Two of the five students in the classroom I am student teaching in are nonverbal and use an AAC application on the iPad, Proloquo2go, as their main form of communication. This application is wonderful because you can create symbols, phrases, and categories. The students have learned to maneuver through the application to find the proper symbols to express their needs and answer questions we pose. It is especially interesting to see how students use the speech available to them on the iPad to create novel phrases that are not already preprogrammed. For example, one student asked "When are we going to the park?" in response to the teacher saying we were going on a field trip. He did not have the phrase "Where are we going?," so he used another phrase to communicate this meaning. Similarly, he will click on the symbol that say's his mother's name then the symbol for car in order to say his mother is picking him up. The only drawback to this application is the amount of time it takes to update it with more phrases and symbols.
What is language?
Language is a code used to communicate wants and needs. It is a dynamic system of sounds, symbols, and gestures used to communicate.
What is speech?
Speech is the spoken form of language.
Inherent difficulties of unaided system:
I have a nonverbal student who has created his own signs. When he wants to watch Blues Clues, he points to his stomach. Anyone who hasn't been told what his unique signs mean will have to guess. It is useful for him to have this unaided system to communicate his needs when his iPad is not available, but only those who have worked with him know what he's saying.
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