Shalva Presents at the Conference of the Israel Chapter of
ISAAC – The International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) helps millions worldwide who cannot rely on their natural speech to communicate. The International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) works to improve the lives of children and adults who use AAC.
At this summer’s annual conference of ISAAC Israel, for the first time, one of Shalva’s speech therapists, Liraz Ben Abu, presented a project that she and Ruth Mirsky, a kindergarten teacher at Shalva developed.
They created a digital photo album for each child in the kindergarten, reflecting the child’s experiences, with a recorded message about each photo. Each week a different child was chosen to be the star. They photographed him during all sorts of activities, and together with him, recorded a relevant message for each photo. They sent the album home to the family, who added events from home.
The child then presented his album to his classmates. In addition, his class (Gan Rut) shared their albums with a class of normative children (Gan Rachel), as part of that class’s Star of the Week program.
The children were indeed stars!!
In the course of her presentation, Liraz showed the children from Gan Rut proudly displaying their albums. The joy on their faces was indescribable. One of the parents also described how the family contributed to the album.
Liraz’s presentation was enthusiastically received at the conference, and many turned to her with questions, including where they might obtain such digital albums.
Without a doubt, Shalva’s professionalism in the area of AAC is growing and is being recognized in the professional world.
