#TalkingAAC 2025: Full Schedule

Registration Overview

Act now! We reach capacity and sell out every year.
Registration closes Friday, October 24, 2025 — or sooner if capacity is reached.

Ticket Options

#TalkingAAC: Pre-Conference Workshop
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 | 12:00–4:00 PM
Kellogg Center, East Lansing, MI
- Choose one 4-hour workshop
- Cost: $100
- Full details: talkingaac.org/preconference.html
#TalkingAAC: Two-Day Conference
Thursday & Friday, November 6–7, 2025
- Build your schedule for this two-day event
- Cost: $275
- Price includes breakfast, lunch, & parking

NOTE: To attend all 3 days, you must purchase both a Pre-Conference Workshop ticket and a Two-Day Conference ticket.

Registration & Session Planning

All registration and session planning will be handled via Sched:

Click the green Log In or Sign Up button below to access Sched.
Then proceed to purchase your ticket(s).
After you’ve purchased your ticket(s), you can plan which sessions you’d like to attend.

Meals, Parking, & Lodging Meals (Included with Two-Day Conference)

Continental Breakfast – Thursday & Friday
Lunch & Drink – Thursday & Friday

Parking (Included)

Overnight Guests:
Get your parking pass at hotel check-in and display it on your dashboard.
Non-Overnight Guests:
- Register your vehicle on-site via QR code (posted near registration).
- Bring your license plate number.
- Do not register your vehicle more than once per day.

Note: Please consider carpooling to reduce on-campus traffic.

Lodging

View the 2025 Lodging Options for hotel blocks and discount codes.
Reminder: Pre-Conference Workshops begin at 12:00 PM on Nov. 5 to allow extra travel time.

Terms & Conditions

#TalkingAAC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established for continued education.

Refunds & Ticket Transfers

Refunds available up to 10 days before the event (Sched & Stripe fees are non-refundable).
Ticket transfers (e.g., to a coworker) may be approved before October 24, 2025.

Continuing Education

All attendees will receive a Certificate of Attendance.
Note for 2025: SCECH hours will not be offered this year.
ASHA CEUs are not provided. SLPs will receive a Verification of Attendance form to self-report professional learning hours to ASHA.

Networking & Swag

Networking Event – Details coming soon!
Merchandise – #TalkingAAC gear available for purchase on-site.

Stay Informed

Watch for updates from #TalkingAAC and Sched with session details and reminders as the event approaches.

Questions?

www.talkingaac.org
info@talkingaac.org

517-299-5200

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9:45am EST

Ethical Considerations in Augmentative Alternative Communication

Thursday November 6, 2025 9:45am - 11:00am EST

Doing the right thing when it comes to augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) should be easy, but many of us forget the complex facets of AAC and the responsibilities of all of the players involved. When discussing ethics, we must consider the responsibility of the clinician, the communication partner, the manufacturers/developers, and even the AAC communicators. By thoroughly discussing the ethical complexities of AAC, we strive to become better/more effective clinicians and communication partners. Ethics help guide our decision making, intervention strategies, and quest for knowledge about technology, language, behavior, problem solving, and communication breakdown. When we know better, we do better.

Attendees will increase awareness of ASHA’s Code of Ethics, Erin’s law, motivation and potential, clinical bias, networking, and advocacy. ASHA’s Code of Ethics is complex and important, but how often does a clinician refer back to the ASHA website? Do therapists know they should not provide therapeutic service in an area within our scope of practice without knowledge and competence in that specific domain? Erin’s law was created to mandate child sexual abuse prevention for all children, but individuals with disabilities are much more likely to be victims of abuse, assault or crimes. When discussing AAC, we often comment on presumed potential. What happens when clinician bias and assumption interfere with an AAC communicator’s potential? By increasing networking opportunities for all stakeholders involved in AAC evaluation, assessment, intervention and implementation, we can improve awareness and multiply the opportunities for learning and advocacy. We all have a responsibility to do the right thing to provide the best service, opportunities for learning, to avoid device abandonment, to keep out clients/students safe, and to empower those who use AAC to network and advocate for themselves always.

Presenters

Beth Speaker-Christensen, MA/CCC-SLP/L, ATP

SLP-ATP, AAC Helper, LLC

Beth Speaker-Christensen is a speech/language pathologist who owns a private practice in Brookfield, Illinois. She graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1991 (BS. Communicative Disorders) and 1994 (MA. Speech/Language Pathology). Beth spent the early part of her career... Read More →

Thursday November 6, 2025 9:45am - 11:00am EST

General Session

9:45am EST

Every Connection Counts: Supporting AAC in Inclusive Classrooms

Thursday November 6, 2025 9:45am - 11:00am EST

In the past, students with extensive support and complex communication needs who used augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) mainly received special education services through self-contained programs in center-based schools. Often, this meant a limited number of school teams of Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and School Social Workers were the experts in AAC and Assistive Technology and followed students throughout their educational journey.

Today, the landscape of special education is shifting. More and more, students with more extensive support and complex communication needs are receiving services or attending programs in general education buildings. With the renewed importance and focus on keeping students in the least restrictive environment and with access to general education peers; students are using AAC within local school districts and general education buildings and classrooms. Educators in general education buildings (teachers, SLPs, OTs, PTs, and SSWs) find more and more emerging communicators on their caseload, often without additional time or training to support the needs of these learners. According to [ASHA], 2018, more than 60% of school-based SLPs report regularly serving students who need AAC.
This session aims to provide a fresh perspective on working with AAC users in general education settings. It will explore best practices for fostering communication success, integrating AAC into the general education classroom, and ways to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to support students with high support needs. Participants will gain practical insights into creating inclusive communication environments and ensuring that all students can actively engage, learn, and thrive alongside their peers.

Presenters

Elaina Swartzlander, M.A., CCC-SLP

Kent ISD

Elaina Swartzlander is a Speech-Language Pathologist with 18 years of experience working in a variety of educational settings including Early On, K-12 general education and self-contained settings; with 4.5 years as an Autism Consultant. As a Functional Communication/AAC Coach, Elaina... Read More →

Thursday November 6, 2025 9:45am - 11:00am EST

General Session

9:45am EST

The Views of People with Rett Syndrome Regarding Communication and Literacy

Thursday November 6, 2025 9:45am - 11:00am EST

Previous research on the expressive communication abilities of people with Rett syndrome (a rare, neurodevelopmental disorder occurring 1 in 10,000 female births; Neul et al., 2014) has mostly utilized experimental and quasi-experimental approaches. These reports reveal that people with Rett syndrome intentionally communicate, often using their eyes (Bartolotta et al., 2011) and other forms of unconventional communication (Didden et al., 2010). Although at least some people with Rett syndrome are reported to use conventional symbolic communication using various forms of augmentative and alternative communication (Grether, 2018; Urbanowicz et al., 2018; Vessoyan et al., 2018).

The literacy abilities of children with Rett syndrome are mostly unknown, with some reports of children reading at the single word level (Bartolotta et al., 2011) and other reports of children identifying letters and segmenting words into syllables (Fabio et al., 2013). However, parents report that their children with Rett syndrome have greater abilities than are recognized by others (Bartolotta et al., 2011; Urbanowicz et al., 2016), and professionals who work with this population report that the potential for children with Rett syndrome to communicate is largely underestimated (Townend et al., 2020). To understand the inconsistency between the published reports of the abilities of people with Rett syndrome and real-time observations, I designed a qualitative study to interview three young people with Rett syndrome on their self-perceptions and experiences with communication, reading, and writing.

Results of Talking Mats interviews, direct observations of the participations, field notes, and detailed case histories revealed that the participants have clear preferences and self-perceptions about expressive communication and literacy. Convergent themes across the three participants included adaptable multimodal communication, incongruent views of communication and literacy abilities, and resilience. Specifically, the three participants demonstrated strategic use of both systematic and idiosyncratic communication (Doak, 2023) which has not previously been explored in this population. Lastly, across the cases, all participants responded in ways that suggest that although they are skillful symbolic communicators who use high-tech augmentative and alternative communication systems, they may prefer that communication partners attend to their embodied communication attempts.

Within the three cases, themes reflecting unique communication abilities were revealed. This work has implications for clinical decisions for speech-language pathologists and educators who provide language and literacy interventions for people with Rett syndrome. This session will describe a novel approach to understanding the expressive communication and literacy abilities of young people with Rett syndrome. Participants will learn how a Talking Mats (Murphy & Cameron, 2008) approach was used to adapt traditional interview procedures. Detailed descriptions of findings across and within participants will be presented to fully appreciate the heterogeneity of abilities represented in Rett syndrome. Results of the interviews, including salient video clips, will be presented along with clinical implications of the findings.

Presenters

Andrea Etkie, PhD, CCC-SLP

Assistant Professor, Faulkner University

Andrea Etkie, PhD, CCC-SLP is an assistant professor at Faulkner University and a speech-language pathologist specializing in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and Rett syndrome. Her clinical work since 2014 inspired her research interests in language and literacy interventions... Read More →

Thursday November 6, 2025 9:45am - 11:00am EST

General Session

12:15pm EST

A Critique of Facilitated Communication

Thursday November 6, 2025 12:15pm - 1:30pm EST

The purpose of this session is to bring attention to the problems of facilitated communication using video examples and scientific studies. Facilitated communication (FC) is a communication technique wherein an individual’s arm or hand is physically supported, they are prompted in other ways and/or a communication board is held by a facilitator. At the present time, there are numerous variations of FC. Two forms that are now common are Spelling to Communicate (S2C) and Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). These communication techniques, along with their numerous facilitator-reliant variants, are all based on the work of Douglas Biklen in the early 90s, which he imported from Australia. He established the Facilitated Communication Institute in about 1990.
By the mid-1990s, facilitated communication had been thoroughly discredited. On October 19, 1993, Prisoners of Silence was aired on PBS as a part of a series on FC. It was the first time that the technique became publicly known. In my opinion, the documentary was damning. It showed some of the problems with FC, such as non-speaking autistic individuals making criminal accusations against people which were later proven false. Numerous studies showed that the communication produced using FC was generated by the facilitator rather than the AAC users themselves. To this date, I am not aware of any controlled study which validates any form of FC.
There are many negative consequences of this technique, but the ones I am especially concerned about are prompt dependency and lost time and opportunities caused by wasting time on a discredited technique in lieu of evidence-based AAC interventions. In 1995, ASHA released a position statement recommending that its members not use facilitator-reliant communication techniques. It reaffirmed its position in 2018. There are many other organizations that similarly discourage the use of FC including:
•   American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)
•   American Academy of Pediatrics
•   American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD)
•   American Psychological Association (APA)
•   Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI)
•   Arizona Comprehensive Medical and Dental Authorization Program Guideline
•   Association for Science in Autism Treatment
•   Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability (ASID)
•   Autism & Asperger Förbundet (Autism and Asperger Association, Sweden)
•   Autism New Jersey
•   Autism Speaks
•   Behavior Analysis Association of Michigan (BAAM)
•   Canadian Paediatric Society
•   Centre for Augmentative & Alternative Communication
•   Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Syracuse University
•   Heilpädagogische Forschung
•   Information Autism
•   International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC)
•   Irish Association of Speech & Language Therapists (IASLT)
•   National Autism Society (UK)

The fundamental reason I object to FC –other than the fact that there is no evidence that it produces independent communication—is that it denies non-speaking people the right to the best possible AAC system that they can use independently. I see FC as just another prison, although one could argue that it’s worse. If a person is denied communication outright, then nobody is under any illusion that they are in fact being silenced. When FC is used, non-speaking people are still being denied a voice, but nobody can see it for what it is.

Presenters

Lance McLemore

Ambassador, PRC-Saltillo

Lance McLemore has been using AAC for about 12 years. He got his first high tech communication aid whilst in university. Since getting access to AAC, his world has greatly expanded. His current language system is LAMP Words for Life on an Accent 1000, which he received in 2016. He... Read More →

Thursday November 6, 2025 12:15pm - 1:30pm EST

General Session

12:15pm EST

AAC Across Cultures: SLPs Making It Work

Thursday November 6, 2025 12:15pm - 1:30pm EST

While English is the primary language spoken in schools in the United States, for many of our students, it is not the primary or only language spoken in their homes. The National Joint Commission Communication Bill of Rights 3rd Ed. states that individuals have “The right to meaningful communication that is culturally and linguistically appropriate.” If we only provide English on AAC devices, then our multilingual students will struggle to communicate with their families, however, robust AAC in a student’s home language is not always readily available. While the ability to provide AAC in languages other than English is growing, there are many linguistic and cultural considerations that still need to be accounted for when using these low to high tech tools. For example, English words that are considered "core" vocabulary may not have an exact translation in another language, and may not have the same flexibility to accommodate different meanings. This session is designed to help those who support multilingual AAC communicators to reflect on specific aspects of structural, semantic, and pragmatic linguistic variation that impact the design and usage of AAC tools. We will discuss modifying existing materials and creating new materials. We will explore core vocabulary across languages, some of the differences that exist, and why translating a core board from English to another language isn’t as simple as it seems. We will discuss culturally relevant symbols and where to find them, communication styles and differences across cultures, and how to reflect on our own cultural competence. This session is geared towards SLPs and educators of all backgrounds. While we may not have all of the answers, or a perfect AAC system available in every language, we can start by asking the right questions and working with families to best meet the needs of students.

Presenters

Kimberli Kearney, MS CCC-SLP

CASE

Kimberli Kearney is a speech-language pathologist with a special interest in working with individuals with complex communication needs. Ms Kearney has been a speech-language pathologist for nearly 20 years and currently works for CASE, a special education cooperative, in the western... Read More →

Melanie Mazur, CCC-SLP

Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist, CASE

Melanie Mazur is a bilingual (Spanish-English) speech-language pathologist with over 20 years of experience working with children in clinic and school settings. She provides speech-language services to children from a wide variety of home language backgrounds. Ms. Mazur is passionate... Read More →

Thursday November 6, 2025 12:15pm - 1:30pm EST

General Session

12:15pm EST

Giving a Voice to our Youngest Learners: Providing Access to High-Tech AAC in Early On

Thursday November 6, 2025 12:15pm - 1:30pm EST

During our work with children and families participating in Early On within Ingham County, we identified a gap in access to high-tech AAC for our youngest learners. Driven by a review of the evidence, we identified support and encouragement for this practice (Walters, Sevcik, & Romski, 2021) which was further amplified by the guidance provided by the Department of Education “Dear Colleagues” letter in January 2024 for these practices to occur within early intervention services. Our Early On supervisor elected to purchase Assistive Technology services with a focus on the provision of AAC devices for the 2023-2024 and 2024-25 school years. With the goal of providing equitable access across the county, we focused on building internal capacity amongst primary service providers. This included building capacity for identification, implementation and coaching with high-tech AAC across all SLPs in our program. Additionally, we spent time building capacity with non-SLP providers to identify toddlers on their caseloads who would benefit from SLP consults for AAC. During the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, our teams implemented AAC with over 100 young children and their families across Ingham County. The recipients primarily involved a non-speaking toddler, however there was a wide-variety in their various medical diagnoses (e.g. ASD, CP, Down Syndrome, other genetic syndromes), clinical presentations (e.g. suspected CAS and/or severe SSD) and/or educational eligibilities (e.g. ASD, ECDD, SLI, SXI, OHI). The presentation will include discussion of what we consider a “success” in regard to provision of AAC devices within our work in Early On. It is also worthwhile to note that high-tech AAC was accessible to all children receiving Early On across the county, including areas that often have been observed to have more limited access to outpatient therapy resources (which may be a more “traditional” access point to obtaining AAC). We also identified that as Early On home visitors we are uniquely positioned to utilize our parent coaching principles to teach parents how they can serve as communication models and partners for their child using AAC which is further supported by research (Biggs, Carter & Gilson, 2019 & O’Neill, Light & Pope, 2018). Finally, as children and families approached their transition to programs and/or services with their local school district at age 3, we were able to offer families the opportunity to consider their insurance-benefits for a privately-owned AAC device or assist in the transition with their district-loaned AAC device. Additional discussion on the impact of beginning their local district services while already possessing AAC will be shared. The presenters also would like to acknowledge the belief that the provision of AAC devices to toddlers is not only a support for their human right to have accessible communication but also supports our work to pursue more neurodiversity-affirming therapy practices.

Presenters

Ashley Diener, M.A., CCC-SLP

Speech & Language, Ingham ISD

Ashley Diener, M.A., CCC-SLP – Speech Language Pathologist, Ingham ISD Early OnB.A. & M.A. in Communicative Sciences & Disorders from Michigan State University

Lori Gill, M.S., CCC-SLP

Ingham ISD

Lori Gill, M.S., CCC-SLP - Speech Language Pathologist, Ingham ISD Early OnMaster of Science in Speech and Language Pathology from Nova Southeastern University; Bachelor of Arts in Audiology and Speech Sciences from Michigan State University

Thursday November 6, 2025 12:15pm - 1:30pm EST

General Session

1:45pm EST

Coaching Communication Partners to Support AAC Use

Thursday November 6, 2025 1:45pm - 3:00pm EST

Communication partners are essential to supporting the communication development of children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Communication partners include a wide variety of individuals such as family members, educators, and peers. Evidence suggests that communication development hinges upon support provided to communication partners and that the best outcomes occur when communication partners are well-trained and highly engaged (Kent-Walsh et al., 2015). However, despite guidelines for communication partner training programs, few communication partner training programs exist to guide professionals in this work. Our research developing communication partner interventions will be detailed to help support professionals in implementing communication partner interventions using coaching models.

In this session we will share the importance of coaching communication partners to utilize various strategies to support AAC use. We will cover communication partner strategies from our recent grant funded communication partner interventions (POWR for teachers and paraeducators and FamTAM for family members). Partner strategies include preparing motivating activities, modeling AAC, providing communication opportunities (e.g., choices, comments, questions), waiting for communication, and responding to communication. We will also detail the coaching processes that can be used to support communication partners such as family members, peers, and professionals as they implement interventions and discuss how you can work to implement these coaching strategies in their settings. Coaching strategies will include establishing rapport, developing plans with communication partners for implementing strategies, observing interactions, as well as providing encouragement and feedback. Participants will leave with a variety of resources to support AAC implementation and communication partner training programs.

Presenters

Sarah Dunkel-Jackson, PhD, BCBA-D, LBA

Michigan State University

Sarah M. Dunkel-Jackson is a Fixed Term Faculty at Michigan State University where she conducts research and teaches courses in Human Development and Family Studies and Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education. Dr. Dunkel-Jackson has supported individuals with disabilities... Read More →

Sarah Douglas, PhD

Associate Professor, Michigan State University

Sarah N. Douglas, PhD is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. Dr. Douglas started her career as a special education teacher for children with disabilities and complex communication needs, and continued on to... Read More →

Thursday November 6, 2025 1:45pm - 3:00pm EST

General Session

1:45pm EST

Core Word of the Day = Lots More to Say

Thursday November 6, 2025 1:45pm - 3:00pm EST

Unlocking the power of core vocabulary words is essential for AAC learners, but the traditional method of teaching one word per week or month can be slow, tedious, and less effective in providing meaningful exposure to these game-changing words. In this high-energy session, we’ll dive into the dynamic benefits of Core Word of the Day instruction, explore strategic methods for selecting core words to target across multiple cycles, and discover easy ways to track and measure AAC learners’ vocabulary growth. Best of all, participants will join forces to design fun, quick, and impactful lessons, contributing to a growing library of FREE, ready-to-use Core Word of the Day resources! You won’t want to miss this chance to supercharge your AAC instruction and make a lasting impact on your students’ communication journey.

Presenters

Kristen Strong, MA CCC-SLP

AAC Consultant, Oakland Schools

Kristen Strong is a speech-language pathologist and huge AAC nerd. She currently works as an AAC consultant with Oakland Schools, the intermediate school district in Oakland County, Michigan. She is passionate about helping AAC learners express their own thoughts and ideas. In her... Read More →

Thursday November 6, 2025 1:45pm - 3:00pm EST

General Session

1:45pm EST

Hot Topics in Special Education: AAC Edition

Thursday November 6, 2025 1:45pm - 3:00pm EST

Michele will provide a fun and informative review of recent federal and state special education cases and guidance that every special education provider who supports students who use AAC devices in school needs to know.

Presenters

Michele Eaddy, Attorney

Attorney at Law, Thrun Law Firm, P.C.

Michele R. Eaddy joined Thrun Law Firm in 2001. Her practice focuses primarily on special education, Section 504, student issues, Title IX, and general school law matters. Michele received her Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law at Urbana-Champaign and her... Read More →

Thursday November 6, 2025 1:45pm - 3:00pm EST

General Session, Legal