The following article is also posted as a guest post on.
Why don't I hand out paper templates to the classroom teacher and staff to complete? This will save me lots of time and brain power! Why haven't I ever done this? So, what did I do? I created simple grids (or I printed off pre-made ones from Boardmaker) and added a couple of lines so the teacher could give me extra details. I enjoy it, but trying to create and re-create communication pages takes a ton of time. In all honesty, it takes a lot of my brain power to do this. Whether it is an iPad or some other communication device, the most time consuming part is planning and programming the pages. With the invention of the iPad and other tablets, AAC has been exposed to the rest of the world, which means more and more students have iPads (oftentimes purchased from parents themselves).
I'm in the tenth year of my career and for the last eight I've had a heavy emphasis on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) with my students. I had one of those big duh moments the other day.
