Play: The Key Ingredient to Early Childhood AAC Implementation

Amy Starble

5/23/2017 12:09 AM

There is one simple AAC intervention technique that has, and likely always will be, incredibly powerful for young children: play. Play is the work of young children. The importance of play for ALL children can not be understated. Play may look different for every child but EVERY child can reap the social-emotional, creative, linguistic, mathematical, and cognitive benefits from rich, varied, dynamic play. In my work as an AAC consultant I often notice that the children who end up being the best AAC users are the ones whose teams approach AAC implementation in a playful, child-centered way. Communication should be fun, it should feel like play, not like work. Telling people you have to go to the bathroom or you want goldfish crackers, while they are very functional language skills, may not be what a child would choose to communicate using their first words. I have worked with so many young children who really started communicating with their AAC systems when they were encouraged to be silly, tell jokes, engage in pretend play, or tell funny stories. Below is a simple 4-step technique I recommend when embedding AAC intervention into play in an inclusive early childhood setting.

1) Prepare: Preparing for engaging, dynamic and rich play is essential. Many children who benefit from AAC interventions may also have other challenges that can impact their play, such as vision, hearing, or motor differences. "Setting the stage" for play is essential so that play can meet the needs of varied learners. Here are some tips:

• Select fun and engaging toys that encourage reciprocal and varied interactions.
• Consider materials that are open-ended in nature and may foster creativity and imagination
• Consider toys that are already in the preschool classroom and are used by all children
• Examples of materials that meet the aforementioned criteria: puzzles, puppets, dollhouse, kitchen, tea party, playdough, trains, cars with ramp, hollow blocks, legos or duplos, sand table, water table, painting, picture books with props

2) Engage: After the materials are available and prepped, focus on engaging the child or children in reciprocal play. While working to establish engagement look for:

• Change in affect that indicates joyful engagement
• Expectant pauses that indicate the child wants continuation of play
• Active participation with play materials and peers
• Joint attention and shifts of gaze

3) Imbed Modeling: Once child is actively engaged in play start modeling vocabulary that describes and narrates the play. Consider language that enhances the play. For example:

• Describe with Adjectives: This tea is HOT
• Describe with Verbs: That doll is EATING lots of cake
• Describe with Spatial Concepts: The car goes DOWN the track

4) Invite: After language is modeled at least 10 times within play use strategies that invite (not require) the child to use their AAC system:

• Expectant Delay: Before doing some action within play pause and gesture to AAC system. For example: just before putting a car down a track wait for the child to say "GO"
• Playful Mistakes: Be silly and playful. Recently I was having a tea party with a group of 3 year olds and one gave me a cup and I said, "I wonder what you gave me to drink" (then I took a sip) and then said, "Yuck, you gave COLD tea". My exaggerated facial expression got all of the kids laughing and then they took turns giving me all sorts of different drinks and telling me what they brought using the AAC system- I drank lots of pretend hot chocolate, coffee, Sprite, and apple juice that day:)
• Navigational Support: start navigating to page in system that has a word that has been modeled, provide gestural or point prompt to let child know what word might work in the interaction (i.e. when playing with cars on a ramp hold the car at the top of the ramp and say “I will make it go…….. then point to down”)
• Errorless Teaching: navigate to a page and ask an open ended question (i.e. navigate to the ‘action’ page and say, “what should we have our doll do?”- any action is appropriate)

When using play as a platform for AAC development the focus should be on engagement in play. The iPad or SGD is not the activity, the playful social interactions that emerge during play are the focus. The iPad or SGD or communication book is the tool that allows the child and his/her friends to talk about and actively engage in the play.

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Thanks, I found this helpful. I love the actual examples too. I struggle implementing AAC into play because it is hard to control what language may or may not come up. However our preschool has a very strong focus on play so this gave me some interesting ideas.

Meredith T - 3/1/2018