By: Elizabeth Turner
For children with severe communication impairments who are unable to communicate using natural speech, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can open up other ways to express themselves and connect with families, teachers, and friends. The sixth annual Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Workshop will be held over two nights, Thursday and Friday, Feb. 26-27.
The AAC Workshop will kick off with a free event on Thursday, Feb. 26, from 6:30-8:00 p.m. in Room 241 of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, located at 110 Magnolia Circle, Nashville. Emily D. Quinn, M.S., CCC-SLP, will speak on "Sibling Strengths: Building AAC Supports as a Family." This event is designed for parents of children with disabilities and is free and open to the public. Attendees may attend this event without attending the Friday all-day workshop. To gain an accurate count for materials and refreshments, please register by clicking here.
On Friday, Feb. 27, from 8:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Caroline Musselwhite, Ph.D., will speak on "Communication All Day Long: Communication Circles, Topic Setting, and MORE!" This all-day workshop will take place in Rooms 216 and 220 of Sarratt Student Center on Vanderbilt University Campus and is geared toward speech-language pathologists, special educators, other professionals in related fields, students, parents, and family members. This workshop will provide participants with detailed information on the use of various AAC systems (low-tech and mobile devices). Using Beukelman and Mirenda’s participation model as a framework, participants will match information from a comprehensive AAC evaluation with features of both low- and high-tech AAC systems to meet the user’s communication needs. Given the proliferation of mobile tablets and apps, a focus of this workshop will be how to use outcomes of AAC evaluation to provide evidence-based recommendations for appropriate mobile devices and AAC apps for use by persons with complex communication needs. Attendees may participate in the Friday workshop without attending the Thursday night event.
Registration fees for the Friday workshop are $175 for professionals; $125 a person for groups of two or more from the same school or agency if they register at the same time; and $50 for students and parents. The Friday workshop fee includes lunch/breaks and instructional resources. Attendees can earn .6 ASHA CEUs if they attend the entire Friday workshop. Click here for more information or to register for the Friday AAC Workshop.
The 2015 AAC Workshop is co-sponsored by the Department of Special Education, Vanderbilt Peabody College; the Department of Hearing & Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center; the Vanderbilt Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disorders (LEND) Training Program; the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD); and the Technology Access Center.
For more information, call (615) 322-8240.
Last Updated: 1/13/2015 4:00:28 PM
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