October is Augmentative Alternative (AAC) Awareness month. It is also the month annually that I have to resubscribe to the website building program I use to write and host this blog. The overlap strikes me as appropriate. My blog has slowly migrated into a site that focuses on Nathaniel and his need for communication; it is meaningful that I yearly recommit to sharing that journey during AAC awareness month.

This week the augmentative alternative communication (AAC) activities in our homeschool focused on the words SAME, READY, IS, WITH. I selected these from the PrACCtical AAC's list of core words for July. My goal is do one fifteen to twenty minute activity per day that allows me to model the words and motivate Nathaniel to use his device and learn new language skills. I am currently trying to model three to five word utterances. In my examples below, I model all the words except those in parentheses. I have put this week's core words in all capitals to draw attention to them. Simpler modeling option would be to only model the targeted core word.

This week, our augmentative alternative communication (AAC) activities focused on the words THEY, BEFORE, LATER, MUCH. I selected these from the PrACCtical AAC's list of core words for July. My goal is do one fifteen to twenty minute activity per day that allows me to model the words and motivate Nathaniel to use his device and learn new language skills. I am currently trying to model three to five word utterances.

We are using PrACCtical AAC's list of core words for our July augmentative and alternative communication work with Nathaniel. My goal is do one fifteen to twenty minute activity per day that allows me to model the words and motivate Nathaniel to use his device and learn new language skills. There are twelve words in the list; that is a lot to take on all at once. I've found success with focusing on four words per week for three weeks and then having the last week of the month to mix it all up and revisit some of our favorite activities. The words we are worked on this week were FIND, COLOR, AND, and LOVE. Nathaniel loves to speak in one word utterances and let his communication partner do the work, but he more than capable of two to three word utterances; longer utterances are emerging. I tend to model between three and five word phrases and sentences. He is becoming aware of pronoun use, present progressive verb endings, and adding a plural s.

A few weeks ago, my nieces visited our home for their annual week of "Camp Rankin." We meet their family at the same park, halfway between our homes, each year to pick up and drop off the girls. Visiting a playground only once a year provides amazing insight into the changes in Nathaniel's physical abilities. In 2015, he kept his feet on solid ground. Walking on the uneven park surface carrying his tube feed in a backpack was challenging enough. In 2016, he was comfortable walking up a ramp to the lowest play area. His aunt and cousin were watchful spotters to his emerging climbing skills in 2017. This year it was hard for any of us to keep up.

"Why don't you homeschool Nathaniel?" The question was the first thing my mom asked when I answered the phone early Tuesday morning. It was asked last Saturday by a college friend, who has close to thirty years experience in public school special education, after she read my blog post about a Christian school's denial to consider enrolling my son. It is a question Rich and I have repeatedly asked ourselves, and it is a logical one given that homeschooling has been our educational choice for our other children.  Answering the question and making any educational decision on Nathaniel's behalf forces us to reflect on his journey.

When placed in our home through foster care, Nathaniel was enrolled in early intervention services offered through our state Department of Education. We have homeschooled for twenty-five years. Our experience with public education was limited to our older two sons who attended while living at their mother's home. Despite the unfamiliarity, we continued the services. The intervention model identified the child’s greatest need and offered one therapist to address concerns. Nathaniel was assigned an occupational therapist. We loved her. However, together we quickly realized that Nathaniel had more needs than she could meet in an hour a week.  Speech and physical therapy were added. Nathaniel’s experience with early intervention speech therapy has been documented here. Not soon after we began sessions, we stopped them. We sought private speech therapy to tackle what we knew would be long-term communication needs.

We meet with our AAC team Wednesday afternoon for one of our quarterly consultations. It will be a transitional meeting for Nathaniel as his weekly speech therapist is anticipating a new baby soon. Nathaniel and Miss Rebecca had their last "before baby comes" session yesterday. (Many blessings to you and your little one, Rebecca!) Our therapy plans for the fall include continuing in Development Language Group two mornings a week and private therapy (Occupational and Speech) one morning a week.

As I prepare for our AAC meeting, I am again shuffling papers, making lists, and thinking about goals I have for Nathaniel's language growth. I reflect on times Nathaniel experiences communication frustrated as that often indicates areas that need solutions and work. This document, Language Functions & Early Generative Language Production by Gail M. Van Tatenhove, PA, MS, CCC-SLP, was given to me very early on in Nathaniel's AAC journey. It continues to be a help when I prepare for our AAC meetings. I revisited Tatenhove's word lists and compared the list to open words on Nathaniel's device. I have created a list of words that I feel we need to work on learning.

I did something Monday that I have only done once since July 30, 2013. I drove alone with Nathaniel in the van. We went to the park and took a walk. We stopped by Barnes and Noble. We were away from the house for almost two hours.

It felt so good to be out together. Alone. Together.

Last week, my father asked me how I know if Nathaniel wants to add a new word to his talker. Isn't that just like a grandparent - challenging the middle generation on behalf of the younger - I love it!

Thankfully, I had a recent example of Nathaniel and I negotiating the addition of a new word to share with him.  Nathaniel became infatuated with the movie Frozen this month. Despite our encouragement that he let it go, he hasn't. His usual show requests are Curious George, Daniel Tiger, or Cars Movie - all titles he has on his talker.  Rather than using his talker to request his normal shows, he repeatedly brought me the DVD case for Frozen.