 And with no further ado, I would like to hand over the mic to you and lead us into Project Core. Thanks, Kathy. Thank you so much. And thanks, everyone, for taking the time to join us. I am really thrilled for the opportunity to share more about Project Core. Project Core is a research effort that has been my full-time focus for the past two years. My plan for today is to provide an overview of the project. And I see there's a hand raised. Are we okay in terms of hearing me? Okay. Just jumping in, I mentioned to Kathy earlier, with the way my screen is shared, I won't be able to see the chat, but if there are things that come up, I'm very happy to keep this as interactive as you'd like. Please interrupt if there are any questions or problems with the audio or visual. We've been working as a team over the last two years in partnership with schools to develop an implementation program. And what I'd like to share is an overview of what is included within that implementation program and share some of our insights and the results of this work to date. As I mentioned, we're in our second year. It's a multi-year effort that's aimed at creating a comprehensive implementation program for teachers. And it's designed to empower teachers to provide classroom-based communication instruction. We're moving into our third year, which is our pilot year, focused on what do we need to revise, what do we need to add to the current materials to achieve this goal of a program that is effective and scalable. So we're trying to build something that's not dependent on having school-level AAC experts in the U.S. where I'm based and where our center is based. That's not a reality for many of our students with the most significant disabilities. So really looking at how do we build some supports that provide that foundational communication that allows specialists to enter in at that next level and provide personalized and individualized support. We're focused specifically on supporting students who are not yet using speech, sign language, or symbols in flexible ways and for varied purposes across topics and partners. As Kathy mentioned, I'm on faculty at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I have the privilege of working with Karen Erickson, who serves as our Director at the Center and the Principal Investigator on Project Corps, along with Penny Hatch and Claire Greer, who are also faculty at UNC and members of our research team, and a number of talented doctoral students, Lisa Irwin-Davidson, Catherine Dornie, and Sophia Benson-Goldberg. We're also a team that's a mix of speech language pathologists and educators, which is quite relevant and important to the type of work that we're currently doing. We need to offer the necessary disclaimer that we were fortunate to receive grant funding through the U.S. Department of Ed Office Special Education program to do this work. And just to start with a bit more definition about the need, the need for greater access to communication instruction for this group of students is substantial. We reference students with significant cognitive disabilities and we've learned in recent months that the use of this term is unfamiliar to at least some in our field. And our use of the term is tied to definition by the U.S. Department of Education that recognizes students who need additional instructional support and greatly adaptive materials and are consequently eligible to take the alternate assessment based on altered and achievement standards. A recent survey that represented over 38,000 students in this group suggested that 23% use some form of augmentative and alternative communication or AAC. And of this subgroup of students, 70% use aided AAC, or I'm sorry, excuse me, 70% have aided AAC users and 84% of sign language users use only single symbols or signs for a restricted range of communication purposes. And of the total sample, 9% were reported to have no symbolic system of support. But within the subgroup, many demonstrated use of early communication through conventional and unconventional testers. So these are the students who are the focus of our work with Project Core. And these are the students that we want to get on a path to using symbolic language in more flexible ways for a much broader range of purposes. Underpinning all of this is the belief that communication is a basic human right and that all individuals, regardless of the severity of their disability, have the right to instruction that will help them develop versatile communication skills. And for individuals with severe disabilities, this instruction should be present throughout their school day and all aspects of their life to the greatest extent possible. We also believe that there are no prerequisites to participation in Project Core. The program is really designed to build on all forms of communication, even when those forms are not conventional or even intentional. Again, Project Core and the implementation supports are focused on teaching students who are not yet using speech, time, language, or symbols in flexible ways. And we're really looking at how do we build on those earliest skills, tie that to more conventional and ultimately symbolic forms. The program targets teachers and offers the training tools and resources they need to take ownership of communication instruction for their students with significant disabilities. Teachers and classroom staff have a lot of contact with their students on a day-to-day basis and our program goal is to maximize opportunities for teaching and learning each day. So throughout all of those natural occurring activities and interactions, empowering teachers to be supporting communication, providing them with training and resources to really identify and take advantage of those opportunities. And ultimately, it's the hope that that leads to speech language pathologists and related specialists being able to provide more individualized support in the classroom. The evidence-based practices applied to Project Core include administrative communication, core vocabulary, the use of aided language input or modeling, naturalistic teaching, looking at how do we take advantage of all of the natural occurring teaching opportunities throughout the day, and communication partner training. Each of these areas have been researched extensively and many studies support the potential benefits for our students, yet we know that in many cases these practices are slow to move from controlled studies to typical classrooms. The field of implementation science attempts to address this research to practice gap by leveraging researcher and practitioner collaborations to understand more deeply the context, the potential barriers, and the necessary resources for effective delivery of practices. And implementation science has guided our efforts as we've worked alongside teachers in classrooms over the last couple of years and engaged in this iterative development and formative evaluation of our current pilot implementation program. As I was mentioning to Kathy when we were just connecting at the beginning of the call, I've been spending the week in classrooms and it's exciting for me to see things put in place and then I always leave with a really lengthy to-do list. And that's the nature of this work is figuring out, you know, what do we need to continue to revise and add to. And it's exciting to be a part of that. So ultimately, we're working towards creating this implementation program that will teach teachers how to apply these evidence-based practices in the classroom. And when we break things down to their simplest form, we're providing professional development opportunities to teachers and related classroom staff that are geared towards training classroom professionals to be good communication partners who regularly attribute meaning to expressive behaviors. And this requires teachers to believe that all students communicate and to work to understand the potential communicative intent of these student behaviors. It requires communication partners to ensure that AAC systems are available at all times. And this also involves making sure that there's an AAC system that they can use to model communication at all times. Good communication partners encourage communication without requiring it. And this without requiring it is really tied to the idea that we're not suggesting use of graduated prompting techniques. We're really providing support for teachers to lead and, I'm sorry, for students to lead and teachers to follow in terms of what their communication instruction and the direction of those interactions. Providing sufficient time for students to both initiate and respond. And we're teaching that good communication partners need to recognize the importance of modeling and how to use symbols in AAC and take care to hold their point and modeling symbols to repeat and expand on students' attempts to communicate using more conventional forms. And then last but certainly not least is making sure that there's something worthwhile to talk about. Again, when we think about taking advantage of opportunities throughout the day, making sure that there are things that are of interest to the students that's going to lead to their engagement and their desire to be communicating. So these are the teaching practices that are discussed throughout the professional development modules that are part of Project Core. There are currently 14 modules including an overview module. And again, with repetition and variety, we continue to come back to these principles and teaching practices related to being good communication partners. As we've talked about, communication comes in many forms from facial expressions and body and head movements and vocalizations. These are all forms of communication. And our approach is based on the belief that everyone communicates and that it's our goal to support teachers in identifying how students are currently communicating, attribute meaning to and honor these behaviors, and support all students towards becoming more intentional, symbolic communicators. As I mentioned, we do not have any prerequisites to getting started with the universal core, but we're also not expecting that all students will begin using it right away. It's with this belief that early exposure through good models is important to lay the foundation for future success. The graphic here is an example from one of the classroom posters that's available for download from our project website. Before students use speech, signs, or symbols to communicate, they move from pre-intentional to intentional forms of communication. And when students are pre-intentional communicators, communication partners must learn to observe even the most basic physiological responses such as change in breathing rate and eye movements and recognizable expressions of frustration or sadness or happiness, so on. And learning to observe these behaviors allows us and teachers to build on them as we help students work towards becoming more intentional. As communication partners, we can watch for these body movements that may be communicating something, and we can interpret their facial expressions. These forms of communication, as I mentioned, can often happen without intention, and we have the opportunity to respond as if it's an intentional communication to honor what they've communicated to us and where appropriate model a more conventional form. Clearly telling the student what they did to communicate with us as we honor it and model a more symbolic equivalent to that. The communication matrix is one of our primary tools for identifying and documenting students' communication abilities. We're using it both as a baseline assessment and as an ongoing measure at points after the implementation program, the Universal Core Vocabulary, has been introduced. To date, we've completed the communication matrix on more than 90 students across 25 classrooms. And as we move into our pilot years, we're evaluating teachers' use of the communication matrix as a tool for them to gain important understanding of how their students are communicating. Terri Rowland and her team at Oregon Health and Science University have been developing and refining this assessment through their research over the last 25 years. And the matrix really pinpoints how students are currently communicating to guide thinking about communication goals and intervention. And it's appropriate for students of all ages who are at these earliest ages of communication. As I was mentioning, the number of students, 90 students across 25 classrooms, it seems like an appropriate point to share. When I highlight some of the results of our work to date, we are primarily working in separate special education schools and programs and self-contained classrooms. And I know that's a difference between our education system in the U.S. and the systems of support that many of you are working within. The reality for us is more than 80 percent of students with significant cognitive disabilities receive their education in separate schools or self-contained classrooms. So to find the number of students that we need to do this kind of work, that's where we find ourselves. But what we're developing, the implementation support, the instructional planning guide, all of the resources are designed to work within inclusive classroom environments. And we're looking forward to more opportunities to test that out and get more feedback. So again, thrilled for the opportunity to share with you all the resources that we have and look forward to keeping in touch. To talk just a little bit more specifically about the communication matrix, it's organized by behaviors at seven levels of communication ability. And the use of these behaviors is assessed across four basic reasons to communicate that include refusing things that aren't wanted, obtaining things that are engaging in social interactions and providing or seeking information. And for each of these reasons to communicate, all of the behaviors a student uses are observed and reported. So at level one, it's the pre-intentional or reflexive behaviors, those that express things like a state of hunger or discomfort that we interpret as the observer of that behavior. At level two, students begin to demonstrate intentional behaviors, but these behaviors are not yet intentionally communicative in that the student doesn't yet realize that they can use them to affect someone else's response. So things like facial expression and body movements that we observe and infer meaning. One example is when a student's reaching for something that's just out of reach, this is an intentional behavior that communicates to us on the other side of the room that they want something. When that student then turns to us to say, hey, you see me reaching, can you give me a hand? That becomes a level three intentional communicative behavior. And it's a level four behavior when the student uses a conventional gesture by pointing to it to communicate to say, I want that. It's a level five behavior when the student points to a picture of the desired item and a level six behavior when the student points to an abstract symbol like for the word want. And it becomes level seven language level when the student puts two or more words together to say things like I want or you get. In our partner school, we had a number of students who started the project communicating at levels one, two and three. And we have included in the program supports that are really geared towards teachers identifying and attributing meaning to these behaviors to drive students towards intentional and symbolic communication. And we believe that these students, well, again, perhaps not get using the universal core or using the symbols expressively, we believe they will benefit from the teaching and modeling that's happening. And we're not expecting these students at these earliest stages of development to begin using the symbols to communicate until we've provided truly thousands of learning opportunities through meaningful models of how to use the symbols to communicate. And this is consistent with our expectations of typically developing kids who hear thousands and thousands of models of spoken language before we expect them to utter a single word. So students at these earliest stages of symbolic communication development really need and deserve that same opportunity to learn through exposure of others using symbols to communicate. The use of AAC to support both expressive and receptive language learning has a strong and growing evidence base with studies focused on young children through adults. The past decade of research continues to support our understanding that all persons who can't use speech to meet their communication needs can potentially benefit from AAC intervention regardless of the severity of their disability. And our project is focused on teachers with the support of SLPs and related speech language therapists and related in making AAC systems available all day in every context and maximizing language input and models of effective use of symbolic communication. The teaching principle here of encouraging communication without requiring it is all about allowing our students to lead the direction of our naturally occurring interactions and using these interactions as valuable teaching opportunities. So encouraging communication means we want to show students how to use their systems and encourage them to use it without demand. We're learning to be patient. We're learning to be responsive to all of their subtle and not so subtle communication attempts. And we model more symbolic forms without requiring it without requiring their use through specific prompting techniques. And focusing on the Communication Act means that we're encouraging meaningful communication by saying things like tell me more or making comments and modeling symbols on a topic they are interested in and inviting them to respond. It's not focusing on behaviors of hitting a switch or touching a symbol. And it's not about teaching them to respond to structured prompts in required ways to demonstrate their ability to match symbols to their spoken labels. Requiring students to respond in a certain way tends to turn a natural communication interaction and learning opportunity into a structure task with a right and wrong response. And our aim is to make students want to communicate versus making them do what we want. Just going to take a flick a lot. Another important teaching principle that we're continuing to come back to through all of the professional development modules and supporting resources is providing sufficient wait time and how critical this is when building early communication. We have to provide sufficient time and be quiet for long enough periods that our students have a chance to initiate and respond. When we do too much of the talking, students have limited chances to jump in. And one example, if we consider just one study that was completed at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, six girls with threat syndrome and their mothers were involved in a shared book reading study designed to support communication using graphic symbols. And each week, mothers submitted videos of their shared reading interactions that we analyzed for a variety of purposes. And one thing we explored was wait time. Children with threat syndrome are known to have a praxia that impacts their motor planning. And for the girls in this study, that a praxia resulted in the need for very long pauses. And in fact, the fastest girl needed six seconds of quiet time before she initiated or responded. And the girls who needed the most time required 45 seconds. And I think this provides a good example of how long we might have to wait to get our students to respond. And as we're working in schools and as we're working towards creating the implementation resources that are a part of Project Core, this is one of the most important for our teachers to feel comfortable just slowing everything down and providing that opportunity to wait and give students a chance to really lead the direction they want to take the interaction of the communication exchange. Modeling is of course an important component of the implementation program. And modeling on AAC systems involves a communication partner who is pointing to graphic symbols on an AAC system while speaking, inviting students to initiate or respond while providing sufficient time for them to do so, recognizing and acknowledging all of their attempts to communicate, and expanding on these attempts using more conventional forms. So I see you reaching, do you want it? Modeling wants. Again, when we think about modeling and providing language input, teachers jump into this at any point, right, depending on how that interaction is going. So they may start by modeling their speech or they may see a student who is clearly trying to express something and they jump in to model a more conventional form. So these are the critical components of providing effective models. It's only a point if they see it. Again, this relates in part to making sure that the page is appropriate and that students have an opportunity to effectively see or experience that model. This is another example of one of the classroom posters that's available for download from the project site. Again, intended to remind teachers to set their pace in such a way that students have the best chance of experiencing the model and making a meaningful connection to the context of the use of the spoken word and the symbol. Aided AAC system, so the core vocabulary of the AAC systems that are used for modeling should be the same or very similar to the student's personal AAC system. There's general agreement that simplifying language while preserving grammatical structure improves overall accessibility. And the use of comments versus questions is highly recommended to maximize input without requiring output or expression on the part of the child. So again, focusing on far more comments than questions as we're interacting. The core vocabulary approach to augmented communication that's at the heart of Project Core is certainly not new. As a field, we define core vocabulary as a relatively small set of highly useful words that can be modeled and used across context throughout the day. Core vocabulary is conceptual and includes words such as like, want, not, and go. And the fact that these words are not concrete with single meanings is what allows for their flexible use. The core vocabulary that is part of Project Core is called the universal core vocabulary. It's a prioritized list of 36 words. Each word is meaningful as a single word and can be combined meaningfully. All of the words are useful cross-broad range of environments and activities and interactions. They're prioritized based on their usefulness across the day, including daily activities, social interactions, and academic instruction. The prioritization that informed definition of the universal core vocabulary is based in large part on research conducted at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies about five years ago that focused on a thorough review of the published core vocabulary list, commercial products with core vocabularies, and academic standards to better understand the critical intersection of core words that are highly useful for social interaction and core words that are required for academic participation. So we have related work that's available through the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies that talks more about the core vocabulary research and what informed this initial prioritization. One of the things that I've been spending a fair amount of time talking about in recent weeks is that the universal core vocabulary refers to the words and the list of prioritized words, not the format. I'll share in just a minute some of the available formats we have from our project site to ensure that having access to an initial system is in the barrier to students getting started. But it's not our intention that universal core vocabulary is tied to a specific format. So as we'll talk about in just a few minutes, universal core vocabulary is available on most of the commercial AAC devices, regenerating devices and apps that have core vocabulary supports. It's available in a variety of different print-based formats that either have been made at a school level or a district level or are something that's been purchased. And so again, when we talk about universal core vocabulary, we're referring to this prioritized list of words. The Project Implementation Program embeds communication instruction across the school day, again following the recommendations of decades of research that highlights the benefits of naturalistic teaching. And the Implementation Program supports teaching communication during common instructional routines and activities, as well as specials like art and music and PE and therapy time with related service providers like speech therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists. As part of the initial Project Core Implementation Program, we've identified five common instructional routines to use as an example of how communication skills can be targeted alongside areas of reading and writing. We started with these five emergent literacy activities, shared reading, predictable chart writing, independent writing, alphabet and phonological awareness and independent reading. We started with these emergent literacy activities because basically because we're a literacy center and it was a logical place for us to start. But we also intend to add routines related to math and other academic areas. And it's also our aim as we design the resources that these can serve as a model for how communication instruction planning can be added to existing curricula or lesson planning frameworks. So it's not at all a requirement of Project Core and implementing the communication instruction teaching practices that classrooms be using these five instructional routines. It's where you can use instructional routines as an example of and where it is an appropriate math that something teachers can just run with. But using them as an example of how communication instruction can be embedded meaningfully within these academic activities. For each of the five routines, we have a planning form that guides identification and creation of opportunities to incorporate core vocabulary. And for each of the routines, we have a checklist of targeted components that the checklist is intended to guide teachers' self-reflection as they begin to implement the practices in the classroom, as well as support peers and coaches as they're engaging in classroom observations to guide constructive feedback. Each of the checklists include points like all students have access to personal AC systems. They include points like models were provided using a similar system to the students' AC system. Sufficient time was provided for students to initiate and respond. These are aspects that and then there are other aspects that are unique to the routine. So for example, shared reading includes points related to use of core-based comments on each page. And the routine for predictable chart writing highlights the importance of creating sentence stems that are made up of core words. So for each of the routines, there is a separate checklist. We also have a general checklist, which again is intended to be a support that could be applied to a variety of other academic activities or non-instructional, non-academic activities that are happening throughout the day, all of the resources that are a part of Project Core. While we're working alongside teachers to try to refine what we have and share our research insights, they're also available to be modified and adjusted in whatever way is going to be the best match for your school, your students, your classrooms. So if ever you find a resource and it's not in a format that you're able to deconstruct and put back together, please email me. I'd be happy to share with you the source files so that you can can make any adjustments that that you'd like. Project Implementation Program calls for all students to have personal access to the universal core vocabulary. Again, when we think in terms of the evidence-based practices, access to AAC and use of core vocabulary. That access to the universal core vocabulary, as I just mentioned, can be provided on a speech-generating device or an AAC communication app. It might be in the form of a print-based communication book or board or it may be through access to three-dimensional symbols. Whatever form best suits the access needs of the students is what should be provided. We have several print-based formats that are available for accessing the universal core and each of these formats can be explored and downloaded from the project website. These formats are intended as initial solutions. Again, when we look at that early data that I shared from the survey of 38,000, that represented 38,000 students far too many of our students with the most significant disabilities don't have access to any form of AAC. Our intention of making sure that we had a reasonable range of formats for a variety of access methods was so that that initial access would not be a barrier to getting started. The program also includes related to these formats that are available for download from the project site. We've included an online selection tool that helps guide initial decisions regarding the format that's most appropriate for each student. Still very specific questions in terms of student's ability to use vision, student's ability to point, if they're able to point, what's the smallest target that they're likely to be able to point to. Not at all intended to replace more comprehensive AAC evaluations, but again it's really all about eliminating the barrier which is huge for many of our students here in the state and wanting them to have something as a get just get started place. Each of the formats are available in four different types of symbols with agreement from the various providers of these symbol sets. So we have picture communication symbols in both the standard format as well as by contrast symbol sticks and widget symbols and this allows teachers and teams to match existing symbols with what they're currently using in in their school system. And as we talked about the core words are available on many AAC systems with voice output and what we've put in place is a very simple key that can be downloaded from the project website that teams can use to record where the universal core words are found on those systems. Some devices and apps have far more sophisticated ways to quickly access where the core words are but again as a simple support that teachers can can use and share and post this is one one resources that we've made available. And then finally we have three dimensional symbols that are available to represent select core words. Each textual symbol includes a unique race element the printed word and braille. And I believe Dr. Howrie has provided in-depth professional development opportunities related to this aspect of the project. We've benefited from the opportunity to to be talking with with Kathy Dr. Howrie over the last as it's been two years as we've been continuing to move out this aspect of the program forward. And we've had the opportunity to to learn from teachers and the the program currently recommend starting with go like and and the rationale is that these three words are flexible enough to use across environments in context to meet a variety of needs. For example presenting the symbol for go each time the student is going to move. Presenting like each time the student expresses pleasure and presenting not when the student expresses refusal or displeasure. And what we're finding is that students have many reasons to go express pleasure and express displeasure or refusal every day. And this means that the symbols can be used with enough frequency that students with significant visual impairment and cognitive disability can learn to use them over time. So by way of reviewing the teaching practices that we're driving towards attributing meaning to expressive behaviors ensuring AAC systems are available at all times. Encouraging communication without requiring it and providing sufficient time for students to respond modeling and making sure there's a worthwhile topic or context to communicate about. Given that the aim of the project is to create a comprehensive implementation program that supports schools to empower teachers and classroom staff to effectively use these teaching practices in order to to realize this goal. We know that what we need to do is provide training and resources that build knowledge of the evidence based practices and provide resources and supports that provide opportunities for teachers to apply and reflect on their use of the new skills and tools in the classroom. We've also found and this was part of kind of going into this this work that instructional coaching is an important and valuable piece and instructional coaching to continue to provide that ongoing feedback and support. We see school-based speech therapists and related AAC and AP professionals playing an important and varied roles in supporting teachers use of the teaching strategies and resources. When we talk about coaches and we talk about AAC specialists, one of the pieces that that we're we're working towards is we've talked about in our current pilot sites when we were initially engaging in conversations with administrators and teachers and school staff. We have not defined coaches as experts and we haven't defined that coaches that being an instructional coach as part of project core implementation requires having background or expertise in AAC. What we've suggested is being an effective instructional coach requires having the skills and understanding of how to support teachers in implementing well-defined practices. And again this ties back to our goal of building something that's scalable and that's not dependent on schools having access to someone who has background and expertise in AAC. So this is one that we've had opportunity to work with schools in some cases where it's a speech language pathologist who's worked in the field of AAC for decades and they're stepping into the role of being the instructional coach and we've had other school systems where a teacher is interested and invested and willing to step into that role of being an instructional coach to help facilitate professional development sessions to be that peer support in the classroom to observe and provide constructive feedback. This is an area of the project that we're continuing to learn in terms of what do we need to build in to make sure that we've provided the resources coaches need to be effective in that role particularly if they don't come with that background related to AAC. So to date what we currently have available on the website are 14 professional development modules with versions to support schools in facilitating group instruction as well as versions that are designed for self-directed learning on each topic. So the formats are intended to allow schools to pick and choose what's going to work best based on the available days and approach to professional development within the school. We have as I mentioned an instructional planning guide that details the preparation and content needed for embedding the communication instruction into 5-com of instructional routines and we have self-reflection and observation checklist for each of the routines to again support teacher reflection and support constructive discussions with peers with instructional coaches and finally we have the universal core vocabulary selection tool that I mentioned with the downloadable files for each of the print formats. We have a number of one page implementation resources on various topics like getting started with modeling, partner assisted scanning and we have a growing list of answers to frequently asked questions. The posters that I showed a few examples of these are available for download from the project site. They're intended to both inspire and inform. We'll continue to add to these and finally we have an initial collection of student success stories that we will be continuing to add to in the coming months and years. And today having conversation with some of the teachers in our partner sites about adding some adding some success stories from this week so looking forward to getting some of those posted soon. So I'd like to spend the remaining time sharing some insights and descriptive data that we've gathered during the first two years of the project. During the first two years we worked with two school sites as development partners and again that focus during development was to define and create the initial set of professional development modules and the initial set of implementation resources. Given the focus of our work the to create teacher facing supports the majority of our participants were teachers or teaching assistants. We also worked with four speech language pathologists, two principals and 20 additional related service providers that range from OTs to PPs adapted to the music, art, etc. We have over 200 students who have participated in the project to date and we've been able to collect pre-post beginning of the year end of year data on 94 students across two school sites. It's interesting when I talk to friends outside of our field of severe disabilities and this seems like a really small sample. Of course within our field this is an example that we're very excited about and so the representation in terms of special educational disability is what we would expect to see for this group of students with almost all many falling into the category of multiple disabilities. We have students from preschool through high school represented racial and ethnic diversity and slightly more male than female students. As I mentioned earlier our school sites were separate special education schools. The communication matrix is our primary tool for measuring communication ability and as I mentioned it supports observation of behaviors for four reasons to communicate to refuse, obtain, connect socially, and seek or provide information. And the communication matrix it's a tool that has been sensitive to the changes we've seen in our students. The changes we've seen in students like Tim who in March of 2016 was using a level two behavior of pushing away an unwanted object and in March of 2017 he was shaking his head no to refuse just a level four conventional behavior. And it's a measure that's sensitive to the changes we saw in Jade who in March of 2016 would make a would just take a desired object a level two behavior and in March of 2017 she was demonstrating beginning use of the 3D symbol at a level six. We're also encouraged by the change in communication level when we look at the group pre-post data with gains noted for all four reasons to communicate. The reason we have fewer students represented for the purpose of information is that in order to score for this purpose you must be communicating at a conventional level or level four or higher. So we had 25 students who scored at level four or higher at both pre and post test. To gain insight into the significant of these gains that you see represented here visually we used a non-parametric test called the Wilcox and signed rank test and found that the median post test ranks were statistically significantly higher than median pre-test ranks for the purposes of refuse of pain and social. And given the limited number of students and information this didn't meet the criteria for statistical significance but we're looking forward to having a larger number of students to further evaluate this moving moving forward. Across our partner sites we also administered a self-assessment at the beginning and end of the year to look at change in teachers' perceptions of their skills and abilities and the self-assessment was a 12-point Likert style statement that teachers were asked to note their level of agreement on a five-point scale and we noted a substantial shift for a couple of questions including this one. Excuse me I understand how to use core vocabulary approach with my students who need that with the majority of teachers either disagreeing or unsure at the beginning of the year and only 14 percent in agreement and the percent of teachers agreeing with the statement grew to 72 percent at the end of the year. And for the statement I feel comfortable and confident in my ability to use AAC with my students we also saw a shift from 40 percent in agreement or strong agreement at the beginning of the year to 74 percent in agreement or strong agreement at the end of the year. We've also had the opportunity to collect communication matrix profile data on 50 students across two years and we're very encouraged by the growth we see after two years with the change in ability level from fall of 2015 to spring of 2016 to spring of 2017 reflected here. And last but certainly not least important that a data to share is related to end of year tests. The end of year end of grade test in reading is required of all students in the U.S. and in our first year sites all students participated in the alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards and they were said to be students are said to be proficient in meeting those standards the alternate standards when they score a three or higher and before we started at the school 93 percent of the students scored at the lowest level possible and this chart shows that during our two years with them the number scoring at the lowest level dropped dramatically and the number scoring at a level three or higher began to increase. So this is this is data that we're encouraged by and I thank exciting indeed up there we go the that's kind of taken a look at the time I'd be happy to answer questions I again want to thank you for the privilege to to share this information and I look forward to keeping in touch and please don't hesitate to reach out by email or phone I would love the opportunity to have additional discussion answer any questions and again I have I have plenty of time this evening so I'm happy to stay on as well and answer any questions or have additional discussion on anything we've talked about wonderful Laurie thank you I've been sort of writing some notes so I'll give some comments but I really would like to open it up and typically this is a for a bunch of people talking about communication it's typically a very quiet group but I'm going to pause and give that wait time is there anyone who would like to ask or make a comment to Laurie either in the chat or by clicking on your microphone in your producing window to to ask a question make a comment okay while you're thinking about that I am going to say a couple of things and that that I well first of all what I really appreciate about your work and you know that I'm quite a fan is that you are making it possible for teachers to grab on and to jump into doing this work that's not that to say anything that we don't value the wonderful SLP so we have across the province and in this session tonight but it is ultimately the teachers who are the ones that really are implementing so the work that you're doing to guide that implementation and to make it so open to people I I just can't say thank you enough on behalf of so many of us Albert included um one of the couple of things that you highlighted tonight that I really really liked was using the communication matrix because again that's something that we've been talking about a fair bit and I think your use of it just shows how absolutely powerful it can be the other thing that I really have appreciated that you added recently to Project Core is some really nice guides for implementation so I know when I heard you speak at Ash you talked about you know you could have someone you know be a coach to you but it's also having educators reflect on their own practices so that you get some level of implementation with fidelity which is always again something that's near and dear to my heart so those are all things that I think are are just wonderful about about your work and then I know the other thing that you highlighted that we that does come up once in a while is the idea that you know your 36 core vocabulary do not it's not a it's a beginning not an ending that we that's really making um some powerful words available to kids if they and and to classrooms that they don't as students don't have anything to start with and then one of the things that I've been promoting is trying to make sure and you talked about this tonight which I really appreciate it trying to make sure when students have AAC systems they know how to get to those core vocabulary words in the systems there the people around them need to get know how to get to those core vocabulary words in their systems because they're kind of power words in my mind so those are some of the thoughts that I had to you again and once more I'm going to pause and see if anyone else has any thoughts or Lori if you want to respond at all all right that's wonderful I was just making some notes as you were talking Kathy I appreciate that that feedback and um and continued support and I think the guides for implementation as you just mentioned providing that support for self reflection as well as helping helping professionals kind of continue to grow in their practice it's been important to us as a project to try to find that balance between uh wanting teachers to feel confident and comfortable just going for it and getting started and recognizing that you know getting to a point where implementing with fidelity takes some time and thoughtful like an investment and and thoughtful reflection and so I you know I it's looking forward to continuing to get more feedback about the checklist and and where we are in terms of meeting teachers with a tool that that feels that feels like a match for that that learning process and that learning experience early feedback has been quite positive excellent so there is a question in the chat um who's asked were the median levels in your data on the communication matrix based on emerging status or the level of master that's a great question that's a great question it was uh mastered for us we we uh noted noted that level if they had demonstrated with um that we built confidence scoring it as master okay awesome that's that great question Dallas thank you so Diane you might have to help me understand your question here can we get some samples of the core object symbols does that are you meaning can you get actual core vocabulary uh the 3d textual uh is that your question Diane um I know that I've talked a lot about them and I actually am going to have a little summit I hope with Laurie at HAA this week about that but um oh yeah 3d so Diane you're wondering where you can get the 3d symbols is that your question I'm just waiting yes okay well we had a marvelous setup here in Edmonton for a while um where the Edmonton public library is printing for them for us for like 30 bucks but um then why don't you send me an email and we'll talk about that um because I know that we've we've got a few different sources in different places um and what I'm hoping to do is gather anyone um who is using those symbols with kids across Alberta to give Laurie and her team a little bit more feedback about about that work as well I think this could be a nice collaboration so shoot me an email and um that'd be great okay so um so there's not a question uh uh query we online data storage and query we privacy information the plans requirements with us in Canada for online etc and thank you for the great presentation so help me Patricia I'm not sure exactly of what you mean um and in terms of online data so you mean whether we oh I'm out here meeting with the regards the um communication matrix um and that's that's an interesting question you don't have to put students particular names you can you can add your students in anonymously it might be I did a I did a uh uh session on the communication matrix as a lunch and learn last year but maybe it's time to do that again is that Patricia what you're alluding to the uh about the participation or sorry the communication matrix and where the data goes help help me again um to understand your question and yes uh Diane we are I am recording the session and it will be archived and made available to the ERLC and I'll send that link out to people when we actually get it there so Lori do you have any thoughts on Patricia's question in terms of um privacy information I think it must yeah communication okay yep we can do one on communication matrix it um I think it must be alluding to putting information into the communication matrix has that been an issue for you so it um it it's something that we've so we we worked with uh Charity Rowland and the team at OHSU to uh purchase licenses to the print format um and and some of that has been wanting to be sure that we're meeting all of our IRB requirements in terms of um the identifying everything so I'm not sure that I can speak specifically to how the current communication matrix dot org online format handles that we've been for our research purposes approaching things a little bit differently to make sure that we we have um heavily secured things um so maybe I think that's probably a really good question and reminder to me that I need to do a little bit of research in that um if uh for Alberta participants who are using that so that we do understand where the data is going and how we can make it secure so yeah it's good my my sense is that the folks at Oregon Health and Sciences University and the communication matrix team have been have been really taking care to um to cover that but it would be best to have that specific conversation with them I think yeah I think you're right they probably have done their due diligence but it is important to make sure so anyway lots of people uh appreciating the the session and I see that we're at 4 30 um but we will pause for a minute Laurie's um generously said that she'll spend a couple more minutes so if there are any other questions or comments um we'll just pause for a couple minutes and and see I'm trying to do the pause for uh that I would wonderful session good all right so maybe we'll leave it with that um and and do know that Laurie is quite um genuine in saying that she is happy to um to uh connect with us and um and as you all know um we've been using a lot of uh information um that they have and have greatly appreciated their generosity so and I'll say that again Laurie thank you so very much for spending this hour with us it was a great session and as Darlene is saying great session with fantastic resources for sure and um on behalf of all of us from Alberta thank you for the ongoing collaboration and we look forward to doing more and hearing more about your great work thank you thank you thanks again for inviting me and thanks for taking time out of your busy schedules and um as Kathy mentioned I truly I don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything I can help out with any questions about the resources if you want them in their source files to be able to make adjustments to um please don't hesitate happy to happy to stay connected and be a resource in any way I can all right all right guys so thank you all so much and um I'm going to be sending out a email to everyone in the next uh little while just to because we're probably going to have a couple of lunch and learns that are coming up people have been out doing some great pd and we're going to give some opportunities to let them share and then a few of us are going to atia so maybe we'll do a lunch and learn on that um but uh in the meantime and as for the way you might want to join in with this we've got um just a reminder that in February we've got um Mary Ann Romsky and Rosetskic talking about their work with really young uh like toddlers and AAC so I'm really excited about that and I hope you will all join and please do spread the word about that to any of your colleagues who are working in the really early intervention um areas because uh this is something that I think this is an area that we really need to focus on and um these two ladies um they're the the AAC myth ladies so we don't want to miss them so anyway so uh Mark the calendars and Lori you can come they are amazing I would love to take you up on that okay our our work on project core um is very much informed by the amazing work that Mary Ann Romsky and Rosetskic have done over many many years so right okay I'll send you the invitation for sure thanks thanks okay awesome all right good night all thank you again and we will talk soon bye