Jennifer Hyles: Creating Materials That Better Reflect AAC Users

This week, Rachel interviews the artist behind the Instagram account @drawntoaac, Jennifer Hyles! Along with being an amazing artist, Jennifer is also an SLP who specializes in supporting AAC users! Jennifer and Rachel talk all about Jennifer’s journey getting started creating Drawn to AAC, why Jennifer was motivated to create clip art that depicts diverse AAC users in a variety of settings, and more!

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel discuss using our client/student’s highly specific interests to create more motivating activities and materials. Rachel shares about one of her clients who is very interested in ceiling fans, and all the ways that she has effectively incorporated ceiling fans into that client’s therapy! They also talk about moving clients beyond those restrictive interests by exposing them gradually to new things that may be of interest (e.g. clips of a new show they haven’t seen before).

Key ideas this week:

🔑 Drawn to AAC’s art is a great way to incorporate images of AAC users from different cultures and backgrounds into our own therapy. Being able to depict a diverse array of AAC users allows therapists and practitioners to better reflect the users themselves when we create materials.

🔑 Based on feedback that Jennifer has received from SLPs and others, she has created art that was designed to be less cartoonish and more age-respectful for middle and high school students.

🔑 One benefit of working with Jennifer’s art is she is an SLP who understands AAC assessment and implementation. Her free resources are based on better AAC practices, and, if you ever decide that you want to commission some art from her related to AAC, she doesn’t need a lot of extra information to understand exactly what you need.

Links from this week’s episode:

Drawn to AAC on Instagram

Drawn to AAC on TPT and Ko-Fi

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