 Thanks. Thanks, Ross. And yes, hello, everyone. I am delighted to welcome my friend and long-time APAC consultant and trainer, Kelly Fauner, to be with us over the course of this year, virtually and in spirit, I would say. Kelly has an extensive background in both assistive technology and an alternative communication implementation. It comes from the classroom and goes back to the classroom regularly to help teachers. So I know you're going to get a great deal of information and practical ideas from her. When I asked Kelly to do this, I'd heard so much from her and others about environmental communication teaching. And yet, this is a treat for me. I too have never actually participated in one of these. So I am thrilled to be able to do that with you. Kelly, I don't know what else to say. I know you've been doing this for a long time. I guess I will also say that Kelly has been to Alberta a couple of times with the assistive technology initiative. And so she knows from whence we come. And we're hoping that perhaps we'll actually get her back again in person before too long. But I'm not going to talk anymore. I'm just thrilled that Kelly is here. And with that, my dear, I pass it over to you. All right. Well, thanks for having me, Kathy and Ross and everybody. And actually, yes, we've done ECP in Canada in both Manitoba and in Ontario. And in fact, the videos that I'm going to be showing you today come from Canada. So I vetted those specifically for you. So I'm, yes, I'm, in fact, I'm going to be in 20 classes tomorrow. So pile driving my way through a couple buildings tomorrow to get some of my teams started. I do work in classrooms throughout the school year. I get started with people in the beginning of the school year and follow the path of students either with augmentative communication or electronically electronic literacy tools and getting things implemented. And that's usually my focuses on implementation of strategies and implementation of tools throughout the year. To get started on what we're talking about in this process through this environmental communication, teaching for kids with complex communication needs. It's really looking at some of the big issues that happen when when we have students in classrooms and a variety of classrooms that have complex communication needs, whether they're using tablets or devices with apps that they've had that have had that are going unused unless they're being told to say certain things, whether things have been purchased for them, or you've gotten somebody this school year that already had something, whether you feel it's appropriate or not appropriate, or sometimes people say that kids just play with their technology. They don't really communicate with their technology. One of the things that the environmental communication teaching process brings to the classroom is strategies that are coordinated that are open-ended enough that any tool can fit into them. You can be anywhere in the process from a school that's been around for five years and we've been able to integrate students with very significant challenges as well as students that really need to just have some strategies that they're working on becoming more competent communicators, whether you're following along with the competencies of Janice Light and Kathy Binger or where you're working on operational competencies and strategic competencies and linguistic competencies. You know what we're looking at is that we organize people's efforts through this process of environmental communication teaching. One of the things that really helps me as we get started and I am going to pull over this participant window just so I can see the raise your hands piece a little bit. And just so I can just do an auditory scan poll is if we've got any administrators in the crowd, you can raise your hand. And I know that sometimes people play multiple roles. Anybody that fulfills the role of an assistive technology specialist through here, people who are consumers yourself that you use AAC or maybe an ad to that you have a family member who is a user of augmentative and alternative communication, the OTs in the crowd, occupational therapist. Don't be afraid to put up your hand guys. That's right. Hey, hey, everybody does augmentative communication. That is definitely the thing that I've learned in being involved in augmentative communication since I was a paraprofessional. That's how I got started. Other duties as assigned, you know, physical therapist, how to implement the things that they sell. I don't see any on the group, Kelly, even if they're not putting up their hands. All right, very good. I know you know the names. And then of course, we probably have where we're going to head our two largest groups, the speech language pathologist amongst us. There they go. Bing, bing, bing. Here's in the group. If you want to type into the teacher assistant is one of the things that's coming up in the chat box. What I started out with, as I mentioned, I started out as a teaching assistant. I worked for three different teachers and classrooms of students with complex communication needs. And it was always very interesting to me in that role that, you know, kids would get assessed for augmentative systems and they would come back or the AC box would arise and everybody would take it out and then they would hand it over to be and say, make it work. We also have speech language assistants in the group. Oh, yes, they will definitely get. This is the strategy that we're going to be going into of this environmental communication teaching. Thank you everybody for doing your your physical activity of this hour. The strategies of environmental communication teaching are just to create purposes for communication. It isn't just that you've got the device out of the box or last night you downloaded some app that you saw and like, you know, what's on TV because I know it's going to be coming. We have the new television program that's hitting here in the United States. I don't know if it's on your channels yet. The program with mini driver. It starts here just after the plug Wednesday night on ABC the 21st. So be prepared. Be prepared because everybody's going to be wanting what that boy has. Something else that goes along with it. But what we do know when we know this from research and we know this from experience is that just getting the app isn't what gets somebody to talk are doing. It's the activities that they are doing that encourages communication. It is where they are that encourages communication and it is the partners that are around them that encourages communication and communication. So it is throughout this environmental communication process that we work through manipulate environment activity and partner strategies to communication. So when you have students that aren't in whatever modality it is that they are using. So whether their modality is sign language, whether their modality is to talk through an app on an iPad, whether their modality is to in a pod book, whether their modality is to device whatever that may be. That is taught just when I use the word talk it isn't just about a natural voice mechanism to speak. Too often I'll go into classrooms and I'll say things like well what did he say during class and somebody will come up and whisper to me like it's something terrible and say you know he doesn't speak Kelly. And I'll be like yeah about it as these modalities are their voice and by that we're going to be working on this idea of activity based objectives is activity. What are some of the objectives that you have that they can communicate about? Things are not new to what you've been doing or what you've learned but ECT brings them together and it gives us a focus together rather than competing focuses that we often have. It looks at what are some of the other environmental arrangements that you've probably used having too few of items you know having things out of reach or you know using peers as a purpose for communication not just talking with adults. We use prompting hierarchies strategically you know when you say what you say not saying too much you know we often have way too much adult talk and not enough student talk so all of these are going to be components that we talk about through this set we get them started in this session and then we keep ramping them up based upon what you're working with in this student. So that you know environmental communication teaching isn't something that I made up it's something that was developed on a grant from Dr. George Carlin who is an educational psychologist at the time that he was developing it he was at Purdue University surrounded by augmentative communication specialists like Lyle Lloyd, Irene McEwen actually has been seeing a lot of challenges and communication challenges and that those two things together patient issues were students were often done too and they never got to speak up for themselves in early 90s and you'll see the listing of the states there and again it's also been done in Canada in several place locations in Ontario and we've got several school boards in Manitoba that like Red River Beautiful Plains some other places in in the Winnipeg area that have done these strategies and have trainers in that area. The goals are always about increasing the communication of augmentative it's about something that you can have as a part of your bag of tricks to take with you for beyond this year so you can always say oh this is somebody that we need to be using EPP strategies with and so that you have this to be able to use and move forward with you. We look at it as a five-step something that you just make up to do but if you look at the schedule of your day it's the essence of what I consider an activity arrival at school is an activity. If you take apart a 90-minute literacy block or if you you know in the different kinds of activities that you do during reading what you might do during math class if you have recess if you have lunch if you have you know walking down the hallway between classes these are the things that we consider you know quote unquote an activity but anytime that there might be communication and you know where does that start what are the steps that keep it going and where do you end that would be activity. I'm not talking about making up games like blowing the bubbles or getting out a farm kit and playing you know with a farm kit like a language activity because our days at school are very need to be making up something spend their vocabulary that's in their communication system as a part of their regular day and thinking that they're going to learn it somewhere on the side and some pretend activity and by some osmosis or some osmotic property they're going to learn how to use it in the day they need to learn it where they're going to speak it and those are the kinds of activities that I'm talking about the regular day the regular school day and we are all a part of that and we need to be all a part of that together so that's how we prepare for communication is to think about the regular day so I just one of the things I'll have you be thinking about here is you know if you have a schedule or something to be jotting down right now is what's the schedule of your day or what's the schedule of that student's day from arrival at school to departure at school if you're here as a family member which have one or two hands went up what's you know what's the day like with your child when you know because we've had we've done ECP with family members we've done this in early intervention settings so we've done it when you've gone to the mall we've done it and when they've gone to grandparents houses so we've done ECP in lots of different kinds of community settings and vocational settings and lots of different age groups some of the things that will get started is mostly going to be talking about these first two steps what we'll talk about in the second session behind it all but until you practice it yourself it doesn't become a reality so how Ross and Kathy have set this up with the three different sessions is that you know I'm going to be getting you started here in September but we're also going to be giving you the opportunity to work along and to get feedback so we're going to be looking you know giving you kind of a calendar that you can follow along with and say you know do this by the end of this month do this by the second week of October you know steps in the gathering information you can be email I'll give you feedback you know if you're interested we can do this through a we typically do this through a video press getting video through and give you feedback this way and you'll see some examples of it in fact right here I'm going to pop into some videos of it the videos over a webinar because a lot of it's got to do with to giving us permission to only end up getting permission from one child that's in a video so you're only going to see a camera on one kid even though there might be multiple students in the video in this video with Emma getting to the beginning she's actually part of it is that she's just learning how to play the game are a part of the cct learning as well what are the things that we learn as what they give her credit for what are we going to do what are we going to play yeah we're going to play go fish okay Emma do you have any pairs okay which do you have a pair of where's your pair okay take them off one two down good job okay now do you have any more pairs I just hope that you notice that she was already ready to say something she was already you know she knows this game because she had played this game at home last member with her continued to talk her through the process which probably they didn't really need to do if you can get my little annotator here she was already something in the back of our mind her to do you know first of all the staff person wants her to go back and know the number before they want her to say the person Emma wanted to say the person's name first and you know what that's okay say what she wants to say but you know everybody's in the learning box and we have to you know think about that as as well to go along with that so that's just a little bit of them getting started and then a little bit this is about two months next video is about two months later okay three months later do you have any pairs do you have any pairs yeah some things are hard to learn but it's for staff what you do with your pairs nervous to be on video too so and I after talking to this teacher she also said she goes oh my goodness I was so nervous and I wanted her to just keep moving ahead because I knew she knew what she was doing and I needed to calm down a little bit and move forward with the video activity specific overlay I was in pro local to go and not always being on activity specific vocabulary so that was a very encouraging thing that happened as a part of their process work together as a team we know that in the past as we've done some data collection on the students and how and student progressions work together and moving students forward with their communication and we've looked at you know that the core team of the classroom teacher instructs that are a part of the team so I just want to take a little break here and see if there's been any questions that have come up that I need to answer I have seen none yeah and Kelly just to let you know I think people are if they are commenting or commenting to the the host which is fine so I I've seen them online either but I just have to say I've been smiling and cheering on the sidelines so keep going marvelous okay very good so as we dive into this all I want to walk you through kind of how you get started in in all of this and so it is to think about your classroom day look at the think about the tasks that are happening don't think about anything you know doing anything like super duper special because you know it's going to be on video because one of the things that I certainly have found out through the years and chop it up to a Kellyism or whatever it is but it's not a performance right it's a communication modality and too often our kids get set up into that AAC is some trick to be done and then put away so you know we do morning circle and I say the things and then it gets put away until I do reading group and then it gets brought you know my overlay or whatever my you know my app gets turned on and I say a couple things and it gets put away but that's not what we're looking for we want kids to know that this is their voice and this is their voice throughout the day and so sometimes we target the in-between times the in-between your formal lessons when kids are chatting with each other what are the things that they're chatting about and so we have kids that have saying when you have to borrow something from somebody we had a student that his activities focused on as he changed classes because he was a middle school student that changed you know every class period he was at in a different teacher it was about going in you know if he needed a degree to teacher he needed a degree to turn in homework what was he supposed to say if he took that up to the teacher or another person in the room that you were supposed to give your homework to you know as he had asked question notification teaching activity was it was on transition communication so transitions between leaving a room people in the hallway had to do and asking for help kinds of things so it's you know look where the communication struggles are because those can provide your best opportunities for this kind of learning um we look at it or between students and adults or you know at any so but at school it happens during arrival time departing it happens between these breaks and transitions it can help them to learn that way you know if I can't find something if I can't do something if I need help or if I want to connect with somebody working on this social interaction can be very valuable for you with the student sometimes our communication at school activities where more than one student is doing something together and this works out it might be you know just passing out papers from desk to desk um within these are you know if you have students that are doing jobs or if you have students that are a part of clubs if you have students that you know within home room have different things that they have doing um if they are a lot of times during mass group are doing during reading groups you can find these little routines that are a part of is that it is scriptable there's a clear beginning there's a clear ending and you can get a handle on the vocabulary it doesn't necessarily always have to be in the same order snack time is a big routine you know that kind of a thing it's very context specific vocabulary we also have some students and usually these are students that also have this um and students that need physical kinds of support the hygiene and physical care and dressing or students that need help getting around um or permissions to do different things behavior regulation activities because they need to regulate the behavior of others to do something for them this is not about students who have to get people to do stuff for them and so i'm going to show you a video here of Devren who is a high school student to go get money because his money for various reasons is kept to go gather his money reasons he also taken an adult with him it's because of behavioral issues he's not allowed to go to the cafeteria right now by himself so he's got to get his money he's got to take an adult with him to go to the cafeteria and that all gets done back at his um special ed here in the video later something was going to blow up so we'll see Devren going to the canteen okay and Devren uses a pod he had taken to the pod book this video i think is from several levels of it now talk more and more with his voice that it's okay to mix modality i can use my talking voice i can use my it's okay to put these things together seen this before because you showed his some of his videos at atia but um one of the things that for me is the beautiful moment there and i put in in the uh text is not only was his voice heard but he was seen and responded to as a as a a a human being right before they passed him over so that's a beautiful beautiful story kelly thank you oh yeah and you saw it from the pro because you saw it from jennifer donate who was is this speech language pathologist so she you know she's got the whole story and everything behind it yeah great story and a canadian story love it yeah yeah well these are all canadian stories yeah and in the united the kinds of things that they do now and what are the things that you want them to be able to communicate how we look at with what are the kinds of messages that they have we happens to me in the middle of my presentation from home stop it's maintained by the steps of the activity he's got to find somebody he's got to ask me to go down to the cafeteria with him talk to any buds that he runs into in the hall the canteen worker answer any questions that they ask back you you know it's term you know wherever it is that he's going to eat his his lunch and then that begins another activity you know kind of a lunchtime social activity kind of run into each other it's about not the fact that they've gotten something done you know that they've said so many items or that they said you know three out of four that kind of thing but it's communicating with the people that they're communicating with or about what it is that they're communicating with you know if you have something like oh they have to answer four out of five questions I don't want you to be so targeted that way you know if you have a cooking lesson you know that they're a part of cooking or they're a part of reading you know I don't want you to be so I don't want you to have something that you're stressed out with that you get started with more more it's got to be something that's more than one selection like I don't want you to choose something with that they're just saying more times a week because you need to have something that you get a that you they've got to do that activity so you know it's something that happens that one in the process but you know step two is going to be building that communication they already have you know maybe you're working on maybe you've got a core vocabulary with them and you want them to be using that more um so do you have a student that you want to build multimodal vocabulary with kinds of communication and so what you need to do is rather than trying to avoid the situations in which school inappropriate behavior happens you need to get into those activities and give them ways to say the things that they are now doing things instead of saying things and those are the activities that we script out to look at this communicative model I've already talked about the social context so look at if you want to do something that's dyadic if you want to target something that is a behavior regulation if you want to target something that's instructional or if you want to target a joint action routine all communication it could be something that's behavioral regulation communication it can be something that is a joint action dcp process and so that you can strategically pick your activity by the social context that you want to work on chin functions and so again working together routine it isn't just request request request request where are the social opportunities where are the you know asking somebody for information where are the things where you can direct attention and know that functions from the beginning where we'll we'll choose with one communication message and then build on it you want to have a rich activity to show life is we don't just say oh i'm just going to talk today communicative functions coming and going from students what we look at is how do we support with scaffolding so that they can learn these different communicative functions we don't just pull one communicative function out at a time we scaffold the communicative functions so that they can be supported throughout the school day and learn them is the behavior what are you going for what's their communicative modality that they're going to be using you know are you going to be using uh or do you already have in place some kind of a core board that you add fringe to it are you using um use are you using sign language are you using vocalizations and when that's you know when a vocalization isn't understood what's their backup system you know what is your system that you're going to be using well you know we'll talk more about this at the next training but think about the things that are in the environment that support communication and these are all things that you've probably learned about in other trainings you know having materials that are around providing choices having schedules you know a schedule so that they know what's coming next having picture based prompt cues if they're using their natural voice but the picture based prompts will help them know what it is that they have to say so these are all things that what we talked about you know bore goals and one of the other handouts is an exam or what happens when they don't say something that they could say because you don't want to just jump in and do it for them you don't want to just jump in and over model because too many of our students have been you know over prompted and so we do a lot of modeling we do a lot of the environment for them to have the opportunity to say something if they so choose to say something so ask open questions you know don't just be directive and tell them to say this and say that and say this because when you do that you when you just point to things on their device or on their app and when you just tell when you are say or pointing to things to tell them in a way that tells them what to say not in a modeling way but when you point to things and say say this or point to this and do this they're all they're doing is following directions when that time comes around again if you don't give them that direction they don't do it so they become very prompt dependent upon you so in a better way of doing it is to let that opportunity set up the environment for model what you might say or ask an open question you know point out what somebody just said to them you know or what you might say to them back so you'll see some examples of that in the script something through some kind of a partial prompt you could say something like this or this and leave it up to them what they might want to say sometimes prompting is too verbal for students and the EPP examples and I know we're quickly running out of time as we always do this idea of scripting is not that you have to follow everything in lockstep it's more of a cheat not everybody has experience with AAC it's a good place to start with many people but also understand that you don't have to stick to the student has something else to say follow what it is that they have to source of what we'll look at for data collection so this is an example of the format you'll see you know what you might do in step one if they still don't say it what you could do next if they still don't say it what you could do next if they still don't say it what you could do next and then you can model for them what's possible if they choose not to say it then they choose not to say it you can't ever make anybody say anything so I mean that's kind of the way it goes you've got some examples like the Go Fish script back together again on the December 15th we're talking about communication by looking at the environment the activity and your partner strategies but for right now let's focus on environment and choosing activities with us part of that but we're going to ask for nobody Kathy do you want to jump in here I sure do thanks so yeah exactly so this is a really great opportunity to take something that we're learning together from Kelly and a webinar based introduction into practice so I am hoping that there are more than a few of you who are really excited about jumping into this that being said if you are if you want to identify a student and start to look at the environment and the activity so start to do some of the work that Kelly's discussed with us today if you could please send me an email and I'll have you send it to my gov email I'll try and actually no I'm gonna I'm gonna lie if you could send me an email to khowry at you alberta.ca I'm saying I'm in then I will make sure and I put the email in the chat window and I will also send the email out afterwards and maybe we could put up a whiteboard or something Ross where I can actually put that up and that if you send me that then I will make sure that Kelly and I will help facilitate this as well and I are following along and walking you through the next steps as I said I think this is a great opportunity to actually implement what you're learning and I hope that I will get lots of emails from you all and I really appreciate Kelly's generosity in the time that she's committing to us to make this take this from from information into practice so yeah any questions that people have at this point that would be oh emails are coming in good it's fabulous any questions that anybody has for Kelly most of all or for myself or for both of us thank you Kelly that was a great introduction in a really um tight time frame so I appreciate that tremendously well the handouts we posted yeah we will actually Toby um the handouts you should have gotten them all the way to the end of this video so thank you so much for