AAC Specialist

About six months ago we started seeing an SLP that specializes in AAC, alternative and augmentative communication, devices. He is a MAN! We once had a teenage boy teach swimming, every other professional has been female.  Really, that is not important, but it is nice for her to interact with man in this type of environment.  

She is awesome at communicating her needs and wants. We want to know what she is thinking, have her be able to ask us things, and use her device for more than answering questions from the outside.

He is focused on her using her talker (AAC device) more conversationally. They have been working on "where" as the first question word to master. Every week she chooses a toys box, usually the baby, and then he hides things she needs to play with.  She has to ask on her talker "Where is the baby?" or "Baby is hungry. Where is the bottle?" He coaches her when she defaults to "I want baby." or "I want bottle.". 

They struggle, some days she wants to work with him and some days she doesn't. We drive an hour each way for her 30 minute appointment. Recently she just cried for 27 minutes because she didn't want to work with him. This center has an observation room where I watch the sessions and can hear everything they do. I am so thankful for this to see their progress and learn strategies, but also to know she had not mistreated her and not have to worry too much about her crying for a week. 

One cool thing that has developed recently with her talker is describing things she sees, when we don't ask. If "Wonder Pets" are headed to save an animal then she says the name of the animal on her talker. If she sees a baby, or a snack, or a ____. She tells us on her talker. This new spontaneous talking is not in complete sentences, and sometimes makes context difficult, but it is spontaneous!