Question:

It's IEP  season and I'm running out of ideas for objectives.  I have several  students who use augmentative or alternative communication systems and  I want objectives to increase student to student interactions in their  general education classes.    

Speech and Language Specialist,  Elementary School

Answer:

• Sarah will designate who she wants to assist her during reading, selecting from a choice of three classmates who have volunteered to do so.   Sarah will activate a message on her voice output communication aid, or VOCA, that invites a particular child to join her during silent reading.

• Trevor will indicate his desire to have a pleasurable activity continue.  He will replace his present challenging behaviors with a more socially appropriate one.  An example of use of a natural gesture to communicate- While being pushed by a friend on a swing at recess, Trevor will pull the chains of the swing when his friend intermittently stops pushing, thus indicating a desire to continue the fun.

• Jason will be called on, and then accurately  respond to his teacher asking him to describe the day's weather.  He will use a laser beam light mounted on his glasses to point to a picture on the teacher's easel to indicate if it is cloudy, sunny, hot or cold.

• David will recount a narrative, either a story or interesting event, to his class using a series of up to five messages in correct sequence.  He and his assistant will program his VOCA to store each of the messages under corresponding symbols.

Web Links:

http://aacintervention.com/tipofthemonth.htm
For the aac tip of the month click on

Additional Resources:

Calculator, S., (1999) Augmentative communication in the classroom.  In Dodge, E. (Ed.), survival guide for school-based speech-language pathologists. San Diego: Singular.