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FCS AT Team - revised 7.30.2025
Image 1: FCS Core Word Board
This article highlights the meaningful changes that emerged from our focus on social-emotional engagement. We also offer insights for other districts related to both progress and challeng- es encountered targeting student engagement through social interaction, visual supports, and AAC strategies district-wide. GRASSROOTS EFFORTS FOCUSING ON AAC In 2012, our district’s AT team and AAC-SLPs began targeting core vocabulary after attending one of the earliest trainings on core vocabulary and Language Acquisition through Motor Plan- ning (LAMP. Center for AAC and Autism, 2025). In these earlier years, we noticed students who used AAC ex- hibited challenges maintaining their communication abilities as they progressed through the school years. This was most readily apparent during transitions. Communication skills notably de- creased or plateaued, especially as they transitioned to new en- vironments — pictured words that had been available to them for years in one classroom often changed when they moved to the next. To address this, the district’s AAC-SLPs set out to develop one of the first systemwide core word boards. We aimed to provide staff and students with a standard AAC tool for early core word targets that would remain consistent throughout the district
when students transitioned from grade to grade or school to school. (See Image 1: FCS Core Word Board above). We soon developed formal core vocabulary training for educators providing specialized instruction and included ev- idence-based AAC implementation strategies. After several years, we noticed a recurring pattern as AAC implementation took hold and became consistent. Though more emphasis was placed on a standard set of core words district-wide, a focus on targeting a variety of pragmatic functions, and implementing the strategies of Aided Language Stimulation and modeling, we noted that many of our students made progress to a certain point with their communication abilities, then seemed to slow or plateau. A different trajectory was noted when discrete academic con- cepts – such as letter recognition, counting, or labeling nouns – were targeted in lessons. Though students with limited verbal speech ability often showed progress for these concepts as per mastery of IEP goals, continued development of their communi- cation abilities often slowed. Despite good, consistent AAC intervention, communication development for many students was generally restricted to expressing basic wants and needs in very familiar or practiced activities. Overall initiation and spontaneous communication
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