David Moehn: Supporting Students More Universally with Technology

This week, Chris talks with Assistive Technology Specialist David Moehn about supporting general education and special education students more effectively with assistive technology (including AAC). They discuss how to train staff more effectively, supporting all students with text-to-speech and speech-to-text, the specific language system first approach, and the benefits of providing AAC and core language instruction to all students in a classroom.

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel answer a listener question: how can we make using AAC more spontaneous and expressive for a child who is accustomed to lots of hand-over-hand prompting? Chris and Rachel offer lots of helpful suggestions for making AAC more motivating, including: changing the appearance of the device, evaluating what the child is most excited about, modeling without expectation, using expected routines, and the benefits of targeting motivating sensory experiences.

Key ideas this week:

🔑 To tempt communication and reduce prompt dependence, combine an expectant pause with an expected routine, like “ready, set….” during a highly motivating activity.

🔑 Some technology supports, like Read & Write for Chrome, can be helpful for both general- and special-education students. For example, all students, not just students with dyslexia, can benefit from listening to their writing before submitting it.

🔑 When AAC and core language is more universally adopted in a district, consults go down over time because everyone is more accustomed to using the app. Many students also use language more expressively when modeling increases in the classroom.

🔑 Look at the time spent by specialists and support staff to train vs the cost of universal deployment of a tool like Read & Write - if teachers and staff are comfortable and do not need training, then less specialist involvement is required overall.

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