PrAACtical AAC and Speak for Yourself - AAC Therapy Blogs

Two of the best resources I've found for anyone looking to teach someone who needs AAC are PrAACtical AAC (written by Robin and Carole) and the Speak for Yourself website (written by Heidi and Renee). They both have lots of evidence-based advice on how to build true communication, and activities that are fun and easy to do to help an AAC user learn their devices.

What earns them a place on this site is that both sites are solidly committed to listening to AAC users and other disabled people. Heidi from Speak for Yourself has said that she writes reports about clients with the expectation that they could be reading them someday, and speaks about them with the assumption that they are listening. (Scroll to the bottom of this post.)

Robin from PrAACtical AAC (unfortunately, she's dead now) wrote 30 Things to Do to Get Ready For Autism Awareness Month, filling it with items that go beyond awareness to acceptance, including four items directly about self-advocates and a bunch of teaching techniques that make use of autistic strengths and build genuine communication.

Speaking of Autism Awareness Month, what did the Speak for Yourself staff do for it? They provided a 50% discount on the AAC app they developed!

Carole from PrAACtical AAC discussed an alternative to hand-over-hand prompting - hand-under-hand. It's more respectful, gives control to the learner, gives a learner with tactile sensitivity a buffer to touching a new object, and involves more active participation.

I could list more, but really, I just recommend checking out those two blogs.