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 Using a Progress Measurement Scale in AAC Intervention to Guide Communicative Competence Development. The presenter is Tracy Kovach from Augmentative Communication Services, LLC.
The session description reads: A systematic method for measuring achievement of goals / objectives is essential in developing communicative competence using AAC. A Progress Measurement Scale that identifies expected and achieved individual levels of proficiency and subsequent goals / objectives specific to the development of communicative competence will be described and discussed.
Mike Marotta (MM): Hi Tracy, thanks for sitting down with us today.
Tracy Kovach (TK): Thank you.
MM: Tell us a little bit about your session where you are talking about the Progress Measurement Scale. Tell us why it is so important to have this method of measuring achievement for AAC users.
TK: Well, the Progress Measurement Scale is part of the AAC Profile and Continuum of Learning. It is really a modification of the Goal Attainment Scales that some people have heard of and have been used in, not so much our field, but other fields. They really help objectify measurement of progress toward an outcome. The Progress Measurement Scale actually provides a numerical tag or label for the level at which a person is functioning. So, it gives you a baseline measurement and then it gives you the opportunity to decide – at what level do I feel it is realistic for this person to achieve a particular goal. And in that regard, it really helps us determine, in an objective way, where we are in our intervention planning , how we are making progress with certain individuals, where they started, where they go, and helps us move on. I think lots of times we think, as educators when we develop IEPs and goals and all that, we say somebody has to be doing something at an 80% to 100% accuracy level with very few cues etcetera, etcetera. For some people that use AAC it is just not realistic to expect them to do that. But then we get stuck on those goals and we end up doing them for months and months and months, and we never get beyond that to the things that may be more appropriate and achievable in terms of developing communicative competence. So it really gives us, in my mind it frees us up to pull us out of subjective evaluation of “Oh, I am going to be doing this forever.” kind of a thing and really objectify it because we are deciding at the get-go: what is a realistic expectation. Then we are working towards it. It helps us as educators and I think it helps people use AAC. We all want to succeed. We don’t want to keep working on something where somebody keeps raising the bar a little bit higher, a little bit higher, a little bit higher. I kind of liken it to my learning how to play golf. At some point in time, I was OK with shooting 100. I thought if I keep it at 100, that is fine. I don’t need to be lower than that and I really had a much better time. After I decided that was OK.
MM: Take the weight off your shoulders.
TK: That’s right. So I think it is sort of the same thing we are talking about. How we are judging progress for AAC users. The other thing about the Progress Measurement Scale that I find very helpful is that it helps me do some comparisons with other people, other therapists, people within my practice. I can say, “I’ve got a person that is functioning at a Level 2”, as they rate on the Progress Measurement Scale and it takes me 6 months to move them to a Level 3. “How long did it take you to move your kid that was on a Level 2, with the same objective, to move to Level 3?” “Are you doing it faster than I am?” I’ve got 10 kids on my caseload and they are all starting out at Level 1, what does that say to you in terms of the utilization of resources. So I think, used in a big picture sort of way, not used for the individual user for programmatic and staffing purposes – it can be very helpful to say “We’ve got a lot of people that are functioning here at Level 1 and 2 and we are trying to get them to 3 and 4 – how long is this going to take and what kinds of resources are we going to need to expend.
MM: Can you take a minute and give us a snapshot of the characteristics of a person, a communicator, would be at those different levels. What would a Level 1 communicator exhibit?
TK: The scale goes from 1 – 5. Level 1 being the most basic communication level and the scale is based on several criteria. One is percent of accuracy and performance of a skill or behavior. Another is the level and the number of cues that are necessary. So, visual cues, verbal cues, physical cues and minimal, moderate, maximum. Then another is the learning environment. Are they able to do something in a structured learning environment versus an unstructured learning environment versus out in the community. Then of course, we measure achievement of goals over time. So generally all of these levels are identifying a 75% over time, 3 out of 4 opportunities over time. The person at that very basic level , Level 1, would be performing a skill like 0% to 20% accuracy with two or more levels of prompting. So I am using visual, verbal, and or physical prompting and in a very structured learning environment. All the way up to a Level 5, which is the 80% to 100% accuracy, no cues being used and in multiple environments.
MM: OK. Can you give us an example of a person you have worked with that has been at a certain level when they started and you have moved them up considerably up that scale, maybe more than the team had expected to.
TK: Particularly in the area of Operational Competence, so access to a communication system and accuracy in terms of access, I started out with a person who was really at Level 1. 0% to 20% accuracy in terms of scanning and it was just by “hook or crook” that they actually ever got to the switch and made a selection purposely. Yet this was a person who was also very social and very strategic in their competencies in other areas. After working with him for six months, he moved to a Level 3, which was like 60% accuracy. So that is like better than half the time, so this wasn’t chance anymore I was thinking. It still could have been but I was hoping for the best.
MM: You were leaning more towards that.
TK: Exactly, so after six months this was because he had access to the device. DUH! It is hard to practice a skill if you are not really practicing it. While a lot of people thought he was never going to get the scanning , this is not going to work – we were really able to document over a period of six months he really moved two huge steps in terms of accuracy. Now what didn’t happen was that he still needed to have the cues. So we could say his accuracy is improving but that is what we expected. We expect, as you get better at something, you don’t need as much help at it. So the level of cues were dropping in terms of the level that was needed and in the amount of cueing. To the point that we could just verbally cue – “Get ready now, you have to be ready, here it comes, that’s the one you want, go ahead hit your switch” – that sort of thing. The other thing that is important about the same individual is that my expectation is that he would never be 100% accurate. So when he got to a 70% accuracy level, I said we are done with this objective. This is as good as it is going to get right now. He was a kid, so your body is going to change, things will happen and I am not going to spend all day long working on scanning. I really want to develop your system in terms of language, in terms of your ability to socially interact, and if I have to provide that level of cueing for you in order for you to be successful – that’s OK. Because in order to do all these other things, I need to move off of this now.
MM: Right. This is what you mentioned before. The idea of getting stuck sometimes in the “I have to hit this number, this magical number that we created – 80%, 85%” -whatever it is and lose focus on the fact that 70% is a good number to hit and now build other skills that may at some point perhaps raise that number even higher anyway while we are building other skills.
TK: Exactly.
MM: If people want more information about what you are talking about, how can they reach you?
TK: They can certainly contact me directly and they can reach me at kovachtracy@aol.com or 303-909-9655. And if they are interested in the AAC Profile: A Continuum of Learning, actually getting the Continuum and seeing the scale they can get that through Linguisystems.
MM: Excellent. Do you have their web address.
TK: I think it is http://www.linguisystems.com [NOTE: THIS IS THE CORRECT WEB ADDRESS]
MM: OK. I will search it out and make sure to put it on the webpage for the podcast. Thanks Tracy. Thanks for talking to us today.
TK: You are welcome.
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
