#TalkingAAC 2025

The purpose of this presentation is to share our team’s experience implementing both low and high tech AAC in our preschool classroom while providing a safe space for an open and honest discussion with attendees to learn from everyone in attendance. When our current preschool special education team came together two years ago, we were overwhelmed with the level of communication needs in the classroom. There were between 20-24 students in our district Early Childhood Special Education classrooms, and all were non- or minimally speaking. Every caregiver listed communication as their primary concern at an IEP. We were experiencing a significant increase and escalation in behaviors as a direct result of these communication concerns.  Our team knew that we needed a more comprehensive and robust approach to support communication, and we were overwhelmed thinking about how to move forward. We were intimidated by all of the ideas and information coming from seasoned professionals or experts at conference presentations, consultants, and every SLP/Early Childhood/ASD/parent account on Instagram telling us what we should (or shouldn’t) be doing to create the ideal communication-focused classroom. We decided to jump in, knowing that mistakes would be made as we continued to learn.        

With the support of our county’s assistive technology and ASD consultants, we determined which supports we would use (108-icon county-wide core board and speech generating devices) and decided to focus our efforts on these areas:
Training of all staff
Modeling without expectation across all classroom activities
Supporting and involving families

The presentation will go into detail about what each of those areas looked like for us and how moving forward to just get started impacted our classroom, students, and their families. In each area, participants will be encouraged to share their thoughts, experiences, and ideas with the expectation that no one is the “expert,” and we can all learn from each other.