Assistive Technology update: my guy got approved for his AAC device and we are now the proud owners of a brand new Nova Chat! (check out my post on get ready for an AAC evaluation) I am used to Dynavoxs so this a whole new ball game for me but I am won over. The nova chat rocks my world – it’s small and light, easy to understand, easy to navigate, and MOST importantly I have not had to yet program any specific words/phrases – because it has them all. I used to spend hours adding words to my kids’ dynavoxs but we really have had not needed to.
We have been doing some really fun activities to get my student used to using his device and teaching him how to find different items or phrases. We have been doing categorizing activities with PECS pictures. He needs to request the item and then categorize it into the correct group. This is perfect because categorizing is the basis of using an AAC device. If you are asking for pizza – you need to first decide if pizza is in the food or animals category.
This categorizing activity is improving his skill level on navigating between pages, learning where specific vocabulary is located, and increasing his overall communication opportunities. I am also teaching him to go to the keyboard page when he does cannot find the picture. He can copy the letters from the picture I am using to prompt him to request his item – then it works on spelling too!
What is your experience with AAC device? Any activity recommendations? Anyone use a nova chat?
{super exciting moment: My guy can now request iPad using the Nova Chat by saying “Can I play iPad please?” and then he repeats it in his adorable, high pitched voice. AHH. AMAZE}
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