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Promoting Technology as a MEANS not an END

Suggestions for Educators:

Demonstrate that success is the ability to participate in functional activities of all types through two strategies:

Option 1. Have a discussion about success with AAC
Option 2. Learn more about the participation patterns of an individual

1: Begin a discussion on success.

Discuss the following questions:

a) What does success mean in your life? How would you define success?
b) In your opinion, how would an adult AAC user define success?
c) How would a parent of a young AAC user define success?
d) How would a teen-ager who uses AAC define success?
e) Are there differences? Are you sure?

2: Learn more about the life of an individual relying on AAC

Read the enABLES profile on Sharon Jodock King and all of her associated video clips to understand the breadth of her life's activities. Sharon’s profile and clips are at http://depts.washington.edu/enables/profiles/prof_sk.htm. You should find the following activities:

Joking, e.g. at the pharmacy
Lobbying at the legislative session:
Worshipping at church
Creating, e.g. works of art
Banking
Shopping
Advocating, e.g. for people with disabilities
Teaching, e.g. about art for people with disabilities
Learning, e.g. at a community college

Or, you can search for the clips on the search engine. To find these clips, go to the AT/AAC enABLES Search page: http://depts.washington.edu/enables/searching.htm

Find the section of the search page that looks like this:

Functional Activity:

empty box here empty

Click on the black triangle in the small box to the right to open the drop down menu listing all the AAC strategies that are currently available. Select the desired strategy, for example those shown in italics in the examples above, then click on "Go".

All video clips that demonstrate that strategy will appear as thumbnails on the next screen. You will usually see two versions: “.wmv” for Windows Media Player clips and “.mov” for Quick Time/MacIntosh clips. Click on the thumbnail once to show the video clip.