taylor swift + low tech AAC

I love Taylor Swift! Who doesn't? Even if you don't, I guarantee you have sang along to on of her songs at least once because they are so catchy! Recently, I have been incorporating Taylor into my therapy sessions. 

I feel really fortunate to have a handful of AAC users at my school. I have one sweetie with complex communication needs that is currently using an 8 cell voice output device for communication paired with some use of picture symbols and big mac buttons. On her 8 cell, I choose 4 core words to give her the ability to communicate during her day. The words I chose are: Different, Like, Want, All Done. 

So how do I incorporate Taylor? First of all, I knew that this student LOVED jamming to Swift and that is was very reinforcing to her. I model use of "I want" initially and then I give her picture choices of the items we can choose from (i.e. bubbles, books, music, etc). She almost always chooses music. Then I gear up Taylor Swift on the ipad and we dance/sing for a minute or two. 

Then I stop the music. For the first few sessions, I modeled use of "I like" to continue that song or "Different" to continue music but change to a different song. I gave her prompting to touch these buttons based on how she reacted to the song playing. When I play older Taylor Swift songs (less preferred), she does not light up and raise her hands or smile and nod her head. I say "I see that your head is down. You are not smiling. Do you want a different song?" and point to the different symbol. 

When I play more current Swift songs (especially Bad Blood with Kendrick Lamar) she smiles and jams and gets excited. I stop the music and say "I see you smiling and dancing. I think you like this song. You can tell me 'I like' and I will keep playing it". When I think that she is getting tired of listening to music, I cue her to activate the button for "I want". I take that to mean, "I want to continue working/playing but I want something other than music" and I give her picture choices for activities. 

She always has the option to say "all done" and will be given a break from working. This student has mis-hits pretty frequently. I take her accidental button activations as communicative. I say "I heard you say ___. I will ___". I try to be consistent with the feedback I give her. 

I love using core words because they give her the ability to use the same words across activities. She could use these words during a book to request a different story or to read the story again by saying she likes it. She could use it during a group activity to say she likes it or that she needs a break. I think core words are so much more powerful to communicate that using just nouns. 

I am still learning when it comes to AAC, but am really loving this area of speech therapy. Any feedback on this activity is greatly appreciated!