AAC Tips for Multilingual Clients

A while back, I wrote a blog post with links to websites featuring picture communication symbol boards in Spanish. Premade communication boards with picture symbols like those mentioned make life easier, and can be used as is (manual boards), modified for the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) or placed in static communication devices.

Activity-Based (Sports, Mealtime) Communication Board Examples:

communication board sports

 

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Building the Phonemic Awareness Skills of Multilingual Individuals

Photo: imgkid.com
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.

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