Darla Ashton's guest appearances

Darla Ashton

Talking With Tech AAC Podcast

OwlTail

Tami Altschuler

Hank Poore

Sean Sweeney

Shelley Anderson

This week, we share another episode of Small Talks, where we share small interviews with previous guests. This week, we share Small Talks with Darla Ashton, Hank Poore, Sean Sweeney, Shelley Anderson, and Tami Altschuler!   Before the interviews, Chris and Rachel talk about the CRAAP test. This test provides a list of questions to ask yourself when deciding whether or not a source is reliable and credible enough. CRAAP stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose.   Small Talks this week:   First, Darla Ashton shares about creating visual schedules with resources like Lesson Pix and the Choiceworks App (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/choiceworks/id486210964). Chris notes that we can also consider “amorphous” visual schedules, a type of schedule where the pieces are dynamic and move around as necessary if there need to be changes to he schedule. These can help kids who are learning to be more flexible thinkers.   Second, Hank Poore and Chris discuss the pros and cons of turning off the feature where a word is played aloud when each button is touched. Chris talks about that Bruce Baker advising him to have the word read after each time a button is pressed; this can help keep communication partners engaged by giving them a auditory prompt to keep waiting for the message, but it likely comes down to personal preference.   Third, Sean Sweeney talks about JamBoard and a recent experience he had adapting a role playing game for play in et students to help participate in a shared space, more than google slides. Found a free RPG called Movie Night. Having the students design characters and use JamBoard for everyone’s character. Also uses slides on JamBoard to explain the game in a way that is easier to understand. Kind of like a virtual white board. Julia Dweck has links to a bunch of jam boards at https://linktr.ee/GiftedTawk   Fourth, Shelley Anderson shares her strategy of working with a student’s preferred toy/instrument to elicit more language production. Shelley takes a gathering drum and a wooden frog that makes a croaking sound  and teaches language and prepositions to a student who loves the frog (e.g. “The frog is under the drum”).   Finally, Tami Altschuler wishes that there could be more care and communication between school-based and hospital-based SLPs before surgeries occur. If an AAC user is going to stay in the hospital, Tami would love for SLPs to contact her for better transferring care between the hospital and the school setting.    Visit talkingwithtech.org to access previous episodes, resources, and CEU credits that you can earn for listening to TWT episodes!   Help us develop new content and keep the podcast going strong! Support our podcast at patreon.com/talkingwithtech!

This week, we share another episode of Small Talks, where we share small interviews with previous guests. This week, we share Small Talks with Darla Ashton, Hank Poore, Sean Sweeney, Shelley Anderson, and Tami Altschuler! Before the interviews, Chris and Rachel talk about the CRAAP test. This test provides a list of questions to ask yourself when deciding whether or not a source is reliable and credible enough. CRAAP stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. Small Talks this week: First, Darla Ashton shares about creating visual schedules with resources like Lesson Pix and the Choiceworks App (<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/choiceworks/id486210964" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/choiceworks/id486210964</a>). Chris notes that we can also consider “amorphous” visual schedules, a type of schedule where the pieces are dynamic and move around as necessary if there need to be changes to he schedule. These can help kids who are learning to be more flexible thinkers. Second, Hank Poore and Chris discuss the pros and cons of turning off the feature where a word is played aloud when each button is touched. Chris talks about that Bruce Baker advising him to have the word read after each time a button is pressed; this can help keep communication partners engaged by giving them a auditory prompt to keep waiting for the message, but it likely comes down to personal preference. Third, Sean Sweeney talks about JamBoard and a recent experience he had adapting a role playing game for play in et students to help participate in a shared space, more than google slides. Found a free RPG called Movie Night. Having the students design characters and use JamBoard for everyone’s character. Also uses slides on JamBoard to explain the game in a way that is easier to understand. Kind of like a virtual white board. Julia Dweck has links to a bunch of jam boards at <a href="https://linktr.ee/GiftedTawk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://linktr.ee/GiftedTawk</a> Fourth, Shelley Anderson shares her strategy of working with a student’s preferred toy/instrument to elicit more language production. Shelley takes a gathering drum and a wooden frog that makes a croaking sound  and teaches language and prepositions to a student who loves the frog (e.g. “The frog is under the drum”). Finally, Tami Altschuler wishes that there could be more care and communication between school-based and hospital-based SLPs before surgeries occur. If an AAC user is going to stay in the hospital, Tami would love for SLPs to contact her for better transferring care between the hospital and the school setting.  Visit <a href="http://talkingwithtech.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">talkingwithtech.org</a> to access previous episodes, resources, and CEU credits that you can earn for listening to TWT episodes! Help us develop new content and keep the podcast going strong! Support our podcast at <a href="http://patreon.com/talkingwithtech" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">patreon.com/talkingwithtech</a>!

Small Talks VII: Darla Ashton, Hank Poore, Sean Sweeney, Shelley Anderson, & Tami Altschuler

This week, we share Chris’s interview with Darla Ashton, an Assistive technology Coordinator, Instructional Specialist, and BCBA with Carmel Clay Schools in Indiana! Darla and Chris discuss topics in AAC related to the question, “What do you know now that you didn’t know 10 years ago?” Darla discusses her district’s journey to determine what AAC program to use, Darla’s move away from the “expert model” of AAC assessment, creating an AAC professional learning group in her district, how more BCBAs should collaborate with the team to support AAC, and more!   Before the interview, Chris, Melissa, and Tucker Bugaj gather to discuss AAC use on the popular Star Wars series, “The Mandalorian”. They discuss how characters tried to say “Baby Yoda” wasn’t ready for AAC, and how Baby Yoda (aka Grogu) protested, pressing “no, no, no, no” and refusing to give up his AAC.   Key Ideas this Week:   🔑 One important shift over the last 10 years for Darla is shifting to giving the teacher a tool to teach language without putting pressure on the student to use the device - an AAC user doesn’t have to “prove” anything for us to provide them AAC.    🔑 Darla believes the most important thing for an AAC user’s success isn’t necessarily the app we choose, but the confidence level of the people who are going to be communicating with the student (e.g. staff, teachers, parents, SLPs).   🔑 In Darla’s district, some classes will have several AAC users who all use the same AAC app. Darla will frequently provide the same AAC app to a new AAC user joining that class. However, there are some circumstances where Darla will not provide the same AAC app to a student, such as when a sibling has a different AAC system at home and the parents would like to model using that app.   Visit talkingwithtech.org to access previous episodes, resources, and CEU credits that you can earn for listening to TWT episodes!   Help us develop new content and keep the podcast going strong! Support our podcast at patreon.com/talkingwithtech!

This week, we share Chris’s interview with Darla Ashton, an Assistive technology Coordinator, Instructional Specialist, and BCBA with Carmel Clay Schools in Indiana! Darla and Chris discuss topics in AAC related to the question, “What do you know now that you didn’t know 10 years ago?” Darla discusses her district’s journey to determine what AAC program to use, Darla’s move away from the “expert model” of AAC assessment, creating an AAC professional learning group in her district, how more BCBAs should collaborate with the team to support AAC, and more! Before the interview, Chris, Melissa, and Tucker Bugaj gather to discuss AAC use on the popular Star Wars series, “The Mandalorian”. They discuss how characters tried to say “Baby Yoda” wasn’t ready for AAC, and how Baby Yoda (aka Grogu) protested, pressing “no, no, no, no” and refusing to give up his AAC. Key Ideas this Week: 🔑 One important shift over the last 10 years for Darla is shifting to giving the teacher a tool to teach language without putting pressure on the student to use the device - an AAC user doesn’t have to “prove” anything for us to provide them AAC.  🔑 Darla believes the most important thing for an AAC user’s success isn’t necessarily the app we choose, but the confidence level of the people who are going to be communicating with the student (e.g. staff, teachers, parents, SLPs). 🔑 In Darla’s district, some classes will have several AAC users who all use the same AAC app. Darla will frequently provide the same AAC app to a new AAC user joining that class. However, there are some circumstances where Darla will not provide the same AAC app to a student, such as when a sibling has a different AAC system at home and the parents would like to model using that app. Visit <a href="http://talkingwithtech.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">talkingwithtech.org</a> to access previous episodes, resources, and CEU credits that you can earn for listening to TWT episodes! Help us develop new content and keep the podcast going strong! Support our podcast at <a href="http://patreon.com/talkingwithtech" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">patreon.com/talkingwithtech</a>!