This week, Chris interviews the incredible India Ochs! India is a brilliant social justice advocate, lawyer, educator, and board member for USSAAC and ISSAC who is also a lifelong AAC user. India describes her incredible journey with AAC, how she has used her many skills to advocate for social justice, why she volunteers so much of her time to the disabled community, and what she sees are the impacts of systemic racism on the field AAC (e.g. lack of vocabulary words to talk about racism).
Before the interview, Chris and Rachel respond to several comments from listeners about their recent banter about PECS. Some listeners said PECS works for them while robust AAC doesn’t work for them. Chris and Rachel note that, if robust AAC hasn’t worked, maybe the implementation hasn’t been done in a systematic way. They also respond to the idea that PECS is a necessary stepping stone to robust AAC, and provide some strategies for demonstrating early success with robust AAC when it doesn’t look like AAC is “working” yet.
Key ideas this week:
🔑 While the systematic nature of PECS implementation can encourage some people who would like a step-by-step guide, in some cases it causes students to “stall out” at a particular stage because they are required to demonstrate certain skills before moving on the next skill.
🔑 A simple paper and pen can be the most effective form of AAC for some literate AAC users.
🔑 It is difficult to find symbols for words like racism, anti-racism, African-American, Black person, hispanic, Martin Luther King, Jr on many AAC devices. Developers need to bring in experts on Black history and anti-racism to tell us what vocabulary we need to add to our devices.
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To listen to this episode, search "Talking with Tech" in your podcast player of choice or go to www.talkingwithtech.org/episodes/india-ochs
Links from the episode:
AAC Speaker Connection: https://speaker.ussaac.org/
Silent Auction benefiting USSAAC that ends October 15th:
https://www.silentauctionpro.com/bidonlinegrid.php?groupId=1860
or email Virtualauction@ussaac.org
India's Blog: https://intrepidoaks.com/
Xceptional AAC Leaders Book with Chapter by India
Dr. Laura Clarke: Free Literacy Resources for Emerging Readers
Chloe Rothschild: Teacher, Author, Advocate, and Part-Time AAC User
TWT Live: Colorado’s SWAAAC
Brian Schobel - Supporting Assistive Technology During the Transition to Employment
Chris Klein and Lance McLemore: Creating an AAC-User-Led Conference & Nonprofit
Marge Blanc & Alexandria Zachos (Part 2): Supporting Gestalt Language Processing With AAC
Marge Blanc & Alexandria Zachos (Part 1): Supporting Students with Echolalia Using the Natural Language Acquisition Framework
Becca Eisenberg: Using Video Modeling to Teach AAC Communication Skills
Dr. Cheri Dodge Chin: Teaching Caregivers to Model via Video Chat
Joanna Holmes (Part 2): The Benefits of Open AAC
Joanna Holmes (Part 1): Finding the Right AAC Access Method for your Child
AACessible: Improving AAC Assessment and Trialing
Daniel Parker, Kathy White, & Stacy Duffy: Assistive Technology Microcredentials
Hank Poore: AAC User, AAC Ambassador, and Foundation Director
Ken Hackbarth, Christine Baudin, and Michael Dicpinigaitis: Using 3D Printers to Make Inexpensive AAC Keyguards
Gemma White: Teaching Personal Safety Awareness to AAC Users
Tami Altschuler - Improving AAC Access and Training in the Hospital
TWT Live from Oregon (Part 2): Getting Buy-In from Teachers who Refuse to Support AAC
TWT Live from Oregon (Part 1): Strategies for Improving Virtual Assessments
Sean Sweeney (Part 2): Evaluating Resources & Apps for Therapy with FIVES
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