AAC More than Requesting
In a presentation called ‘Communication Functions and AAC: Quick Tips to move beyond requesting’, Rebecca Eisenberg, M.A. CCC-SLP discussed why it is important to expand AAC usage past requesting and how to utilize more communication functions during treatment sessions. Communication functions are different ways one can use language (i.e. protest, comment, ask/answer questions, expressing feeling, labeling/describing). Eisenberg discusses how, natural conversation exchanges expand far past just requesting items and why it is important to continue to expand usage of other functions during therapy. These functions can be modeled on a child’s AAC device using aided language stimulation (i.e. modeling the selections on a device as you are verbally stating the message). She continues to discuss utilizing the SMoRRES model (slow,