Keedogo & Keedogo Plus: Custom Keyboards for the iPad

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Recently Apple released iOS8 – and once again there were a number of accessibility features added with this update. For a round up of accessibility changes and additions check out the excellent summary from AbleNet – iOS8 Accessibility. One of the new features is the ability for developers to create their own onscreen keyboards for

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Using the AAC apps list

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Updated to add: The AAC Apps list has been discontinued It’s October, so it’s International AAC Awareness Month. As a result I thought it was time to blog about one of the most accessed resources on this website – the AAC apps list. Earlier this year we needed to do some changes to the AAC

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Picture Books for Older Readers Update

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It’s the end of the Book Week here in Australia – so I thought I’d do a quick book based post. Early in August I wrote a post about Picture Books for Older Readers which is linked to a Pinterest Board of the same name.  I’ve had several people ask me for a text based

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ISAAC 2014 Handouts

The ISAAC 2014 Conference in Lisbon was fabulous! Big congratulations to the Conference Co-Chairs, Luis Azevedo, Margarida Nunes da Ponte, Pedro Encarnação and Isabel Amaral. Also a big thanks and congratulations to ISAAC, the organisers and everyone involved, including the amazing volunteers who were such good hosts. For those of you who attended my sessions

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Picture Books for Older Readers

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I often get asked for suggestions of picture books for older readers.  Books, written at a simple level, that have content to appeal to teenagers or adults. Tar Heel Reader is the best source I’ve found for books like this – but there are also many commercially available books that meet this need. The fabulous

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Brain Computer Interface at ISAAC 2014

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Last week I was very fortunate to attend the ISAAC Conference in Portugal.  One of the highlights for me was learning more about Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and even getting to try one. Dr Melanie Fried-Oken, who is a really fabulous and practical researcher in the area of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) presented about

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AGOSCI Big Mouth Literacy Camp

This is a belated post about the 2014 Big Mouth Literacy Camp – but I headed off to the ISAAC Conference straight after camp and didn’t get a chance to write this until today. Big Mouth Camp was a different event this year as it had a literacy AND AAC theme for the first time.

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AAC: Systemic Change for Individual Success

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The attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of communication partners are pivotal in the success story of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). The people around every individual with complex communication needs must believe that everyone has a right to communicate.  We must provide them with a communication system that enables that right. We must believe in their

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Balanced Literacy for all: Guided Reading Resources

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This is a very quick blog post to let you know that I have recently added a bunch of new resources about Guided Reading onto a new Guided Reading page on my website. (Edited: This is now renamed comprehension instruction) Guided Reading at Adelaide West Special Education Centre Guided Reading Resources Guided Reading: Learners with

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Letter Writing: Writing for Real Reasons

Writing is a very complex task in literacy.  It has many components. Whenever we write, we need to think of an idea, then think of the language to describe the idea, then we need to think of the words and how we spell them – and finally we have to think about how we are

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