit of of like if we put all the kids in a spreadsheet and sort of ranked like yeah there's kids that don't have anything let's get them something there's kit and that and specific language system first approach certainly gets them that those something. The second group of kids is, are they really using it with any sort of fidelity was if that's the case, like would it really hurt them if we if they're just using it to request a thing, They could probably quickly relearn that skill of how to request a thing by pushing a different set of buttons if that meant changing the the app. And then let's find out who are the kids that we absolutely do not want to remove this from them because they are. I'm. I'm not a fan of this phrase, but I'm going to say it anyway.

01:04:06
They're rocking and rolling, right? Because it's too. It's too nebulous. That's why I'm not a fan of it. But they're being able, they're close to saying whatever they want to say or they're well on their path and they've got data support that their language is growing with what they're using.

01:04:18
Let's let's make sure we don't strip anything away from them. To me, an audit makes sense. OK. How does that feel for you?

01:04:27
I mean, I definitely like, I mean, I don't know all the kids, but those could be those conversations that we have with those SL PS like how are they doing? There are definitely those kids in this camp that maybe they could do just as well with something else. Maybe they were one of those kids that something just got picked for them and it wasn't super functional anyways. And so I could see that being useful to just. Let's just see.

01:04:53
So does that look like you put, so maybe you have in a classroom with 12 kids and there's say there's 7 users in that class and there's one really awesome user that we don't want to mess with.

01:05:04
Do we just shift the the rest that you're like maybe we could go either way and just try them on the touch chat with that systems 1st and just see what happens and then if we say what that's not working we go back to what they had been using or well let me ask you this, what what do you think would be the downside to that? I I don't necessarily have a downside to that, yeah. Then I'd say let's try it. OK, right. I mean.

01:05:34
I think that makes sense. I think. I think that that could weed out some maybe that would get the buy in, maybe that would get the buy in from the teachers. This is easier to focus on the same program instead of. All of these programs with all these different kids and remembering who has what and and it's all of it's all of us like, so if you say, if you say all right, we want you to learn LAMP.

01:05:57
Now remember LAMP is like learning an entirely new language. So you need to give the student this many opportunities to learn it. And we're take we're telling them all the things the student needs. Then we're also saying, and we want you to learn the same thing with touch chat, and we want we learn the same new colloquist. So basically we've just told this teacher this is like a student having to learn an entirely new language.

01:06:16
Now we expect you to learn three. So I'm telling that to him. I'm saying that to myself. But I think any time we say teachers, I want to be like, it's not just teachers, it's all of us. We're all OK, I'm supposed to learn 3 new languages this year.

01:06:29
How can I do that efficiently? I don't know how I can do that efficiently. So if you're not cheating the students, and we can make that process easier, we need to make that process easier.

01:06:40
Yeah. And really you want to focus on their skills of becoming good at modelling and descriptive teaching and least and most prompting. And those are all skills that take time to learn. And if they're focused on where all the words are on three different systems, yeah, I could see them being really overwhelmed by it, focusing on one, getting good at a skill using one, and then having a pivot because.

01:07:09
Skills there.

01:07:10
Yeah. Well, and having to pivot because, OK, now it makes sense, this one kid. This other thing is way least restrictive for them. So where otherwise it's years ago, someone picked something and they're not really using it anyway. Why do I have to learn that that language, right?

01:07:28
Like I you don't. You don't have to learn that language.

01:07:31
I think I'm a good devil's advocate because I still feel like I'm so new to everything. Be like, this doesn't make sense to me. I feel like them. I feel like them who are still overwhelmed and confused and this is too much. But again, I think once you see it work one time for one student, then you're like, OK, so it didn't work for those other three.

01:07:53
And it may not ever work for those three, but it was worth it because that one student we we got them to this place and then when you start to see it, you're like. OK, now I'm starting to get it. You know, now I'm starting to understand why we do this or we do that. But it's taken me. She's been coaching me for like 5 or six years and it probably took four into that to start seeing a lot of those results for me because I was in those older classrooms.

01:08:18
And now I'm very excited. I'm very passionate about it, but it just takes a little while. Well, and I think the point that you just made like really makes sense to me because that's what we've struggled with, is the why? Why do we have all these different programs? That's what I hear all the time.

01:08:32
Well, why can't I just do this and? My answer is always, well, somebody somewhere along the line decided that this kid needed this and we need to respect that. That's what this kid wants or needs or did better with. And so I I like the point that you made of if we put them all on this and they're seeing that, well, this one student isn't responding to this. So we're going to do something different If each of those teachers maybe not with that one specific kid, but if they're each having those experiences, they might start to have those.

01:09:05
Oh, I see why we have different programs and why we need to make sure we're using all of them when we need to. And I don't think like that is kind of what I need it to just hear, to kind of make it make sense a little bit. Because I can see a teacher or an SLP in the building supporting the students having that aha moment as we grow with this process that this makes sense. Everybody else is doing really well, but this kid isn't, so we're going to try something different and doing that tier process.

01:09:39
Something else that I think you can maybe let go of is the notion that there might be something just a little bit better right around the corner.

01:09:50
No, I really struggle with that. I really struggle with letting go of that and I'm I'm.

01:09:56
'Cause there's infinite number of things that could be around the corner, right? Like you said, we we kind of have these top three. It's Proloquo Touch, Chat and lamp. You've never tried Smart Box. What's wrong with you?

01:10:06
You know, like, well, OK, that's just not in our. Could that be a little bit better? Do you use a key guard for every kid? Well, what if we did? Maybe that'd be a little bit better.

01:10:15
Like there's always are we, how do we know that we're not putting the the thickness and the lines between the apps should be a little bit thicker. Like again, I could go on with infinite examples of weight that might make it a little bit better. I feel like you can just pick something, use that and then ask questions if it's not working, especially if it's not working because what are you talking about? You're talking maybe maybe amping up the percentage like it's it's 90% effective, could it could it could be 92% effective like well we know it's 90% you.

01:10:50
Know. No, I was the one who was supposed to be the silly one. Oh, man. Well. And I think like everything, like April said earlier, everything changes.

01:10:59
And we're constantly figuring out what the next move is. And, you know, five years ago, six years ago this. Getting people started on something some way, but nobody knew how to look at anything objectively. This was a good fit for where we were at as a school district. And like we're recognizing as we're growing, as everyone in the district is growing and everybody's more familiar.

01:11:24
Like it is time to shift our focus and the way we do things. So what does that look like for us? And so having this conversation has been really helpful because it's helping me tease out that. Well, would it look better if we do it some other way or would it be better for this kid if we did it this way? And so that's helping me kind of break down some of those things that I've ingrained in myself for the last seven years, doing this in this one way.

01:11:46
So well, I just want to say you're both champions being forward thinking this way because so many people do get stuck in the well, this is the way we do it. You know rather than every three to five years questioning why do we do it this way. Which is exactly what you're doing is you're re evaluating and re and reflecting on your practices and trying to think about well, what makes you're on we're on this Lily pad. What's the next Lily pad we jump to rather just being like, but this Lily pad's not sinking why would we jump off it? Well because there's there's that.

01:12:19
You're not getting across the pond necessarily as fast as you could be.

01:12:22
And I think we here in Aiken have been really fortunate because we do have the support of all the administration and the people above us and they trust what we think and what we suggest and recommend. And so we are able to kind of have these thoughts like what could we be doing? Should we continue this way or should we do something else? Because we're not worried to go and say, hey, what if we did this? Because they're going to say, OK, tell me why and maybe we'll roll with it.

01:12:49
And he said that if we could convince each other, we could convince.

01:12:53
If we can convince our little AT team, we can convince anybody to higher up because we ask each other harder questions then they'll ask us for sure, for sure. Well, it sounds like you're doing that. So any other questions you have about about this whole initiative?

01:13:12
I don't think so. I mean that was really help. Very helpful. Thank you.

01:13:16
Before we go, let me just ask, let me let me ask you some reflective questions. What do you think is your next step? What are you going to do once we get jump off this call?

01:13:24
So I think we had pretty much decided that we were going to do the pilot and each one of us was going to pick a classroom to do it with, so that way we can help with. Getting everybody else on board, showing them the results from we tried it in these classrooms and look at the outcomes and then we can snowball it the rest of the way from there. We're looking at 3 preschools and 11 elementary age classroom and and seeing what kind of results we have. So we can say look at this, let's all get on board now and I'm going to. Look into how we can tie in more of the coaching because that's something I personally struggle with is how to more effectively help and support these teachers because we are more of the show what you can do.

01:14:11
Look, you can try this and how do I improve in that way and. Not return demo. We don't have a return demonstration piece for. Yeah, Yeah, like put some more accountability on them growing their skills and not just me showing them what they can't do. And so I think I'm glad you mentioned that because that is definitely an area that at least I could do better with.

01:14:32
And so tagging that into with what we're doing with this pilot, let's just pilot it all together and we'll do some sort of with these four classes because I don't think I could do that with all of my. You know, 18 locations I support, but I can start small to do some personal growth there and do it while I'm doing this pilot as well and just say look at this combined, how everything's working together. We need to move forward with this.

01:14:58
Well, I am super excited for you. Don't be a stranger's. Let me say that again. Don't be strangers. Let me know how it goes.

01:15:06
Reach back out and be like, OK, we've been doing this, you know, and here's our results, because I think you will be really empowering just not just for you, but for everyone else who listens to this. So thank you. Awesome.

01:15:18
Thank you, Chris.

01:15:19
All right. Talk to you later.

01:15:21
Bye.