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Presenter(s)
Sarah Blackstone
Augmentative Communication Inc
1 Surf Way #237
Monterey, CA 93940
Phone: 831-649-3050
Fax: 831-646-5428
Email: sarahblack@aol.com
This session will describe ways in which clinicians and researchers from the several countries are using the new assessment tool, Social Networks: A Communication Inventory for Individuals with Complex Communication Needs and their Communication Partners. Participants will learn theoretical frameworks underlying the tool and how the concepts and constructs of social networks is being used by researchers and clinicians from several countries with children and adults with severe communication impairments. Case examples will illustrate the application of the tool across the age-span and with different disability groups.
A high quality of life presupposes extensive positive interactions within ones social mileu (Goldstein, 2002). Our social networks change across our life span. In preschool, networks are restricted when compared to the networks during elementary, secondary, and college years, which include family, family friends, classmates, teachers, personal friends, neighbors, and people in the community. In adulthood, people from our jobs, as well as individuals with whom we meet as volunteers, or through our recreational, professional and community experiences are added to our networks. Later in life, our networks again undergo extensive change as a result of retirement, the emancipation of our children, expanded volunteerism, changes in residence, death of family members and friends, health concerns and so on. At each stage, we attempt to remain resilient by countering the changes, threats and risks we face using the supports and protections that emerge from a range of personal and social factors. To a considerable extent, our social networks assist us to develop and sustain these protections and supports. Persons with chronic disabilities face unique threats and challenges, and they need robust social networks to support them so they can remain resilient and experience a high quality of life. (Beukelman, 2003).
By highlighting the persons' and familys' role in successful communication interventions, SN helps focus the attention of AAC professionals on the distinctive needs, priorities and preferences of the individuals who rely on AAC and on their family members. By incorporating features of Light's model of communicative competence (1985) and Beukelman and Mirenda's participation model (1998), SN can help clinicians pinpoint specific areas that require skill development, as well as identify barriers and opportunities that lead to successful interventions, across each of five communication circles. Early data also show that SN can also play a valuable role in illuminating distinct socio-cultural contexts. Early studies suggest that SN may heighten awareness among practitioners and families regarding the multi-dimensional challenges in AAC interventions. It may also help link the assessment and planning process more closely to the outcomes sought by individuals with complex communication needs and their families. Because SN promotes person-centered planning, it may, in the end, help us to better understand the similarities and differences among populations and across age groups that benefit from AAC.
In addition, people communicate with themselves for a variety of reasons over the lifespan. Small children talk to themselves, pretending and practicing using language. People also use "self-talk" to help organize their days, make lists, use PDAs, keep diaries, reflect and create using a variety of expressive modes (poetry, drawing, paintings).
SN infuses several paradigms and theoretical frameworks into the assessment process. Importantly, it clarifies distinctions among an individual's communication partners within their social networks using Circles of Communication Partners (Blackstone, 1991 and 1999). It also captures the multi-modal nature of communication. SN enables practitioners to collect information about the use of various modes of communication across different contexts, activities and partners in a way that is both more systematic and more prescriptively helpful than the available alternatives. Thus, SN is being used to guide people with complex communication needs, and those who seek to help them, to employ the most appropriate communication approaches, at the right time and in the right place (Blackstone & Hunt Berg, 2003).
The session will:
1. Provide theoretical rationale for the tool and demonstrate how various aspects of the tool gathers information based on specific theoretical frameworks.
2. Illustrate the use of SN for clinical purposes using case examples that demonstrate its use with emerging, context-dependent and independent communicators, across the age span
3. Illustrate the use of SN for research purposes by describing the use of SN in research underway in the United States, Spain, Australia and Sweden.
Beukelman, D. R. (2003). Upfront. Augmentative Communication News. 15:2, p. 1-2.
Beukelman, D. R. & Mirenda, P. (1998). Augmentative and alternative communication: Management of severe communication disorders in children and adults. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
Blackstone, S. 1991. Interaction with the partners of AAC consumers: Part I - Interaction. Augmentative Communication News, 4:2, 1-3.
Blackstone, S. 1999. Communication partners. Augmentative Communication News, 12:1, 2; 1-16.
Blackstone, S.W & Hunt Berg, M. (2003). Social Networks: A Communication Inventory for Individuals with Complex Communication Needs and their Communication Partners. Monterey, CA: Augmentative Communication Inc.
Dowden, P.A. and Cook, A. M. 2002. Selection techniques for individuals with motor impairments. In Implementing an augmentative communication system: Exemplary strategies for beginning communicators, edited by J. Reichle, D. Beukelman and J. Light. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 395-432.
Goldstein, H. (2002). Bases and models of developing social skills. In H. Goldstein, L. Kaczmarek, K. English (eds), Promoting social communication. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. (pp. 1-5)
Kaczmarek, L. A. Assessment of social-communicative competence: An interdisiplinary model. In H. Goldstein, L. A. Kaczmarek, & K. M. English (Eds.) Promoting Social Communication (pp.55-115). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
Light, J., Collier, B. & Parnes, P. (1985). Communication interaction between young nonspeaking physically disabled children and their primary caregivers: Part I, Discourse patterns: Part II, Communicative functions: Part III, Modes of communication. AAC, 1:74-133.
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