Today's post comes from the blog Speechy Musings. In keeping with my other posts focusing on AAC Awareness Month, I felt the importance of this post rested in the notion that often times SLPs, along with other professionals and parents, experience difficulty when locating individualized AAC materials. Read below or click on the original article to learn more about these DIY AAC visuals.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AAC materials are incredibly hard to find
online, primarily (I think) because the graphics in systems are diverse
and copyrighted. In order to have AAC visuals and materials for your
caseload, think about how many different systems your students use!
Speak For Yourself, TouchChat, Proloquo2Go, LAMP, etc.. Every system
uses separate buttons, graphics, and layouts. Sellers cannot use the
graphics in communication apps and sell their own products using them,
therefore online materials using the same graphics as AAC apps are
impossible to find! I’ve had great success making my own, and thought
I’d share a simple DIY freebie and directions on how I use them!
This method works best for apps that are
on iPads because of the screenshot feature, however I’ve had success
taking pictures of devices and using these methods as well.
Now, how do you make one? Follow the steps below:
Step One: Prep the
graphics! These are meant to be customized with the graphics and symbols
from your student’s AAC system. If using an iPad, take screenshots of
the pages you need symbols from. I typically take screenshots of the
home page, as well as important secondary pages (people, places, action
words). Click here
for directions on how to take a screenshot on your iPhone or iPad if
you’re not familiar! Email them to yourself. I keep them on my computer
in a folder titled with the student’s initials.
Step Two: Get
a binder and make a customized cover! Add in the student’s name and the
screenshot of the student’s home page. Put tons of page protectors in
the binder as you’ll be filling them with all of the awesome materials
you’re about to make.
Step Three: Add in pages
with targeted vocabulary and related activities. Use the pages included
in this freebie or make your own! To isolate the symbols, “crop” the
screenshots! You can use this method to make ANYTHING!
Check out some examples below:
Let’s say we’re learning about the word “love” one week. I would make this sheet and add it into the binder:
Then, I make up some cut and glue
activities specific to the child. For this sheet, we glued on things we
loved (our pets, picture of our friends, cartoons, etc..). For each
thing we glued on, we practiced saying “I love______”.
Then, I printed little “love” symbols as
well as a mini sheet. I sent the mini sheet home, and used the “love”
symbols to adapt materials I found on TpT about love! We did this unit
on the week of Valentine’s Day.
Another example of visuals I make are the
ones shown below. This one was for a student who loved basketball,
however I use the same sheet to teach vocabulary related to topics being
covered in the classroom.
For example, if the class is learning
about bugs and insects, I put in words related to that such as gross,
little, crawl, fly, scared, or bug. I try to choose words from a variety
of categories on the device such as actions, places, people, describing
words, and specific nouns.
PS: After you make these visuals, SAVE
THEM. You never know when a student will get added to your caseload who
uses the same system! I now have tons of these made up for a variety of
apps and it make things super easy.
To make
visuals like this on your own, you could make everything in Powerpoint
(how I did it), or download this freebie to shortcut things a bit!
Included in this file is the following.
The first page shows what I included in the freebie, and the second page
shows how I edit and use it:
—> 
•AAC Vocabulary Binder Cover
—> 
—> 
•Vocabulary Maps (two styles)
•Core Vocabulary Word Unit Outline
—> 
To learn more about these sheets I use on the backs of iPads, click here to read my blog post about them!
•Carryover Sheets (for the backs of iPads)
•Data Sheets (two styles, one for
recording number of activations by activity and one for recording
prompting level for each vocabulary word)
Check out some of the Speechy Musings AAC products by clicking on the images below.
Or click here to check out the Speechy Musings' AAC section on TPT!
