The beginning of the school year is always a busy time—setting up classrooms and getting to know new students. Amid all the excitement, it’s essential not to overlook access to communication devices! 

Let’s make it fun and meaningful by introducing a friendly Access Challenge! Encourage staff to participate in a little good-hearted competition to ensure students have consistent access to their communication systems throughout the day. 

Together, we can ensure that every student has access to their device every hour. Use the chart provided to check off each hour the device was both present with the student and staff modeled its use. It’s up to you if you want to incorporate a prize for the team that models the most!  

Let’s make communication a priority from day one! 

Student Name:  

Date:  

Other Important Beginning of the Year AAC Classroom To Do’s:  

• Set up a charging station in classroom  
• A forced restart can fix many device issues – ensure staff knows how to do a forced restart: https://support.ablenetinc.com/quicktalker-freestyle/how-to-perform-a-force-restart-of-the-quicktalker-freestyle/ 
• Guided access is a helpful tool to keep the device dedicated to communication – ensure staff know how to start and end guided access https://support.ablenetinc.com/quicktalker-freestyle/the-importance-of-guided-access/ 
• Make a plan to back up vocabulary files in case of accidents: https://support.ablenetinc.com/speech-apps/back-up-your-speech-app/ 
• Ensure there are low tech back ups for students: https://support.ablenetinc.com/speech-apps/speech-app-maintenance/the-importance-of-lite-tech-back-ups-for-aac-users/ 

If you’d like further tips on how to incorporate AAC in your multidisciplinary team, check out our article here!

If you would like staff training presented by our team of SLPs, please schedule a meeting at the link here.