Take NOTES: Supporting Emergent Writers Who Use AAC

During the OPPORTUNITY phase, it’s important to use the “think-aloud” strategy to show the emerging writer the process you are going through as you write. Then we simply talk about the picture and model words on a communication device. Basic list poems do not have to rhyme; they are just lists of words that may or may not be connected. It’s a great way to work on vari- ous parts of speech; such as, verbs, adjectives and interjections. I flip through photos on my iPad to find my choice. In order to make the poems visually appealing, I upload them to free graph- ic design apps/websites, as simple as DoodleBuddy, Pic Collage, Canva or Adobe Spark Post with lots of options for font, color and size. After I create my poem I read it and then tell the stu- dent “now it’s your turn.” Make sure that the model is not the same as the student’s photo-we want to model the process but not the exact words. Now it is time for the student to write. After he selects his photo, ask him to TALK about the picture. There are no wrong answers here. We are teaching the concept of writing words and helping our AAC learner see himself as a writer. I usually tell my student we need at least five words to make a poem. I make sure my poem also has at least five words. Then, together we look at the student’s photo. First, I merely say: “tell me what you want to write about your picture.” I pull up the photo in a graphic design website/app and type whatever the student says. Depending on the communication system, you can connect the dedicated de- vice to a computer and let the student type into a document and move the text into a graphic design program. Or, you can use the voice typing feature in Google Docs to transcribe the speech output from a speech generating device. It’s important not to rush the AAC writer. If they are not pro- viding much output, rather than telling him exact words to write, you can give a verbal description of the photo. For exam- ple, looking at a student’s family dinner photo you could say “looks like you guys had fun at dinner. I see your mom smiling and there is a dessert on the table. I wonder if you were celebrat- ing a birthday or special event”. At this time, write whatever the AAC learner says with his device-even if the words don’t appear to make a connection. Verbally comment on the words as you write them and let him see you do this: You said “awesome in name funny face”. I wrote that right here. What else do you want to write about this picture? Part of the writing process is reflecting and revising. If my writer is disinterested, or has difficulty coming up with words during an activity, we will put away the photo and bring it out another day. Once the writer has stopped saying words, or you may have to prompt him “Today’s writing only needs five words, so we are done with that part”, then it’s time to ENGAGE. After composing the text, it’s time to ENGAGE. At this point, the photo prompt is in a graphics program/app and we have added words. Now a lot of choices can be made with the style of the visual aspects of the words; such as font style, text size and color, location on the page, text highlighting or text box color.

We can use words like “top/bottom”, “big/small” and “different”. Making the words visually appealing draws the reader in to the poem and provides more communication opportunities. Once the student is satisfied with the product, read the poem aloud. Depending on the individual’s skill level, he may not be able to recall the words on his system to read the poem exactly and that is OK. You can even take turns reciting the poem by reading all the words but one and asking the student to just read his as- signed word. After this step, we are ready to SHARE. In order to experi- ence being a true writer, our work must be read and appreci- ated by an audience. Keep in mind that it’s also totally fine for some writings to be private, so always get permission to share the writing. Print out copies of the poems and distribute among friends/family, post on social media, text or email to others and let the writer review his work often to see what he’s written for modeling and to monitor growth. Here are some of my authors and how the NOTES strategy has helped them develop writing skills. James is an inquisitive 11 year-old with Down Syndrome. He loves building with Legos and has made some complicat- ed structures. He speaks in two to four word phrases with very poor intelligibility and is learning to use LAMP Words For Life with direct selection to supplement verbalizations. James has significant behavior challenges. He can be difficult to motivate and often prefers to search YouTube for videos than attempt to complete academic-related tasks. When he doesn’t want to participate, he often puts his head down, sits on the floor, or re- sorts to physical aggression. In order to build on his interest but still reduce distractions of live video, James was guided through a process of curating favorite images on Google. We also took photos of some of his block creations. We used NOTES to go through this process with him. NOTICE: James was interested in his photo of the restaurant he made from Legos - he returned to this photo many times. When asked if he wanted to write about this, he shook his head “yes”. OPPORTUNITY: I provided modeling of the writing process by talking through my thought process. “Here is my photo. It is a picture of a sun- set. I like it. I can write words to describe it. Look Pretty Pink Amazing Sky Love”. As I spoke out loud, I found the words on my version of his speech-generating device to model the language, then wrote them into the textbox of Adobe Spark and created my photo. TALK: We talked about his photo. James pointed to it and used sev- eral unintelligible verbalizations. I opened Adobe Spark Post on my iPad, uploaded his photo and opened the edit text window.

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