Comprehensive Individualized Curriculum and Instructional Design

Chapter 2 Naturalistic AAC Communication Intervention Samuel Sennott, Portland State University “...model, model, model...” —Patty Cassidy, CCC-SLP It was a crisp autumn day when I departed my graduate class in augmentative and alternative communication alongside my course instructor Patty Cassidy. It was one of those sublime moments after an inspiring class when you find yourself thinking deeply about the subject matter. I remember innocently enough asking her what she thought was most important about language learning for children who could not use their voice to meet their full daily communication needs. At that point we stopped on the steps of the College’s building and she shared that she thought modeling the communication systems we were using with the children was the most important principle. She tapped me on the shoulder as we were walking away and said, “model, model, model... remember that, Sam.” Walking away inspired from the class session and conversation, I had little idea exactly how important those words and the concept they represent are for the language acquisition process of children who have difficulty speaking. Five years later I found myself defending a Ph.D. dissertation on the subject of teaching adults to model using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to help children learn how to use those AAC systems. 22