(This blog was updated on August 24th, 2020.)
Sharing AAC knowledge
We are a small company. We cannot provide in-person trainings to everyone. Instead, we normally present at conferences on three continents. This way we share our insights with educators and speech therapists. Those, in turn, take new ideas back to their teams. With the lockdown, conferences were canceled or moved online. We needed to find a different approach.
AAC training
For years people have been asking us to provide more trainings. Between app development and conferences we never found the time. Now travel has been removed from our schedule. As we still have a mission to fulfill, we have decided to start doing webinars. The world-renowned AAC specialists on our team will bring you the latest insights as well as practical strategies. There will be some product-related content because people often request such trainings. Yet, our main focus will be on AAC implementation strategies relevant for any AAC device or system.
Live webinars
We want to give our AAC specialists full freedom to talk about the topics that they are passionate about. So no pre-cooked program. Instead, a series of webinars showing the individuality of our speakers. For now, we will have webinars in English and Dutch. Those are the native languages of our AAC experts. We started with live webinars. They became an immediate hit, but lots of people indicated it would be even better if they could watch at their own time and pace. That is why we are now also introducing on-demand training videos.
On-demand AAC training videos
In response to popular demand, we are now making our AAC training videos available for on-demand viewing on Vimeo. You can rent videos for 30 days and watch them when and where it suits you. In the coming months, we will be releasing many more AAC training videos.
Training topics
Here are some examples of topics we will cover:
- Getting started with AAC and Proloquo2Go
- Descriptive teaching as a way to say more with core words
- Communication functions and modeling
- Vocabulary personalization with fringe words
- Common questions about augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)
- Getting started with AAC in school
- Core word teaching strategies
- Guide to communication partner skills
- And lots more…
We are also looking into creating a series about emergent to conventional language and literacy in relation to AAC. This would include topics such as shared writing with AAC, shared and independent reading with AAC, and alphabet instruction with AAC among other topics.
Affordable but not free
We provide a wealth of information for free in the Learn AAC and blog sections of our website. We also provide the AssistiveWare Core Word Classroom. Still, we cannot do everything for free. Our company also needs to pay its bills. As I explained in on our response to the coronavirus pandemic, we do not want to furlough or let team members go. We continue to create and provide free resources (e.g., check out our recent Quick communication boards and regular Facebook Live videos). But we need to charge for the on-demand training videos and live webinars. We plan to keep them as affordable as possible. We want both professionals and parents to be able to benefit from our training materials.
Sign up
Stay tuned for some great trainings in the coming months! Sign up to receive an email when new training videos and live webinars become available.
