Bilingüe AAC (Part 2): Taking a Bilingual Approach to AAC Implementation

This week, we present Part 2 of Rachel’s interview with Alma Partida (@aacforyouandme on Insta), Sarah Lee (@aac_together), Melissa Tapia (@hablame_de_language), and Maria De Leon (@code.switch.slp) about Bilingüe AAC, a platform that supports evidence-based, culturally affirming Spanish AAC. In this segment of the interview, the Bilingüe AAC team provides lots of useful information, including research that supporst bilingualism for AAC users, some of the myths of bilingual AAC, and information you can share with families who are hesitant to teach an AAC user two languages. To listen to Part 1 of this interview, click here.

Before the interview, Rachel and Chris answer a question posed by Patreon member Anna, who has a 15-year-old autistic son who is a complex communicator and AAC user. He has a verbal vocabulary of around 200 words, and a more limited AAC vocabulary. Her son went to a well-regarded ABA school, where they they used AAC to only teach only fringe words and as a backup to verbal speech when they couldn’t understand him. His mother learned more about AAC implementation and moved him to a new school. Now, the new SLP wants her son to use a different vocabulary template (in his case, Crescendo for Proloquo2go) that better supports core language, and Anna wanted to know how best to transition her son from his old vocabulary template to his new one.

Key ideas this week:

🔑 When teaching AAC to a student in two different languages, we can take a “Cross Linguistic” or a Bilingual approach. The Cross-Linguistic approach has the SLP or teacher doing one day of AAC implementation/language therapy in Spanish and another in English. The Bilingual approach, which is recommended for monolingual therapists, teaches both languages at the same time (e.g. teaching “water” and "agua" at the same time).

🔑 Monolingual (e.g. English-speaking only) therapists and teachers should try to teach vocabulary to bilingual students in both their languages. This sends the message “Your culture is OK,” even if we can only teach one word at a time. If you aren’t as strong in their first language, tell the student “Let’s learn this together,” or “You can teach me”. It goes a long way to build trust and rapport with the student and their family.

🔑 If you are hearing that a student is “not motivated by anything,” it is better to say “they aren’t motivated by anything yet.” One idea is to consider their sensory needs and interests. If we are able to do a deep dive into those interests, we may find something to help a student regulate their sensory needs, or find something that they simply enjoy (e.g. touching shaving cream) that will motivate them to communicate.

Links this week:

King, M., Lim, R., Romski, M. (2021). Language experience, cognitive skills, and English and Spanish semantic abilities in bilingual children with typical development and language impairments.

McNamara, E. (2018). Bilingualism, Augmentative and Alternative Communication, and Equity: Making a Case for People With Complex Communication Needs

Bilingüe AAC has pages with freebies in both English and Spanish, including a “Common Bilingualism Myths” visual.

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