Building the Phonemic Awareness Skills of Multilingual Individuals

Photo: imgkid.com

With more and more SLPs taking on the role of reading specialist in the school environment, important reading strategies must be reviewed with current evidenced based practice (EBP).  Additionally, multilingual clients bring a greater challenge to the SLP teaching phonemic awareness.   In fact, reading and writing can be more complex in English than in many other languages because English has a moderately complicated spelling system.  In Spanish, for example, the relationships between letters and sounds are typically 1:1, meaning each sound is usually written using one spelling unit, and each spelling unit is typically pronounced one way.  There are exceptions with a few letters like the “C,” which has a “soft c” and “hard c” distinction in both languages.

Proxtalker: The AAC Device That is Adaptable for Bilingual Students

The Proxtalker is a static display voice output device created for a child named Logan, who was diagnosed with autism.  Logan was mastering PECS but experiencing some difficulty transitioning to a dynamic display device.  Logan’s father, an engineer and ultimately the inventor of the product, decided to create a device which would prepare his son for a dynamic display device, like an iPad.  The Proxtalker is brilliant in that it can hold 10,000 words and phrases.  There is a 6 cell display which is constantly adaptable depending on the activity.  Radio frequency identification tags (or the little white squares seen below), feature a chip and an antenna, and are coded with words and phrases which can be modified if the user feels necessary.

Let me just say this entry is merely an opinion and I am in no way endorsed by this company for discussing this device.  That being said, I love the Proxtalker for my Spanish-speaking students and here’s why:

-The Proxtalker is not only easy to program, but the instructions for programming are built into the machine and provided in both Spanish and in English.

-The Proxtalker does not use laminated PECs symbols, but rather