Barbara Weber, MS, CCC-SLP, BCBA: private practice: Financial - Honoraria (Ongoing), Financial - Royalty (Ongoing). No non-financial relationships to disclose
Abstract: This presentation will familiarize the audience with strategies to implement augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to support foundation skills with very young and school age children with ASD. Summary of Presentation: This presentation will help SLPs know when to start using AAC supports with children with ASD and how to use AAC to support foundation skills. Practical tools, techniques, and strategies to use when implementing AAC with children who have autism will be addressed. The presenter will describe a comprehensive intervention approach from targeting early communication milestones such as joint attention, pragmatic skills, and vocabulary development to expanding mean length of utterance. Embedding instruction into functional routines and communication partner-training will be addressed.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Describe early communication skills to support with AAC in children with ASD
Describe a step-by-step approach to early AAC supports and implementation
Indicate how to systematically use AAC to expand expressive language