In my classroom, I used Unique Learning System for a majority of my curriculum. However, I found that I often wanted to supplement the stories with rich, authentic picture books. So my Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports units were born!  Not familiar with my picture book supports? They include: Communication Supports Vocabulary Cards : to teach and assess targeted vocabulary (can also be used to create interactive games!) Communication Board : to generate sentences about the story verbally or through velcro manipulatives GoTalk 9+ AAC Board : formatted for use with GoTalk 9+ Comprehension Supports Differentiated Wh-Question Assessments : 3 leveled assessments (multiple choice pictures, multiple choice words/phrases, fill-in) for answering who, what, where, when, and why questions about the story. Fill-in-the-Blank Sentences Worksheet : Cut-and-paste cloze sentences with picture choice options Sequencing Worksheet : Picture-based cut-and-paste sequencing of story......

In early intervention settings, Structured Play Groups are a perfect, developmentally-appropriate evidence-based practice for autistic students and can be a valuable support for developing friendships and communication skills. In my experience, the benefit of these groups certainly stretches beyond just my autistic students but those with other developmental disabilities and even their neurotypical peers! Especially in these unique post-pandemic lockdown times when all students have had gaps in their opportunities for social engagement. Play-Based Communication Boards To facilitate communication during structured play groups, I created communication boards with common play phrases in predictable locations and fringe words specific to the play activity including related labels, actions, and even descriptive words.  Each board was easy to implement because all I needed to do was print and laminate and they were ready to go! In my opinion, sometimes low-tech options are all you need!......

My first few years of teaching I used communication notebooks in my elementary special education classroom.... and I HATED them.  For those who are not familiar, a communication notebook is a notebook passed between home and school to communicate between families and school staff. It sounds good in theory, but in my experience it was not.  Why did I hate these darn notebooks so much?! they were time-consuming... and the absolute worst time of the day to add something that is time-consuming is during pack up and dismissal. It is chaos enough as it is! they were ignored... every teacher knows which notebooks, binders, folders, etc. are checked every night and which ones are not. Which essentially means you have just wasted your time writing in the notebook.  they were negative... written communication about student behavior can be easily misunderstood and can lead to defensiveness which is not an effective way to foster a parent-teacher relationship they leave out the stude......

Can you believe it is already March? It shocks me every year! In our classroom, there has always been two big celebrations each March... Read Across America Day and St. Patrick's Day.  Our focus each year for Read Across America is Green Eggs and Ham. In my first year of teaching, this was a favorite of one of my students with limited communication. He just LOVED the book and had memorized each page. We all loved to have him read it to us because it was so wonderful to hear him say so much! So from that point on Green Eggs and Ham has always been a mainstay in my room. Over the years, I added more and more activities that we could do with the story so that we could address IEP goals and meet all the needs of my students including practicing vocabulary and building sentences using a communication board, velcro pieces, or our trusty classroom GoTalk! I also created lots of comprehension activities so that I had something that fit the needs of each student. We worked on wh-questions, ......