Nikki Stempien's guest appearances

Nikki Stempien

Talking With Tech AAC Podcast

Laura Hayes

Kim Albrecht

Brian Whitmer

Lateef McLeod

Laura Taylor

Erin Sheldon

Sarah Lockhart

Shannon Graham

Chris Ellis

Mark Brown

Mike Hipple

Megan Roberts

Carrie Baughcum

Kevin Williams

David Tobin

OwlTail

This week’s interview is part 2 of the coaching call with Nikki Stempien! Nikki is an SLP in the schools who was looking for guidance on AAC implementation for a student with autism and complex communication needs, including how to increase buy-in for high-tech AAC and strategies for coaching communication partners!   Before the interview, Chris and Rachel talk about the concept of “education before restriction” where people suggest locking students out of areas of their AAC device rather than teaching AAC users not to do the undesired behavior. There are a lot of teaching opportunities that are squandered if we jump to the “quick fix” of locking the student in or out rather than teaching why they shouldn’t do it. We can lead with strategies like social stories, explaining how it makes others feel, reinforce positive behaviors, and more before moving to restricting.    Key ideas this week:    🔑 Record your work with the student (programming, modeling, etc) and share brief clips to train parents and staff. Then you can save the clips and use them to train SLPs, staff, and more when there is change to personnel. You can ask partners to share videos with you as well so you can all collaborate together.    🔑 If there is a plateau in progress with the device, look at the implementation and at the communication partners - don’t just try and replace the AAC app with a different one.  Follow the motivation - are they motivated to use the device?    🔑 Involve the paraprofessionals as much as possible in implementation, meetings, and more. For example, even if aides can’t attend the IEP meeting, you can solicit input to share with parents.    🔑 If you are interested in connecting with other AAC specialists, you can reach out to device reps to help you find people in your area who also work with AAC. You can also reach out on social media (like the TWT Facebook group) to set up a regular meet up on Zoom to do a book/podcast study, etc.    Help us develop new content and keep the podcast going strong! Support our podcast at patreon.com/talkingwithtech!   Visit talkingwithtech.org to access previous episodes, resources, and CEU credits that you can earn for listening to TWT episodes!

This week’s interview is part 2 of the coaching call with Nikki Stempien! Nikki is an SLP in the schools who was looking for guidance on AAC implementation for a student with autism and complex communication needs, including how to increase buy-in for high-tech AAC and strategies for coaching communication partners! Before the interview, Chris and Rachel talk about the concept of “education before restriction” where people suggest locking students out of areas of their AAC device rather than teaching AAC users not to do the undesired behavior. There are a lot of teaching opportunities that are squandered if we jump to the “quick fix” of locking the student in or out rather than teaching why they shouldn’t do it. We can lead with strategies like social stories, explaining how it makes others feel, reinforce positive behaviors, and more before moving to restricting.  Key ideas this week:  🔑 Record your work with the student (programming, modeling, etc) and share brief clips to train parents and staff. Then you can save the clips and use them to train SLPs, staff, and more when there is change to personnel. You can ask partners to share videos with you as well so you can all collaborate together.  🔑 If there is a plateau in progress with the device, look at the implementation and at the communication partners - don’t just try and replace the AAC app with a different one.  Follow the motivation - are they motivated to use the device?  🔑 Involve the paraprofessionals as much as possible in implementation, meetings, and more. For example, even if aides can’t attend the IEP meeting, you can solicit input to share with parents.  🔑 If you are interested in connecting with other AAC specialists, you can reach out to device reps to help you find people in your area who also work with AAC. You can also reach out on social media (like the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithtech/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TWT Facebook group</a>) to set up a regular meet up on Zoom to do a book/podcast study, etc.  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>! 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!

Coaching Call w/ Nikki Stempien (Part 2): AAC Coaching Strategies

This week, Chris and Rachel have a coaching call with Nikki Stempien, an SLP in the schools who is looking for help supporting AAC for a student with autism and complex communication needs. This child previously had high-tech AAC but there wasn’t much implementation and the device was abandoned. Her primary form of communication now currently gestures and a basic picture-based system. Nikki is looking for guidance on with how to create buy-in for the high tech AAC device, how to go about selection, how to motivate the student and the family to use the device, and more!    Before the interview, Chris and Rachel discuss attributing ideas that are not our own in presentations, on social media, etc. They discuss why it is so important to give credit to a person when you use a specific idea of theirs. In particular, citing gives people a place to learn more about a topic and spreads good research. They talk about some of the  attribution “grey areas”, like sharing ideas that are commonly talked about by a lot of people (e.g. “coaching”) and why that isn’t the same as using a specific idea from a specific person. They discuss how attribution can be more difficult on social media, because people don’t always think about citing sources like they would if they were presenting.    Key ideas this week:    🔑 We can only anticipate so much of what a student wants to say. If we don’t give a system that supports literacy, we don’t give them the tools that support independent, autonomous communication.    🔑 In some cases, approaching a stakeholder who is already working with a low-tech AAC approach (e.g. pictures) and suggesting high-tech AAC can cause some hesitancy. Adopting a patient attitude that seeks to “add on” to their approach rather than “replacing” it can be helpful in getting their buy in.    🔑 If you have successful engagement using an activity or toy in the therapy room, consider how to transition that success to the classroom (e.g. use the same preferred toy to elicit “go” in class as well as in the therapy room) to help demonstrate success to the classroom team.   Help us develop new content and keep the podcast going strong! Support our podcast at patreon.com/talkingwithtech!   Visit talkingwithtech.org to access previous episodes, resources, and CEU credits that you can earn for listening to TWT episodes!

This week, Chris and Rachel have a coaching call with Nikki Stempien, an SLP in the schools who is looking for help supporting AAC for a student with autism and complex communication needs. This child previously had high-tech AAC but there wasn’t much implementation and the device was abandoned. Her primary form of communication now currently gestures and a basic picture-based system. Nikki is looking for guidance on with how to create buy-in for the high tech AAC device, how to go about selection, how to motivate the student and the family to use the device, and more!  Before the interview, Chris and Rachel discuss attributing ideas that are not our own in presentations, on social media, etc. They discuss why it is so important to give credit to a person when you use a specific idea of theirs. In particular, citing gives people a place to learn more about a topic and spreads good research. They talk about some of the  attribution “grey areas”, like sharing ideas that are commonly talked about by a lot of people (e.g. “coaching”) and why that isn’t the same as using a specific idea from a specific person. They discuss how attribution can be more difficult on social media, because people don’t always think about citing sources like they would if they were presenting.  Key ideas this week:  🔑 We can only anticipate so much of what a student wants to say. If we don’t give a system that supports literacy, we don’t give them the tools that support independent, autonomous communication.  🔑 In some cases, approaching a stakeholder who is already working with a low-tech AAC approach (e.g. pictures) and suggesting high-tech AAC can cause some hesitancy. Adopting a patient attitude that seeks to “add on” to their approach rather than “replacing” it can be helpful in getting their buy in.  🔑 If you have successful engagement using an activity or toy in the therapy room, consider how to transition that success to the classroom (e.g. use the same preferred toy to elicit “go” in class as well as in the therapy room) to help demonstrate success to the classroom team. 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>! 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!

Coaching Call w/ Nikki Stempien (Part 1): Increasing High-Tech AAC Buy In