2016 Summer Institute Rethink Possibilities

Three years into a massive shift in the way we approach helping students with complex communication needs, what did we do and how did we get here? Today, we have students in our center-based classrooms who had very limited or no expressive language when we began, now using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to ask questions like, "When?" make comments like, "Look, we're wearing the same color shirt," and say things to their parents like, "I'm sick. I want to stay home." This did not happen overnight. It took a lot of training, refocus, and re-thinking about the way we talk to our students at school and the way we provide communication interventions and supports. Three years in, it is still not perfect. We still have a long way to go. But we have already seen a great shift in how our students are responding to communication intervention, and also how our staff is viewing our students with complex communication needs and in the potential they see in these students as eventually becoming competent communicators. It's not about choosing the right AAC system. It's about teaching COMMUNICATION.  Participants will deepen their understanding of the experience of students with complex communication needs in a traditionally taught classroom, why changes in services need to be made, and how to initiate those changes.