$14,000 To Help Students Communicate

A Generous Grant from CVS

Earlier this year, QSAC received a $14,000 grant from CVS to purchase augmentative communication devices to help our students communicate. Because our students have little or no communication skills, QSAC begins with basic language acquisition – teaching functional language skills using single words that identify wants and/or needs, for example, “milk”, “mama”, “up”, etc. The communication devices at the preschool allowed QSAC to build on this first step, helping students learn to ask for an item from staff, therapists, parents and peers. The devices also helped students learn to discriminate between items.

In the Day School, students work on expressive and receptive language, communication, self-help skills, motor skills, cognitive skills, social skills, prevocational and vocational skills, and all academic subject areas. Recent assessment using the Assessment of Behavior Language and Learning Skills indicates that within a 3 month period of using the communication device, students learned 121 new skills in the areas of communication and language skills. One particular student increased her receptive language and more significantly, began imitating up to 15 words. This increased her ability to make requests daily and spontaneously (i.e. without teacher direction or cue). For another student, independent requests are emerging and he is able to make basic full sentence requests and requests for help in one or two specific situations.

Kevin is now able to ask for his play-doh and Cheyenne for her favorite book.