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Phelps Teaching & Consulting, Seattle, WA (2025)

Looking for help programming an AAC device from someone who will presume competence and is informed by adult AAC users? Looking for ideas of how to incorporate literacy into your nonspeaking child's day? Looking to improve your or your loved one's access to activities that they enjoy? My studies and jobs in technical support, education, speech-language pathology, AAC, literacy, and linguistics have given me the tools to explore problems and collaboratively implement solutions. I offer consultations and programming support for a wide variety of AAC and assistive technology tools, including Proloquo2Go, TouchChat, TD Snap, Grid, Proloquo4Text, and more. I am also familiar with multiple access methods and methodologies, including switch scanning, eyegaze, RPM, and S2C. Check out my YouTube channel for a few examples of custom pages and tools I have built for clients.

01/21/2023

Most students who spend their days in "special education" segregated settings do not receive robust literacy instruction. Instead of learning the decoding and encoding skills needed to read and write *anything*, they are usually stuck with "functional sight word" programs and symbolated text. This is especially true for students who primarily use communication modalities other than speech.

One of my clients was stuck in this situation, and her parents wanted more. They learned about the Accessible Literacy Learning (ALL) curriculum, but the materials felt a bit dry and generic. I worked to develop materials that they could use at home that would capture their child's attention by incorporating her interests.

This particular student loved "Pitch Perfect," Hello Kitty, travel, pink, and all things comical.

I'm sharing two examples of materials that I made especially for her which aligned with ALL curriculum's systematic literacy instruction.

This interactive PowerPoint worked on decoding CVC words in the context of a book with repeated lines: https://youtu.be/np2hst2Cnj4

This interactive PowerPoint worked on encoding (spelling) from a small field of letters (that grew to a keyboard as she solidified this skill): https://youtu.be/MQLyBngymKs

Are you looking for accessible ways to engage a student in robust literacy instruction? Contact me to see if I can help.

01/20/2023

Looking for help programming an AAC device from someone who will presume competence and is informed by adult AAC users? Looking for ideas of how to incorporate literacy into your nonspeaking child's day? Looking to improve your or your loved one's access to education or hobbies?

My studies and jobs in technical support, education, speech-language pathology, AAC, literacy, and linguistics have given me the tools to explore problems and collaboratively implement solutions. I love a good puzzle!

I offer consultations and programming support for a wide variety of AAC and assistive technology tools, including Proloquo2Go, TouchChat, TD Snap, LAMP, Grid, Proloquo4Text, and more. I am also familiar with multiple access methods and methodologies, including switch scanning, eyegaze, RPM, S2C, and gestalt language processing supports. Check out my YouTube channel for a few examples of custom pages and tools I have built for clients: youtube.com/

Image description: Two tablets placed side by side on a carpet. One tablet shows a page from a picture book with an illustration of a narwhal and a child. The other shows an AAC application (LAMP VI) displaying the home page. The message bar reads "If you are wondering about this mess right here, I did not make it. It was probably a narwhal or something. Wait. Did you say narwhal?"

01/19/2023

A few years ago, one of my clients, an AAC user with severe dyspraxia, came to me with a problem: They were learning about gas laws in high school chemistry, but their teacher had no clue how they could do the calculations without a pencil and paper.

This video shows the first draft of my solution: An editable spreadsheet that they could access with a touchscreen. It still required them to demonstrate their learning by choosing a formula, plugging in data, and choosing the correct operations, but it saved them energy and worked with the motor skills that they used to access their AAC device.

Check out a quick video of the tool here: https://youtu.be/mDwF4hv1z90

Following the principle of Universal Design for Learning, I encouraged the teacher to make this tool available to *all* students. It could benefit students who struggled with fine motor skills, executive functioning, working memory, or any of the other complex skills involved in solving these problems.

Do you or does someone you know run into accessibility issues that no one can seem to solve? Do you want to learn these skills yourself? Do you know how but can't find the time to prepare materials? Message me or email phelpsteaching@gmail.com to see if I might be able to help.

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