AAC at Home is dedicated to teaching AAC users and their families how to build skills in reading, writing, and communicating while having fun and building community! Started by speech-language pathologist/ teacher of the visually impaired, Amanda Soper, M.S., M.S., CCC-SLP, TVI, our courses will use evidence-based curriculum programs (examples include Amplify CKLA, UFLI Foundations, etc.), tailored for complex communication needs, including alternate access (e.g., eye gaze, switch-scanning) and sensory needs (e.g., CVI, other vision impairment, hearing impairment, etc.). Our systematic, explicit instruction will focus on phonological awareness, decoding, grammar, knowledge and language building, language comprehension, and more while incorporating student interests for motivated and meaningful learning opportunities (Scarborough, 2002). Caregiver-coach participation is leveraged in every course for generalization and maintenance of skills, for encouragement and celebration, and to support building community (Senner et al., 2019)!

We follow Dr. Yoder's belief that, "No one is too anything to learn to read or write." Meaning if your AAC user has not learned to read, the problem is with the instruction they've received, not with them, their brain, or their body (Koppenhaver & Erickson, 2020)!

As one parent we spoke to mentioned, many AAC users will always have some sort of help with activities of daily living, but learning to read is something that increases quality of life and independence on a totally different level!
 

The only prerequisite to our courses is that your student has a robust high-tech alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) system. This means, access to:

• The full alphabet

• "Core" vocabulary consisting of 300-500 high-frequently words

• "Fringe" vocabulary consisting of words related to an individual's life and interests

• Flexibility in word forms, like being able to use different tenses, plural -s, etc. (Zangari, 2021)