Podcast Transcription
Hello and welcome to this podcast. I’m Mike Marotta from the Assistive Technology Center at Advancing Opportunities.
This interview was recorded during the 2011 Texas Assistive Technology Network Statewide Conference in Houston.
The title of this session is Tools and Strategies to Promote Family Engagement in AAC Intervention. The presenter is Tracy Kovach from Augmentative Communication Services, LLC. The session description reads: Family engagement in AAC system use with non-speaking children is a critical predicator of success. Tools and strategies to promote and support parental engagement in intervention will be reviewed. Selected feedback regarding the usefulness of information and tools shared with families will be presented with implications of evidence based practice.
Mike Marotta (MM): Welcome to our podcast. We are here talking with Tracy about her afternoon session of the conference which is Tools and Strategies to Promote Family Engagement in AAC Intervention. HI Tracy.
Tracy Kovach (TK): Hi.
MM: Tell us a little bit about, in your experience, what are some of the biggest obstacles that families face with regard to AAC and implementation?
TK: Well, like all of us, they face the same things in terms of really understanding the technology and that’s for professionals as well as family members. That’s usually the most obvious kind of thing – oh my gosh, how might going to use this? But really what I found, is that is the least of our worries. In fact, sometimes knowing less is better! Because it doesn’t get you kind of stuck on the technology part of it, operation of it, programming part of it, just staying up late to make sure you have every word that the child could possibly ever need tomorrow for the circle group etc. But what I find parents really face in terms of their struggles is really how to implement it in their real life. I think that that’s huge because that’s what really prevents it from getting used. And so it’s not the parents, I’ve had lots of times parents that I just think gee if they would just use the device a little bit over the weekend, keep it fresh in the memory etc. and the problem is they don’t know how to do that. It’s so unnatural that they really need to have some ideas about how to implement it at home.
So I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the past two or three years developing a program that’s called First Steps Camp and it’s a program where parents come and it’s kind of a little retreat for them. They’re able to get away from the pulls and tugs of everyday life and yet be together as a family in a sort of recreational environment and really focus on what are some of the tools and why is it you as a speech therapist asked me to do that. What are you asking me to do here? Then, how can I do it.
MM: Which is important. I think a lot of times parents of students are often just told this is the way things are going to happen and never truly given the ability to ask that question of: why?
TK: That’s right.
MM: Why am I doing that?
TK: That’s right. Or how? And I’ll tell you what, it took me only one time several years ago when I was at a camp with kids and I was responsible not just for their augmentative communication needs but their personal care needs. It took me just one morning to never ever ask a mom, ever again, to please ask your child to tell her to tell you on her communication device if you want apple juice or orange juice. That’s just not a thing that anybody can it be able to do in the morning with their kids.
MM: Right. And especially families with children with communication issues, they have developed such a strategy that is a no tech solution to communication that sometimes the device itself becomes a hindrance to communication.
TK: That’s right it does. The other thing that happens is I think families then turn their interest and their anxiety about wanting to make sure their child is achieving and developing towards the school and saying you guys need to implement a more at school. That’s an environment where he really needs it and you don’t really know what my child wants to say so that’s a perfect environment for you to implement it more. Families don’t realize what is that were trying to get at in terms of implementing – it’s not just pushing buttons that is really developing communication and developing language. So they need to know what that is really all about and then they need to know the nitty-gritty of how do I do that when I’m doing 50 other things. I utilize a program called Stories and Strategies and it really is based on taking the theme of a storybook, which lots of parents read to their kids at night. Then taking expansions from that storybook and saying okay for example, the three Billy goats gruff. They eat grass, am I making a salad for dinner tomorrow, let’s pretend you’re making a salad for the goats eat and my child can help me prepare the salad. So it’s real practical kinds of issues but they seem so simple when you say them but really making them happen in a family where it’s not just you and the kid. I mean most of the time it’s not what’s going on – there is a ton of other things going on – and really making that happen is really a struggle sometimes.
MM: I would think that the struggle sometimes manifests itself in the fact that a parent doesn’t buy in to a technology solution because of that struggle. It’s not seen is worth it sometimes.
TK: Absolutely. It’s not worth it and I don’t need it anyway. But they do need it at school!
MM: Right, that’s for you guys.
TK: Yes, you guys need to do that but I don’t really need that because I know what my child needs and wants.
MM: Can you share an experience from the camp last time of a family situation that maybe started out with the family not quite sure about the device and by the end there really was a ….
TK: There is one particular family that were going to look at. The dad was there under a bit of duress I’m afraid. Mom said you are coming to this camp! He pretty much was obvious about that.
MM: He didn’t have his poker face on?
TK: Rght he was really not liking this. I’m not really having a good time. It wasn’t until the end of the program, and this was a little kid who we were actually doing the Three Billy Goats Gruff story and they did make a salad. The kid – because it was a camp you may never do this at home of course – ended up putting the salad on his dad’s head which was absolutely hysterical for the kid. And the dad at the end of camp – when we were kind of reflecting on what it meant to them – he said this was the first time I’ve made my son laugh. And if I can do that with him and he can tell me more, it’s totally worth it to me. He said I was really hung up on the operational piece, really trying to figure out how to program it and I’m kind of an engineer kind of guy and I think I can figure this out but it didn’t seem to be working. So he totally bought into it with the word more. So he didn’t have to program anything in the device, the kid could just say more and make his dad do stupid things and his dad was loving it! He was actually for the first time interacting with his kid using communication.
MM: And with the device, the technology basically melting away into the background almost.
TK: That’s right. It was all about that thing. It was all about making his dad laugh and do stupid things and making the kid laugh. So yeah, the technology really became what it should be for all of us which is just the tool. But the tool sometimes you have to learn how to learn the tool, and some tools are complicated, and we make them more complicated than we need to.
MM: Exactly. Over think it. Like he even said, he was overthinking it. They come to the camp, and that is a weekend?
TK: Yes, it is a long weekend. But it is something that can be replicated – it doesn’t have to be a camp. It’s a nice time to be able to get parents away from things and it’s up in the mountains. So they enjoy it but it doesn’t have to be that. I think the important thing is, and actually there is a lot of research in this world of evidence-based practice, there’s a ton of research in terms of family involvement with their children. Particularly in early childhood development but certainly throughout childhood. Actually, Bronfman Brenner said something like way back in the 70s and he studied family involvement from a very objective perspective not a touchy-feely – I think sometimes people think the family stuff is very touchy-feely. He came at it from a very objective and analytical perspective and his conclusion was that family involvement was the most economical way of providing intervention to children that taught them something and that once outside intervention left remained. Without that, skills that were taught were lost. So there is a lot of evidence that really supports family involvement with kids at lots of different things so certainly our literature in AAC certainly supports that as well.
MM: That’s very true. Now if people want to get more information about the camp you’ve setup or any of the tools and strategies you use, how can they reach out to you?
TK: They can contact me at 303-909-9655 or by e-mail at kovachtracy@aol.com
MM: Great – thanks very much.
TK: Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this podcast. For more information about the Texas Assistive Technology Network, visit the website at www.texasat.net
For more information about the Assistive Technology Center at Advancing Opportunities, visit the website at www.assistivetechnologycenter.org
The music used in this podcast is by Kevin MacLeod and is used with permission under the Creative Commons License 3.0
