For many of our students bringing their device home, or to a place (doctor's office etc.) is exciting. This week we want to practice showing our device to other people.

If your student is able to carry or wear their device, please encourage them to do so. Practice them showing or talking to people in your family about their device.

Tell them they have a chance to "Show off with it". I will often do this by saying my words with their device and making a mistake and saying verbally something like "Oh this is hard. You're a lot better at this than me. Can you show me how to say 'Hi'" or what ever is appropriate for the situation.

With luck this will build confidence while having people in your students life get used to how they communicate.

Often, it is good to reflect on the help we are giving our students to make sure we are encouraging them to be as independent as possible. Here are a few tips to encourage our students to be more independent. Pick an activity your student enjoys or a time of day you would like to work on and practice these steps with them. If you feel overwhelmed, you could choose 1-2 steps that relate to your student's speech IEP goals or that you feel you would like to work on.

1. Make the communication system accessible to them as often as possible. I will often call it their "voice" and encourage them to carry their voice if they can.

2. Establish expectations for communication. Choose at least one routine or circumstance in which you will expect your student to communicate before getting what they want. Use your best judgement. As the caregiver, you will know best what your student can tolerate. If you have questions about prompting your student, let you SLP know.

3. Practice good wait time. It is good to give at least 10 seconds of silent wait time when expecting or asking for a response or a communication attempt. Some students need more wait time. Questions about your students wait time? Let us know!

4. Model navigation and use of the device with your student as often as possible. Navigation refers to how to move between the different pages of a communication system (ex. back, go to home page, turn the page, etc). You should also model vocabulary. See the video attached to this activity for more information about modeling language.

5. When prompting your student, try the following:

   1. Wait silently for at least 10 seconds.

   2. Point to a possible response without speaking.

   3. Gently tap the elbow or hand to encourage communication if your student will tolerate it (if using eye gaze, you could place a possible selection where they can see it)

   4. Model a possible word by touching, looking at, or scanning to the word.

   5. Verbally prompt the student.

   6. Help them make a selection as appropriate and if tolerated. If you have questions, please contact your SLP.