#TalkingAAC 2025

Many students with extensive support needs who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) struggle to read or understand grade-level words, concepts, and texts. Explicit and robust vocabulary instruction can play an important part in addressing this need, with a call for greater investment of instructional time aimed at building students' receptive vocabulary and conceptual understandings. The session will focus on evidence-based practices for receptive vocabulary instruction and approaches for leveraging the high frequency words students are likely to have available on their AAC systems to express understanding of the words. The session will feature Building Bridges, a federally funded, open-source project. The session will feature a 5-day cycle as an example of an instructional sequence that applies evidence-based practices in vocabulary instruction, with a focus on how the sequence can be effectively adapted for students with extensive support needs who use AAC (Geist & Erickson, 2021). Participants will be provided access to free, web-based decision-making tools, instructional planning resources and a collection of example lessons.