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Successful employment for individuals who use AAC

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Dr. David McNaughton (Penn State University) & Anthony Arnold  (Prentke-Romich)

Webcast Description

David McNaughton (Penn State University) and Anthony Arnold (Prentke-Romich Company) describe strategies to support employment for individuals who use AAC. All strategies are illustrated with “success stories” of people who use AAC and who are employed.

Key components of successful employment include

  1. Developing employee knowledge and skills that are valued in the workplace
  2. Identifying and developing jobs that are a good match for the skills and interests of the AAC user
  3. Ensuing that needed supports are available to maintain employment success

Additional Resources

Alternatively Speaking – Augmented Communicators on Work (1998)
This issue focuses on the work experiences of persons who use AAC, and strategies (for use at any age) to prepare for employment.

A 10-item quiz based on the content of this webcast is available at the AAC Learning Center Moodle. You will need to register at the AAC Learning Center Moodle in order to complete the quiz. Upon successful completion of the quiz, you will be able to download a Certificate of Completion.

This webcast was produced as part of the work of the AAC-RERC under grant #H133E080011 from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS)

 

Chris Klein: Building Relationships through the Tools of Communication

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Webcast description

Chris Klein is a graduate of Hope College, and is an active advocate and educator in the field of AAC. Chris was born with cerebral palsy, and uses augmentative communication to help support his work with BeCOME AAC, (Building Connections through Mentoring and Educating about AAC), be a motivational speaker, and be an active member of his community and local church. Chris strives to live his life to the fullest.

This video was produced by Chris Klein and David McNaughton as part of the work of the AAC-RERC. The AAC-RERC was funded by NIDRR under grant #H133E080011.

Additional resources

BeCOME AAC

AAC and Communication in the Workplace

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Webcast Description
For many adults with complex communication needs, employment plays an important role in life-satisfaction.

In this free webcast, David Chapple and David McNaughton use a series of case examples, with video illustrations, to demonstrate that individuals who require AAC can achieve positive employment outcomes.

Chapple and McNaughton also discuss challenges to workforce participation, and key strategies that support employment success.

The sky is only the beginning: Living life without limits

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Godfrey Nazareth

Webcast Description

Godfrey Nazareth is a biomedical engineer who makes use of AAC to communicate with others. In this presentation (including a question and answer session) with a graduate class in augmentative and alternative communication at Penn State University, Godfrey describes his experiences as a person with a diagnosis of ALS, and his use of AAC to support his life as a husband, a father, a medical researcher,  avionics expert, and airplane pilot.

Godfrey is also a co-leader of the RERC on AAC Dissemination and Training Team, and has played a key role in the RERC on AAC Student Research and Design Competition.

Additional Resources

Transcript as pdf 

Communication support for People with ALS

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Steve with i-seriesBeukelman, D., Fager, S., & Nordness, A. (2011). Communication support for people with ALS. Neurology Research International, 2011.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/714693

Almost all people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) experience a motor speech disorder, such as dysarthria, as the disease progresses. At some point, 80 to  of people with ALS are unable to meet their daily communication needs using natural speech. Unfortunately, once intelligibility begins to decrease, speech performance often deteriorates so rapidly that there is little time to implement an appropriate augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention; therefore, appropriate timing of referral for AAC assessment and intervention continues to be a most important clinical decision-making issue. AAC acceptance and use have increased considerably during the past decade. Many people use AAC until within a few weeks of their deaths.

Link to free copy

The contents of this website are a joint offering of Penn State University and the RERC on AAC. They were developed, in part, under a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant number 90REGE0014) to the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (RERC on AAC). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this website do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.