Sam Brydon: AAC Coaching Strategies for Parents, Teachers, and Staff
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What is the listener’s question about adding words to an AAC device for an 8‑year‑old with CP and CVI?
Welcome to Talking with Tech. My name's Chris Bougay and I'm here with Rachel Medel. What's going on, Rachel?
Chris, we have a question this week that we're gonna read from one of our Patreon members. So Stacy sent us a message and it's a it's a good one. It's a long one, but I really feel like it's it's something I wanna talk about on the podcast. So I'm gonna dive in. You ready?
Yeah. Of course is uh totally love that when people reach out to Patreon, we jump them right to the top of the list to talk about their questions. So I'm ready for it.
Okay. Hello, Chris and Rachel. I want to thank you for the years of podcasts that have launched my family into the world of AEC. I was hoping that you might be able to help me. My oldest, Thomas 8, is a kid who loves Winnie the Pooh, roller coasters, and jamming to his tunes. He has quadspastic CP, CVI, and global developmental delays. He's been in therapy since he was three months old. Thomas has never had verbal speech, but has facial expressions that clearly indicate what's His ability to sigh and eye roll puts any teenager to shame. I love this question already. Uh he has been working with high tech AAC since the spring of 2020, and we've made some major changes over these four years. He began with core scanner on an accent 1400, first with one switch and then step scanning.
This was difficult for a number of reasons, but he's super motivated by music. And as soon as it clicked, that he could say play to turn it. On and go to skip to a different song, he found it useful enough to put in the effort. Just the ability for him to tell us stop or more was enough for us to be hooked on AAC for him. He still was only on the eight-word page, but we wanted to move through the levels in Core Scanner, though this required a lot of memorization since the program was not visually accessible. However, after returning to in-school instruction in kindergarten, we saw a plateau instead of growth. It was clear that there was little buy-in from his school team, they saw his hits more as random and said that he had not demonstrated that he knew cause and effect.
After a separate issue of neglect in the school, we decided to put our energies into homeschooling. Fast forward to about a year and a half ago, his ability to use the switches was decreasing a bit with his massive growth spurts and spasticity, and we were getting worried. I was listening to Amanda Soper, who you had on Talking with Tech, speak on our weekly CVI support group call. She had talked about eye gaze, which, with Thomas's visual impairments, we had not considered. We tried a device and were shocked to see how engaged he was. Now he has an accent 1400 with the eye gaze bar and is running Empower 28, one hit, with adapted symbols and coloring for his CVI. He does have a lot of seemingly random hits.
And is still learning many of the symbols, but when he's motivated, she put an air in quotes, watch Winnie the Pooh, quote, you stop, bad, don't, end quote, uh, and go home. It is very clear to us that he can do it in the right situations and settings, as his parents were thrilled with the gains he's made, and he's a happier kid with his device. But we feel like we're hitting a point where we need to make some decisions on what to do going forward. The goal Was always to give him as robust a system as possible when it came to AAC and going to the 28 sequenced seemed to be the next step. Our SLP is so supportive of Thomas, but admits that CVI is not her strength. She was hesitant to move from one hit, but told me that she will support whatever we think is best because we know Thomas best and we do our research.
This scared me because while I do feel I know Thomas best, I still feel I know very little. My CVI call support group question. Why I would make the boards more difficult, and if anything, I should probably take words away on the main screen and give more access to quick phrases. While no one had said that Thomas won't be able to use the sequence board, they both pointed to the struggles he still has with the one hit.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the listener’s question about adding words to an AAC device for an 8‑year‑old with CP and CVI?
0:08–11:44
2
How does Sam Brydon define coaching versus traditional workshops for AAC implementation?
11:44–21:47
3
Why is motivation and motor planning (e.g., LAMP) crucial for successful AAC use?
21:47–33:01
4
What challenges did the family face with Thomas’s AAC system and how were they addressed?
33:01–43:45
5
How did Sam’s doctoral research shape the “Empowering Parents for AAC” coaching model?
43:45–57:42
6
What were the quantitative and qualitative results of the coaching study?
57:42–1:08:19
7
What practical advice does Sam give for clinicians wanting to adopt a coaching approach?
1:08:19–1:17:49
8
What are Sam’s next steps and current excitement in AAC (e.g., LAMP training and eye‑gaze work)?
1:17:49–1:29:17
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Talking With Tech AAC Podcast
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Episode 356: The State of the Podcast
Episode 355: Building an Inclusive Playground and Community
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