Friday, September 28, 2007

Times	Speakers	Activity/Speaker(s)/Presentation Title
8:00 – 8:30		Registration
7:45 – 11:00		Coffee, tea, water and juice Morning Tea
8:30 – 10:00	Linda Burkhart	Plenary – Linda Burkhart |Developing Vision and Communication Skills for Children Who Face Cortical Visual Impairments and Other Multiple Challenges Children who face significant physical and multiple challenges, may also exhibit difficulties using their vision effectively, due to neurological impairment. For these children, vision can be a mystery. Specific attention needs to be paid to rebuilding neurological pathways that enable these children to make sense of what they see. Without this, vision can fail to develop or deteriorate.Dr. Christine Roman, has delineated characteristics of children who have cortical vision impairments and developed strategies to assist with the development of vision. These characteristics will be shared in terms of how we can positively impact this process, while not holding children back in the development of cognition and communication. Creative “light tech” to “high tech” strategies for developing auditory and multi-modal interactive communication systems will be discussed. » Handout (available after the conference)
10:00 – 10:15		Break
10:15 – 11:45	Marilyn Buzolich	Concurrent 1: Marilyn Buzolich Communication Sampling and Analysis Communication Sampling and Analysis (CSA) is an assessment tool designed for infants, toddlers, and children with multiple physical, sensory, speech, and/or cognitive/linguistic challenges. CSA provides speech/language pathologists with an objective clinical measure for observing and analyzing communicative behavior in the natural setting for individuals that are difficult to test. The purpose of CSA is to capture and qualify the nature and extent of communicative behavior of the child with partners during interactive settings and contexts. This is important for establishing baseline levels of communicative functioning, setting goals for intervention, and evaluating the effectiveness of treatment. For children with multiple speech, motor, sensory, and cognitive challenges, nonverbal behavior is an integral part of the child’s profile at all levels of development. This presentation will guide participants though a step-by-step process for objectively recording and analyzing interaction. There will be videotaped segments of interaction for participants to view, record, and analyze using an on-line CSA application. » Handout (available after the conference)
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10:15 – 11:45	Amanda Hall Lueck	Concurrent 2: Amanda Hall Lueck Cerebral Visual Impairment: Visual Dysfunction and Visual Impairment Due to Brain Injury Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) is the leading cause of visual impairment in children who reside in industrialized countries. It manifests differently in children depending upon the location, extent, and age of onset of brain lesions. Recent research has changed our understanding of CVI. This workshop will review the functional effects of CVI and explain current thinking about the cause of these effects. » Handout (available after the conference)
11:45 – 1:00		Lunch
1:00 – 2:30	Lateef McLeod	Plenary: Lateef McLeodThe Need of Education for People with AAC» Handout (available after the conference)
2:30 – 2:45		Break
2:45 – 4:00	Jill KingChris Toomey	Concurrent 1: Jill King, Chris Toomey, Judith Lunger-BerghFraming a Future: A Tool for Life Planning FAF is an important tool for professionals and families and consumers to gain insights into the interests/preferences/goals of each individual. It is designed with the student/family at the forefront, with other team members supporting planning. Participants will be provided with an overview of the background/development of the tool; will walk through the process using case studies/video samples of teams working with students with a range of disabilities and assistive technology supports; will look at outcomes of a good planning process that at the core takes the priorities and needs of the individual as a guide. » Handout (available after the conference)
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2:45 – 4:00	Linda Burkhart	Concurrent 2: Linda BurkhartPartner Assisted Scanning Communication Strategies for Children Who Face Significant Multiple Challenges Children who face significant multiple challenges often struggle with trying to juggle the challenges of motor coordination, communication, language, and cognition needed to effectively access a communication device. This makes it difficult for them to be able to communicate what they are thinking. This presentation will demonstrate the use of a variety of “Light Tech” partner-assisted communication books and strategies that can help give a child a means of interactive communication, while he/she is developing skills needed to access a device independently. Organization of vocabulary, by pragmatic intent – based on the work of Gayle Porter (Australia) will be discussed. » Handout (available after the conference)
2:45 – 4:00	Liz Hartmann	Concurrent 3: Elizabeth HartmannSupporting Symbolic Understanding in Children with Multiple Impairments, Including Visual Impairment and Deafblindness Symbolic understanding is a critical ability that greatly impacts children’s learning and development. Children with multiple impairments, especially those with visual impairments and deafblindness, may face challenges in their abilities to understand symbols. This presentation will review research on children’s symbolic understanding and present practical suggestions for those wishing to support the symbolic understanding of these children. » Handout (available after the conference)
7:15 – 10:30		Speakers’ Forum – Dinner and Cruise on the BayThis event will give participants an opportunity to interact with guest speakers and colleagues. This is an excellent opportunity to further develop professional networks with leaders in AAC and assistive technology from throughout the United States and other represented countries.