1. Environmental Communication Teaching (ECT) with Students and Young Children Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication DAY 1

2. AGENDA 8:30 Registration 9:00 Developing a Focus on Communication
10:15 BREAK
10:30 ECT Basics
11:45 - 1:00 LUNCH (on your own)
1:00 ECT Strategies and Examples
1:45 ECT Exercises
2:15 BREAK
2:30 Revisiting and Revising ABO’s
4:00 Dismissal

3. Understanding the Use of ECT in Classroom and Community Settings
Goals:
Identify common communication problems
Identify solutions to these problems
Demonstrate use of activity-based objectives
Develop an understanding of integrated therapy
Select target students and activities
Develop sets of activity-based objectives
1. To identify the common communication problems of students or young children who use AAC or need to use AAC and to identify the possible sources of these problems including the contributions of the student's or young child's partners and the environments in which communication occurs.
2. To identify solutions to these problems within an environmentally-based communication intervention process.
3. Activity-based objectives are introduced as a tool to:
-promote planning and team communication,
-to identify the requirements for communication within common social, educational, vocational, and community activities.
4. To develop an initial understanding of how AAC, and its development, may be integrated into educational, vocational, and community intervention.
5. To have participating classroom or agency teams select a) two target students or young children within the classroom with whom to focus their intervention efforts and b) two target activities within which to work with each student or young child.
6. To have participating classroom or agency teams develop an initial set of activity-based objectives at least for one of the selected activities for one target student or young child.

4. Team Building Identify core team members
Identify peripheral team members
Identify involvement of family
explanation of ECT
signed permission forms for taping
viewing videotapes (last session?)
Identify team meeting opportunities
Its important to begin with the team concept, although there is typically not enough time to do major team building activities--that may be necessary later on if you encounter teams with interaction concerns.
SHOW TEAM CARTOON with MICE in MAZE
For now, you may want to have teams “name” themselves, create a team icon, etc. You may want to have card stock available for this.
HAVE TEAMS COMPLETE TEAM DATA FORM
Its important to discuss the implications of family involvement. Several family members have participated in ECT trainings. If they are not at Days 1-2, they will probably not benefit from Days 3-4, but you may want to invite them to Day 5.
At the very least, families will have to be involved to the extent that they sign the permission to videotape forms.
Teams should be thinking about opportunities to get together after the workshop to work on ABO’s, tape review, materials planning, etc.

5. Communication Interaction Chart
Wants/Needs
Social Closeness
Partner
Environment P
U R P O S E
At the first North Carolina Literacy Symposium (March 1991), Janice Light presented the concept of communication interaction being divided into 4 categories according to purpose:
Information transfer
Wants/Needs
Social Closeness
Social Etiquette
The purpose of the communication act will be directed and defined by the activity in which it occurs, the environment in which the activity occurs, and by the interaction of the communication partner.
Hence the diagram of the 3 major components that ECT will impact:
Activity, Partner, and Environment (new acronym? APE)
Activity
Information Transfer
Social Etiquette

6. Facilitation Strategies that Promote Communication
Engaging the child
Commenting on or describing an event or action
Responding to communication attempts
Waiting for a response
The journal article noted below was a study of communication facilitation strategies that the authors observed in several preschool environments. The first four strategies were noted occasionally, and were deemed to be very significant.
The three bullets in the next slide were noted less frequently, and the three on the third slide were rarely observed in the settings monitored in the study.
All are strategies that teachers and therapists should strive to employ in daily interactions. Interestingly, all are strategies that ECT will promote and develop, and it is our observation that “waiting for a response” falls into the “rarely observed” category more often than not.
Adapted from “Teachers’ Use of Strategies to Facilitate the Communication of Preschool Children with Disabilities”. Journal of Early Intervention, 1991, Vol. 15, pp

7. Facilitation Strategies that Promote Communication
Expanding child’s utterances
Prompting for a higher level of response
Increasing opportunities for peer interactive communication

8. Facilitation Strategies that Promote Communication
Identifying the communicative intent of undesirable behavior
Prompting communication to replace undesirable behavior
Modifying the environment to promote communication opportunities
Adapted from Teachers’ Use of Strategies to Facilitate the Communication of Preschool Children with Disabilities. Journal of Early Intervention, 1991, Vol. 15, pp

9. School Survival Skills
Group Activity
School Survival Skills
Review the skills and identify which items involve communication and which do not.
SCHOOL SURVIVAL SKILLS OVERHEAD
Have the participants decide which of the 20 “skills” involve communication and which do not.
Mark the Overhead with yes/no/maybe
You can do this as a large group, or first in small groups with follow-up response by the large group (if this is the choice, include in handout).
Participants should consider--when done--how many of the “skills” include communication when the student is physically impaired--and see if that changes any of their decisions.
Consider the concepts of self-talk, inner language.
Consider task performance vs. social interaction or comments.
66+% of the skills are determined to involve communication!
Follow with the Polar Bear Cartoon--now that we’ve focused on student communication, let’s focus on team communication.

10. The Basics of Environmental Communication Teaching
Arranging the environment
Selecting communication targets
Responding to the child’s initiations
Reinforcing the child’s communicative attempts
Environmental Communication Teaching is a set of strategies for doing communication intervention within the context of everyday, ongoing activities. It has its roots in a number of earlier approaches to environment-based language development including incidental language teaching (used with socio-economically disadvantaged children) and milieu language teaching, including the mand-model procedure, (used with language-delayed children).
1. Arranging the Environment
•to increase the likelihood that the child will initiate to the adult
•to identify the natural cues in the environment that will lead to communication
•to facilitate behavior control
2. Selecting Communication Targets
•appropriate for the child's skill level and interests
•appropriate to the opportunities the environment provides
•may have transfer and generalization value
3. Responding to the Child's Initiations
•with requests for elaborated communication resembling the targeted forms
(i.e.. traditional modeling and expansion techniques)
4. Reinforcing the Child's Communicative Attempts
•with attention
•with access to the objects or events in which the child has expressed interest

11. Remember:
“Incidental teaching episodes are brief, positive, and oriented towards COMMUNICATION rather than language-teaching, per se.”
Trainers may want to use a video at this point to show the difference between traditional Language Therapy sessions and therapy or classroom activities that focus on communication.
There is a segment looking at a Speech Therapist working with a student in which the therapist does all the talking in the therapy session, using excellent modeling and providing a language rich environment, but providing few opportunities to communicate. (Nathanial)

12. Parameters for Successful Assistive Technology Implementation
What you need to make it work:
A Committed Team
-Knowledge of the student/young child
-Willingness to increase technical proficiency with the device/ equipment
-Commitment to dynamic re- evaluation
May want to discuss ECT as a framework for other AAC workshops, i.e. Vocabulary Message Planning, BoardMaker, Device specific workshops, etc.
Dynanic re-eval: need to constantly re-evaluate, make changes to boards, ABO’s
Team Building would be another one to consider after Day Two.

13. Parameters for Successful Assistive Technology Implementation
Instructional Best Practices
-Integrated therapy
-Curricular goals for present and future
-Activities that are realistic and functional
-Strategies for success
-An organized classroom/environment
Administrative and Family Support
May want to discuss ECT in reference to Engineered Classrooms.
(Reference is to materials from Sharon Crain, Pam Elder, Carol Goosens.)
ECT is the architectual plan.
Engineering the Classroom is the plumbing.
ECT takes it several steps farther, and focuses on adult behavior changes, as well as AAC issues.

14. Implementing Technology
Curriculum
Functional Outcomes
ABO’s
This diagram gives an overall picture of where components fit:
•Talk about curriculum in the broadest sense; include specific examples for early childhood population.
CURRICULUM IS WHAT YOU NEED TO TEACH
•Discuss functional outcomes, educational goals; implemented in home, school, community.
THIS IS WHERE IEPs COME IN
•Explain briefly Assistive Technology - no tech, lo tech, high tech
TOOLS FOR STUDENTS TO USE
•ECT is a set of strategies promoting communication--but that does not mean it has to be “high tech”. Teams have to work to provide the tools the students needs. Refer to SETT framework, if they are not familiar with this concept.
You may want to end by writing PARTICIPATION in the center, it is the goal of all this--and this is the segue to the next piece.
SHOW MRS. MORTLEMAN CARTOON
then watch an “all too often seen” example of Participation......
Individual
Strengths
Individual
Needs
Assistive Technology

15. VIDEO/Vanessa
Show the Vanessa videofrom the original ECT collection, or another video ** that demonstrates some student and partner “problems”.
**an alternative video example that demonstrates ineffective partner skills would be desireable, since the focus here is on making participants aware that we, as communication partners, are part of the problem.
In this workshop, a series of examples of the ECT approach being used in educational, vocational, and community activities will be presented. Using some guiding questions, trainers will be encouraging the participants to attempt to evaluate the environmental arrangements, the cues, prompts, and feedback and the AAC strategies employed in each of the samples.
The point should be stressed that rarely are there perfect interventions and that evaluation and critique serves a positive, rather than negative, function. The video clips shown are short, specific segments pulled out for teaching purposes.
Think of it this way:
Quote: Sam Levinson
“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.”

16. Group Activity Brainstorm in small groups
Common characteristics of students who use or need AAC
Common partner characteristics
instructional language
interaction patterns
This can be done in a variety of ways:
--Divide the room into 2-3 arbitrary groups and have each one focus on one of the above issues while they watch the tape again.
--Have worksheets in the participants’ packets that have a notes page with this activity outlined on it.
The Instructional Language Issue is going to be the most difficult to observe from the Vanessa segment--they will have to extrapolate from their own experiences and behaviors.

17. Common Characteristics of Students using AAC
They:
Rarely initiate interactions
Primarily respond to others’ initiations
Usually communicate via modes other than their communication aid/device
Head nods and shakes in response to yes/no questions are the most frequently used mode

18. Common Characteristics of Students using AAC
Unintelligible vocalizations are common
Spontaneous communication is less complex than in elicited situations
Rarely interact with peers
**However we must not too readily attribute the source of all their problems to the students or young children; their partners may also act in ways that create or contribute to the problems, and what they are provided with in terms of TOOLS may not be appropriate.

19. Additional Concerns Facing Students and Young Children Who Use AAC
Communication system not available when student or young child needs to communicate
Communication system available but vocabulary or message needed is not there when student or young child needs to communicate

20. Additional Concerns Facing Students and Young Children Who Use AAC
Vocabulary or messages available on AAC display not appropriate to the situation or activity
Message gloss is missing or is insufficient for partners to comprehend intended message

21. Partner Characteristics Communication Interaction Style
Adults
Tend to dominate the interactions
Preempt the student’s or young child’s turn
Don’t give students or young children time to formulate messages
Often fail to respond to student’s or young child’s initiations
Often anticipate the student’s or young child’s needs and thoughts, making it unnecessary for them to communicate

22. Partner Characteristics Instructional Language Style
Adults:
Use rhetorical speech for which answers are not being solicited
Use “Fills” and “Tags” which obscure the meaningful message or cancel intended effect
May sometimes double-state messages
Adults:
-Use rhetorical speech for which answers are not being solicited, e.g.,
"Are you ready? Tell me where this goes."
"Let's try again okay? Tell me what you want."
-Use "fills" and "tags" which obscure the meaningful message or cancel intended effect, e.g.,
"Let me see now..."
"Tell me what you want, alright?"
[A demand to communicate becomes a yes/no question]
-May sometimes double-state messages, e.g.
“What do you want? What do you need?”
Adults may use an instructional style which results from the adults being unsure of what they wish to do next or what they actually want the student to say; as a result, the “communicative space” is filled with these confusing, redundant, or irrelevant messages.

23. Solutions
Develop an understanding of the three major aspects of the intervention process
Understand the communicative requirements of activities
Understand how partners can act to facilitate, rather than inhibit, the student’s or young child's communication skills
Understand how AAC is developed from within the context of particular activities, not as a separate enterprise
This is an overview slide. The three points will be
reviewed on the following slides.

24. Solutions
Understand the communicative requirements of everyday activities
Examine various social contexts in which interaction might occur:
Structure of social interactions
How interactions are initiated and maintained
How communicative functions are used within interactions
Examine how ABO’s can be used as a planning and communication tool for teams
Identify ways to modify current activities
As part of this training, we will:
•Examine the various social contexts in which interaction might occur, including:
-the typical structure of social interactions,
-how these interactions are initiated and maintained;
-how communicative functions are used within interactions
•Examine how Activity-Based Objectives can be used as a planning tool to identify the requirements for communication within common social, educational, vocational, and community activities.
•Identify ways that we can modify current activities to increase the opportunities available for communication.

25. Solutions
Understand how partners can facilitate the effective use of communication through the use of:
environmentally-based cues
a unique prompt hierarchy
the use of appropriate descriptive feedback
As part of this training, we will:
•Analyze how partners might act to facilitate the effective use of communication by students or young children with severe disabilities, through the use of environmentally-based cues, prompts, and feedback.

26. Solutions
Understand how to develop and integrate AAC within the context of activities
Determine the communication potential of routine activities
Develop AAC strategies for routine activities
Integrate AAC into educational, vocational, and community activities
As part of this training, we will:
•Discuss how to develop AAC strategies within the context of activities and how to integrate them into educational, vocational, and community activities, rather than as a separate issue.

27. Practices that Support a Curriculum-Based Model
[Using Activity-Based Objectives
as a way to Structure IEP Goals]
Identify natural environments
Identify significant activities in those environments
Identify specific skills required
Determine discrepancies between current and desired performance
ABO’s provide a scaffolding, a tool to communicate the team’s plan.
ABO’s are one way to develop IEP goals/objectives that are integrated across the disciplines; this method is derived from the Community-Referenced Functional Skills Curriculum (CRFS) model promoted by Rainforth and York (1987).
This model has been used to promote the integration of students with severe disabilities into a variety of educational, vocational, and community activities.
These are the 4 component processes used to define activity-based objectives:
Identify natural environments where a person lives, works, and uses leisure time; HUGGIES DIAPER CARTOON
Identify significant activities in those environments;
Identify the specific skills required to engage in those activities (motor, communication, social, academic, or other skills);
Determine discrepancies between current and desired performance in critical skills, activities, and environments.

28. Components Needed to Insure Success of Curriculum-based Model
Integrated Services
Skill Cluster Instruction
Additional components have been identified to ensure the success of the CRFS model:
Integrated Services--delivery of educational and related services in the situations in which the skills will be functional and the performance meaningful for an individual student.
SHOW INTEGRATED THERAPY CARTOON
Skill Cluster Instruction--teaching of interrelated, rather than isolated, motor, communication, academic, social skills within a functional skill sequence (an activity).

29. Skill Clusters
Fine Motor
Language
Functional
Academics
Computer

30. Central Premises of Skill Cluster Instruction
Movement, communication, social interaction, problem solving, recall, etc., are required components of most functional routines.
Routines provide excellent opportunities to integrate priorities and methods from a variety of disciplines.
Skill Cluster instruction presumes that
-movement, communication, social interaction, problem-solving, recall, etc. are required within almost any functional routine;
-routines provide excellent opportunities to integrate priorities and methods from a variety of disciplines.
The result of applying these components is a series of ABO’s within which various disciplines are identified and their priorities addressed.
YOU MAY WANT TO SHOW EXAMPLES OF IEPs AND ACTIVITIES TO DEMONSTRATE SKILL CLUSTER INSTRUCTION
---THERE IS A PAGE FROM JUNE DOWNING THAT DOES THIS

31. An Average Day Activity
2-3 forms can be provided to have each team work on jotting down the scope of an average day.
If necessary (especially in secondary situations) they may want to focus on a student who will possibly be a “target student” so that they have one student’s schedule to review. Its not really important at this point that they have THE student--the activities that follow are to develop the team’s skill in creating communication opportunities within regular everyday activities.
As they review the scope of the day, they also need to think about the communication opportunities that are available.
YOU MAY WANT TO SHOW THEM A “SAMPLE DAY “
The Average Day Form allows the team to make notations about:
Mode of Interaction--are students doing any signing, verbalizing, eye-gaze selecting, pointing, or device activation during the identified activities?
Level of Interaction--are students generally interacting spontaneously, or when prompted, or in imitation of a model that is always present?
What is the motivational level of various activities?
What are the natural cues that signal a change or a time for transition within or between activities during the day?

32. Activity
Breakdown
** You are trying to establish a very simple, quick process that can be used over and over again when the team is faced with implementation goals. Starting with the entire day, moving to assessment of the communication potential of everyday activities, and then assessing the steps that are involved in chosen activities.....simple, fast, easy! “Quick and Dirty” is the term Susan McCloskey uses!
**Review the following slides on the Requirements of the Activity.
**Then do the Activity Breakdown as a group, using Vanessa as an example ( or the student that you used as a substitute for Vanessa).

33. Requirements for an Activity
How is it Initiated?
Where does it begin?
What is the transition from the previous activity?
Who begins it?
How is it begun?
What is said or done?

34. Requirements for an Activity
How is it Maintained?
What are the operations that must be carried out?
With what must they be done?
Who must do them?
What must be said to carry them out?
Who must say these things?

35. Requirements for an Activity
How is it Terminated?
What actions end the activity?
Who does them?
When
Who ends the activity?
What do they say?
**Make sure you do the Activity Breakdown as a group, using Vanessa (or other selected video) as an example.
Use the Activity Breakdown Form (have loose forms available)
Have each team choose about three activities that seem to have communication potential:
Quick and Dirty!
Jot down the steps that comprise each activity
Not too much detail at this point
THEN
Have the teams go back and see if they have answered these types of questions for the activities for which they roughed out the Activity Breakdown steps.
Have teams make any changes or additions at this time.

36. Brainstorm Vanessa’s Activity
Using the Arrival Activity from the Vanessa (or other) videotape, have the group brainstorm the steps and then answer the questions from the Requirements of the Activity slides with the following cues:
1. Discussion of how to begin developing the ABO's should start with two main questions:
a. Where does arrival at school begin?
b. Even if V. becomes a competent communicator, she will still be physically disabled so... How do we expect a competent, but physically disabled, student to behave in this situation?
{How do we expect any student or young child to participate in this situation?}
2. Points to consider:
a. Should we just move students or young children who are physically disabled from place to place without their request for help, permission or acknowledgment?
b. What are the "normal" things any elementary-aged student does when arriving at school?
c. Do not forget transition to the next activity.
Maintain
Initiate
Terminate

37. Selecting Target Activities
Activities selected should correspond as much as possible with the following characteristics:
The activity is “process” rather than “product” oriented
The activity represents a class of activities
More than one “selection” for the activity type can be offered at any given time
The activity occurs for the student or young child 3-4 times each week
For each target student or young child, two activities will be designated as "targets" during which the implementation of ECT techniques will be developed.
If at all possible, both activities should not use the 1:1 instructional format. A small group activity would be acceptable for one activity. This could be as simple as 2-3 students or young children working on individual tasks (in which they might need to have access to common materials) with one adult supervising the overall activity.
The activities selected, in order to provide optimal opportunity for ECT techniques to be overlaid, should correspond as much as possible to the above characteristics.
It would be helpful for the teams if one (or both) of the target activities could be the same for both of the children (they need not be in the activity at the same time). Thus, the teams will select from two to four different activities; three has been the usual number selected -- one activity in common and a second different activity for each student.

38. Using the ABO Format What the student must do or say
Vocabulary that must be available
How the messages will be represented
The message selection technique that will be used
Information about the AAC Display

39. Guidelines for Preparing Activity-Based Objectives
Should Describe Final Objectives of the Activity
They describe the activity at the final criterion (independence, independent but with personal assistance, etc.) level.
If memory aids, such as picture sequence charts, or assistive devices, such as adapted chairs or tools, will be permanently used, they should be reflected within the objectives.
**Items concerning the format of activity-based objectives:
SHOW THE ABO FORM AT THIS TIME -- ON OVERHEAD and then discuss the following points:
a. Identify the natural cue or event that should let any person know what to do at that particular point; also identify natural problem-solving (if statements)situations. This becomes a very crucial issue later on--if the adults don’t know when to expect the student to communicate, how can we expect the student to do so?
b. When a situation calls for "communication"
-Place the "message" in parentheses, so as to indicate that it is only an example of what might be said;
-The message should be worded so as to be age-appropriate for the student or young child and appropriate for the partner's status;
c. Identifying the required message content is separate from the issue of how the message will be represented on a communication display.
**It is useful to conclude by examining how many objectives would be needed if the student or young child was not physically disabled.

40. Guidelines for Preparing Activity-Based Objectives
Should state what the student or young child will do or say to complete the activity
Do not state what the student or young child “Will learn to do”
Do not include the teaching cues and prompts that may be needed in order to teach the student or young child
Teaching cues and prompts can be documented separately
Cues and prompts are added and taken away as needed

41. Guidelines for Preparing Activity-Based Objectives
Use only verbs such as ASK, TELL, SAY, ANSWER to describe the communication of the student
Remember that all communication has equal value regardless of the modes being used
Respond to unintelligible verbalizations or indistinct gestures by requesting that the student tell “it” another way
Now, show the example ABO’s from the Vanessa Arrival Activity.
You will need these on OH. They are not in PowerPoint at this time.
Make sure blank ABO forms are provided to the teams.

42. VIDEO
Watch the Natalie video “Leisure Reading” Activity. or
Select an alternative video that shows an activity that has a clearly defined initiation and termination point. The teams need to learn to recognize the mapping of activities, and that we need to think about the communication opportunites that are available to get into and out of an activity.
***Do Tricia - Job Chart video
shows well-defined initiation, maintenance, and termination of an activity

43. Write ABO’s
Have the teams use the Activity Breakdown and then the ABO process to come up with ABO’s for Tricia.
Then show them the set of ABO’s developed for Tricia.
Have ABOs available for any alternative video segment you choose to use at this time.
Remember, there is no exact right or wrong--but the scope, sequence, and number of communication opportunities are crucial--have them count how many communication verbs they have used.

44. VIDEO/Tricia Show the Trisha “Jobs Chart” video again
Any alternative video segments can be used here. The point is for teams to see examples of activities paired with written ABO’s.

45. Write ABO’s
Show the example ABO’s from one or both of the videos you have shown.
Read to the group from one example.
Have the group identify the environmental cue for each step in the ABO set. Put a “box” around it on the Overhead.
**Remember, the cue for a step could be completion of the prior step--hence the importance of the Prompt Hierarchy.
Have them identify the communication verbs. How many are there?
Underline the verb in each step.
PRESENTERS CAN DO THIS ON THE OVERHEADS AS WELL, JUST TO MAKE A POINT.

46. Exercise #1
For one of the activities that you “roughed out” on the Activity Breakdown form:
Determine which team members would be involved (OT, PT, SLP, T, A)
Identify the communication opportunities
Brainstorm the messages that need to be available
Identify any IF statements that could develop
Each ABO set should have at least 4-5 communication verbs.
In addition to the tasks above, ask the teams to “box” the environmental cues, and underline the communication verbs in each step of the ABO’s.
**SEVERAL EXAMPLES OF WRITTEN ABO’s SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE PARTICIPANT PACKET SO THEY HAVE EXAMPLES.
Return to the Janice Light diagram overhead (not in the slides)--
we have dealt with the Activity, now we will deal with the Partner Behaviors.
You may want to discuss theories behind Prompt systems in general.
The ECT Prompt Hierarchy falls into the category often referred to as “least to most”.

47. Communication Interaction Chart
Wants/Needs
Social Closeness
Partner
Environment P
U R P O S E
We have dealt with the Activity, now we will deal with the Partner Behaviors.
At the first North Carolina Literacy Symposium (Marach 1991), Janice Light presented the concept of communication interaction eing divided into 4 categories according to purpose:
Information transfer
Wants/Needs
Social Closeness
Social Etiquette
The purpose of the communication act will be directed and defined by the activity in which it occurs, the environment in which the activity occurs, and by the interaction of the communication partner.
Hence the diagram of the 3 major components that ECT will impact:
Activity, Partner, and Environment (new acronym? APE)
Activity
Information Transfer
Social Etiquette

48. Michael Williams, AAC User
Famous Quotes
“It’s easy to be an over-achiever in the land of lowered expectations.”
Michael Williams, AAC User
This is an excellent ECT-oriented quote, and you may move it to an earlier location or use it at the end while teams are working on ABO’s.

49. The Prompt Hierarchy 1. Pause 2. Open Question 3a. Partial Prompt
3b. Request for Communication (Mand)
4. Full Model
* Descriptive Feedback
After the communication objectives have been established for activities and the environments have been arranged, there is still the job of getting the student or young child to produce the desired communication.
SHOW THE “SOMETIMES COMMUNICATION IS DIFFICULT” CARTOON (Doggie Faces)
Within the ECT approach, this is done by applying a series of graduated cues, prompts and feedback.
Prompts for communication are used in a sequence from least to most directive cues or prompts. By using this sequence, the student or young child is always presented with opportunities to select and initiate an appropriate response. In addition, partners avoid the situation in which their behavior has eliminated a true opportunity to communicate, e.g., telling the answer, then asking the question for the student or young child to answer.
Additionally, the communication partner is never faced with a situation of not being able to move forward to complete a routine, since the final step in the Hierarchy is always a Full Model.

50. 1. The Pause
If an environmental cue or a transitional cue has just occurred
Focus your attention on the student and PAUSE
If the student or young child initiates an interaction by touch, smiling, or vocalization:
FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON THE STUDENT OR YOUNG CHILD, AND PAUSE
If you have just asked a question or made a statement about an activity:
FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON THE STUDENT OR YOUNG CHILD AND PAUSE
If you have just arranged the environment so that the student or young child must request an item in order to go on:
If you are about to perform the next step in a familiar routine:

51. Environmental Cues
Go back to Tricia ABO from video - where are the environmental cues??

52. 1. The Pause
If an environmental cue or a transitional cue has just occurred
Focus your attention on the student and PAUSE
If the student or young child initiates an interaction by touch, smiling, or vocalization:
FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON THE STUDENT OR YOUNG CHILD, AND PAUSE
If you have just asked a question or made a statement about an activity:
FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON THE STUDENT OR YOUNG CHILD AND PAUSE
If you have just arranged the environment so that the student or young child must request an item in order to go on:
If you are about to perform the next step in a familiar routine:

53. 2. Open Question
If the student or young child does not respond to the pause by making or attempting a response...
Ask a what, why, who, when, where, or how question, and then
PAUSE
If the student or young child does not respond to the pause by making a response:
ASK A WHAT, WHY, WHO, WHEN, WHERE, OR HOW QUESTION
What do you want? What should we do next:
What do you need for that?
Where do you want it?
How should that go?
AND THEN PAUSE!!
SHOW THE YES/NO CARTOON TO ELICIT DISCUSSION ABOUT THE USE OF YES/NO QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES

54. 3a. Partial Prompt
If the student or young child does not respond to the open question or produces a minimal response...
Provide part of the response by:
asking a question that contains a choice,
giving a hint or a clue, modeling the first few words (or sounds) of the answer, and then PAUSE
If the student or young child does not respond to the open question or produces a minimal response:
PROVIDE PART OF THE ANSWER BY:
ASKING A QUESTION THAT CONTAINS A CHOICE:
Do you want a red one or a blue one?
I have a tape and a game, which one do you want?
GIVING A HINT OR A CLUE:
It's the same color as your shirt.
Do you need something to cut with or something to draw with?
MODELING THE FIRST FEW WORDS (OR SOUNDS) OF THE ANSWER:
Say, I want ...
Give me ...

55. 3b. Request for Communication
If the student or young child responds to the pause or the open question with behavior that is:
inappropriate, or
at a lower level than desired for that student
Request that the student or young child use another form or elaborate on the response, and then
PAUSE
If the student or young child responds to the pause or the open question with behavior that:
is inappropriate to the situation, or
is at a lower level than desired for that student or young child
Then:
REQUEST THAT THE STUDENT OR YOUNG CHILD USE A PROPER FORM OR ELABORATE THE RESPONSE:
Tell me what you want
You need to ask me
Use a whole sentence
Note: You can also use a mand to request a proper use of an augmentative response:
Tell me another way
Use your pointing finger
Tell me "yes" when I get to your answer

56. 4. Full Model Provide a full model for the response, and then PAUSE.
If the student or young child has never produced the response you are seeking...
If the student or young child does not respond to the partial prompt or mand or does so incorrectly...
Provide a full model for the response, and then PAUSE.
Do use the student’s AAC system when possible to provide the model for him to imitate.
If the student or young child has never produced the response you are seeking, or
If the student or young child does not respond to the partial prompt or mand or responds incorrectly:
PROVIDE A FULL MODEL FOR THE RESPONSE...AND PAUSE
Do use the student's or young child's augmentative display when providing the model for him to imitate.
SHOW THE FAMILY CIRCLE CARTOON THAT HAS THE MOM AND KIDS MODELING THE MOTHER DUCK AND DUCKLINGS BEHAVIOR

57. Video - Auriel

58. * Descriptive Feedback
Use after the student or young child has produced a communicative response, or
Use after the last step of the prompt hierarchy that you need to use
Descriptive Feedback is specific to the communication behavior:
“Great, you asked for more juice and here it is.”
“Wow, you asked for the tape player, so here it is.”
“You asked for some scissors, what do you need them for?”
Descriptive Feedback is used immediately after the student or young child has produced a communicative response.
MAKE SURE THEY UNDERSTAND THAT THIS HAPPENS AFTER WHATEVER LEVEL OF THE PROMPT HIERARCHY ELICITS THE RESPONSE!
YOU MAY WANT TO INITIATE A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DESCRIPTIVE FEEDBACK AND POSITIVE REIMFORCEMENT. IT WILL PROBABLY BE AN ISSUE IN WORKSHOP II (Day Three).

59. Descriptive Feedback Serves three functions:
Immediately acknowledges that the listener “heard” the student or young child
Confirms that the message sent by the student or young child is the one understood by the listener
Can be used to model an expansion of the message expressed by the student or young child
Show video of Tricia and Make-up for good example of prompts and descritive feedback and modeling and expansion.

60. VIDEO/Make-Up
TRICIA - MAKE-UP video for prompts, modeling, and descriptive feedback
Look at ABO’s for this activity

61. Exercise #2
Using an activity for which you have developed activity-based objectives:
Review the activity and make sure there are at least five communication opportunities--IF statements don’t count !
Review the ABO’s and formulate a possible response for each step of the prompt hierarchy. (Role Play is helpful!)
Revise the ABO’s as needed.
POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES:
-Suggest that teams break into pairs and actually practice responses at one level of a set of ABO’s -- there is a form for this if trainer desires to make this a formalized activity. (ECT Prompt Hierarchy Practice Activity)
-Pick an ABO and have the group develop responses
AT THIS TIME, DIRECT TEAMS TO START TO DEVELOP THE ABO’s FOR THE SECOND STUDENT’S ACTIVITY “A” IF THEY HAVE COMPLETED THE FIRST STUDENT’S ACTIVITY “A”.

62. Selecting Target Students or Young Children
Students or young children should meet one of the following criteria:
Already has minimal competence in the operation of an AAC approach
Uses an AAC approach to respond, but not initiate
An initial AAC approach has been developed
Demonstrates some “desire” to communicate, or
demonstrates strong preferences or dislikes, or
attempts to maintain participation
The best approach to assisting classroom or program teams to apply the strategies and techniques presented thus far has been to have the teams focus their initial efforts on a select number of students or young children and a select number of activities.
Use of the ECT approach has been validated with students or young children who meet certain criteria. These criteria basically identify students or young children who are beginning AAC users or who would appear to be good candidates for an AAC intervention.
A word of caution in selecting a target student or young child.
a. Some teams typically begin by selecting those students who appear to be functioning well socially (or cognitively) but whose severe physical disabilities obviously limit their ability to communicate expressively (good minds in bad bodies). These students or young children certainly would be very appropriate.
b Conversely, some teams also frequently wish to focus upon those students or young children who are very low functioning, and with whom they have questions as to where to begin. It should be clearly noted that ECT has not been specifically designed or validated for use with students or young children who are presymbolic or are very low functioning with multiple profound disabilities. While some of the techniques and strategies described within this ECT approach may, with modification, be appropriate, addressing the needs of these students or young children who are lower functioning was not the primary aim of the ECT development project.
A group of students or young children that have proven to be very responsive to the ECT approach are those who might be thought of as the "average" moderately or severely intellectually impaired student. These students frequently do participate in activities to a fair extent and so are not viewed as difficult to bring in to the activity. However, they also are so low enough frequency responders that they are not viewed as "just needing some way" to communicate what they know.

63. Day 2 Reminders Start time: 8:30 a.m. Bring back your
participant’s hand-out
Review the student/activity selection
forms in your packet and be prepared to complete and hand-in on Day 2
The teams will be completing the " Student/Activity Selection Information Forms" at the beginning of Day Two; it serves to make the teams complete the process and commit to the activities.
a. One form is completed for each student or young child.
b. Presenter's may wish to have the teams complete a second copy if they want to keep one. These forms are collected by the presenters.

64. Famous Quotes “Don’t limit your challenges. Challenge your limits.”
1996 Boston Marathon Winner
A quote from the winner of the 1997 Boston Marathon.

65. Famous Quotes “If Necessity is the Mother of Invention, then,
Expectation is the Mother of Success”
- Susan McCloskey, CISC

66. Environmental Communication Teaching “ECT” Luzerne Intermediate Unit 18 Kingston, PA October 16, 17, 1997 December 17, 1997 February 17, 1998 April 6, 1998
This may be used to create a cover for the ECT training.
The graphic reflects the circles from the Janice Light diagram representing Partners, Activities, and Environments.