sented information related to a topic. You can see, in the pic- ture example, completed talking mats that can be referenced in conversations. It creates the opportunity to pre-plan, rather than producing answers in the moment, so that students have had the opportunity to meaningful and successfully partici- pate. This has been a helpful tool for participating in decision making processes for field trips, allied arts/ elective classes sign ups, device programming, and sharing school preferences at an IEP meeting.
• Diversify response strategies (verbal referencing, act on, acknowledge, relate to context, prompt symbolically)
In our groups, staff participate alongside the students. Ac- tivities include: • Brainstorming and sharing challenges to support self ad- vocacy during the week • Engaging in role plays • Co-constructing scripts with students • Asking for observation times from the teacher or SLP dur- ing challenging moments in the day
Example of a talking mat for the topic “what I think about my school schedule”.
PARTNER TRAINING AND COACHING : Thinking back to the self-advocacy definition and reason for needing to teach these skills, we can recall that we need ex- trinsic factors to be considered as we teach students the skills to self-advocate. We know that for complex communicators, there is a substantial need for communication partners to be interpreting communication which leaves students vulnerable. We look at our partners as communication allies, or the people who are there to support communication problem solving. We emphasize that communication partners should not act as the voice but instead, the microphone. We coach our teachers to make sure that they have the skills to ensure student’s rights are being validated and followed through on by giving them practice in a structured setting to: • Utilize a least to most prompting hierarchy to be respon- sive while leaving space for independence • Understand presentation and access methods • Getting comfortable with wait time • Respond to both students and those who might (acciden- tally) violate student rights • Provide meaningful choices/ choice diversity across the day (Brown, et.al., 1993)
Posters creating for the environment to remind people to ask students first before engaging in routine activities.
One of the most effective ways we found to empower com- munication partners to engage in the structured activities and try to use skills in the larger environment has been through our self advocacy shout outs. Each week we start our group by pull- ing notes from a bucket that share a self advocacy victory, for students and staff. It fosters a culture of encouragement, shar-
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