Help me give my students a voice by providing me with this Windows laptop to run the "Chat Editor" software to edit my students' communication devices without taking their AAC devices from them!
My students range in age from kindergarten to 5th grade. They are students within our instructional classrooms housed within a general education building to support inclusion with typically developing peers. Many of my students are pre-verbal, minimally verbal or nonverbal. They have a variety of diagnoses including Developmental Delay, Intellectual Disability, Downs Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
As a speech and language pathologist, my greatest goal is to help my students achieve functional communication in order to express their wants, needs, thoughts, ideas, feelings and knowledge throughout the school day.
This will help them to access their school day both academically and socially. I strive to help my students become independent and want to see them shine!
My Project
Many of my students require the use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices in order to communicate and access their peers and curriculum. An AAC device can be dedicated or in the form of an iPad with AAC software. Many students within my programs utilize iPads with Touch Chat software to communicate basic wants and needs, provide responses to questions, gain information, comment, and socialize with peers and teachers.
In order to provide a robust and personalized vocabulary for each of my students, I, as their speech and language pathologist, need to be able to modify these AAC devices and provide visual supports to teach the use of their devices.
Without access to a Windows operating system, in order to modify and personalize AAC devices, I must remove the devices- their voices- from their hands. My district uses Apple products and at this time, I do not have access to the software in order to modify my students' communication devices remotely.
My wish is to be able to provide each student with their own personalized voice through the use of AAC devices without having to remove the device from the child. Not only do I plan to use this laptop to personalize and modify the children's AAC, but to use it to create visual models of the language that I want to teach them. I can use this laptop and the Chat Editor software to create visual supports to show students, staff and family members exactly how to use language through AAC and in turn, model language more fluently for my students. In order for my students to "speak AAC", they must be spoken to using AAC. Thank you for your consideration!
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