Can you help us answer these questions from parents?
Community ties, sharing and learning has always been an important part of how caregivers are able to better support children with disabilities. While being a great source of strength, communities also build knowledge that is grounded on experience and context. The beauty of such knowledge is that it is dynamic and keeps growing as more people add to it. This is the kind of knowledge that is deeply relatable for many on a personal level. And easy to adopt, given that they have been tried and tested!
A couple of weeks ago, parents organized a Q&A session on an Avaz messaging group in India. Parents posted questions about communication and getting started with AAC. Some of these questions were answered by a few of the more experienced parents on the group. As the process went on, we realized that this Q&A is relevant for parents, therapists and teachers worldwide. And we would love for this knowledge to keep growing. We are posting some of those questions here and inviting you to weigh in with answers based on your experience and expertise. Do chime in with your thoughts and answers on the queries that follow, in the comments section below.
Q1: Each time my son wants something he takes me to the place where it’s kept. Be it sweets or toys. How should I encourage him to use Avaz – at that time? It doesn’t occur to him always to use the device.
Q2: How to encourage communication? To encourage communication – I have put together the whole sentence – “I want to blow candles” under the single picture of candle. Likewise “I want chips” under the picture of chips. I did this so that the complete sentence is spoken out by one touch. Is this OK?
Q3: I have started using Avaz since few days only. I created a home screen for my child with his picture with the caption “I want” and then added toilet, water, food and some of his reinforcers like mobile,TV etc. I guided him to use Avaz. When I served him spicy food, he immediately came and touched the water picture. Now, should I insist on touching the “I want” picture or just myself add “I want water” to make him hear the complete sentence.
Thanks for stopping by! We do hope you will take some time to share your thoughts and answers on the queries above, in the comments section below.
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These are very interesting questions for parents. Thanks for the interesting post
Hi. Just wanted to answer Q1 from my point of view. I would model on AVAZ the items he has (food or toys) and a he grabs me i would take the ipad with AVAZ with me and ask him what he wanted and ask him to answer by using AVAZ (if he does not know yet how to use you can model the answer in a hand on hand manner).
from our experience once they realize that AVAZ is the way to make themselves understood they will use it!
Gita Arvind, I wanted to jump on to your answer a little bit. You said, “What if the child wanted to say something about the chips or the candles and not actually ‘want’ them?” I couldn’t agree more. For example, what if you (through modeling) or the child wanted to talk about how yummy the chips were? We couldn’t do that if the whole sentence/request was embedded in one icon. It is best to separate the words and model different ways to use those words.
Q3: “When I served him spicy food, he immediately came and touched the water picture. Now, should I insist on touching the “I want” picture or just myself add “I want water” to make him hear the complete sentence.” I would say not to insist on making the child communicate “I want” in that specific situation. He needs water, and did a very good job of communicating that message when he really needed it. So, I would model the sentence “I want water” while giving him the water, and then modeling that sentence a couple more times while he’s drinking the water. It would be different if he was asking for a cookie. He doesn’t need a cookie right away, so in that situation I would prompt him to form the whole sentence “I want cookie.”
I love these questions! There are a lot of things to consider in each one, though, depending on if there are physical limitations with the child, how proficient they already are in AAC, etc. So those things also need to be taken into consideration.
Q1: Each time my son wants something he takes me to the place where it’s kept. Be it sweets or toys. How should I encourage him to use Avaz – at that time? It doesn’t occur to him always to use the device.
I would suggest that you model, model, model (and speak). For example, he grabs you hand and takes you to the cookie. You then grab the device, press I want ..cookie…, then you say, you want cookie, drawer his attention to the device. Maybe, depending on his tolerance have him do the request, or give him a little then have him request for more. AAC does not happen in a vacuum, if you want him to use it you have to model how to use it .
How can I read the answers that are shared?
We will post it on our blog!
This is great! I would love to read some of the answers.