Winter 2026 Newsletter

Welcome to the Winter Newsletter of Wisconsin AAC Network

Click here to view the newsletter in Google Docs: Wisconsin AAC Network – Winter 2026 – Newsletter

Lately I have been feeling so hopeless and I don’t want to do anything. Some of you might know that I lost my last grandparent in October. For me it has been so hard. I visited all of my grandparents a lot of times and when they were younger they would take care of me when I was off from school. I have amazing memories and experiences with them that I know that I will have for the rest of my life. I have been seeing on Facebook that some families don’t have the same support as my family did, so I would like to give some advice to families and professionals to help the family members understand the value of Communicator.

The first tip is educate, educate, and educate them on AAC. Like we do with new school professionals and any outside professionals, we need to educate grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins about how to talk with AAC Communicator. Talk about the importance of wait time and how the person uses their device.
The 2nd tip is letting family members use the device with the okay from AAC Communicator. Let them make sentences or sing a song, if the device has songs on it. The idea is family members will understand this is a voice, not a toy.
The 3rd idea is to talk about adults who are using AAC, show them the things that they are doing. My mom always tells new professionals that you need to show parents the end goal. If a child is only using one word sentence and grandma sees that, grandma might say awesome, but how will he interview for a job if he is saying one word. Grandma needs to understand that is the starting point not the end goal. Show them a YouTube video of someone who does use full sentences. And say this is what we are working on to get to.
The last tip is ask family members, hey do you want to talk to their speech therapist or teacher so they can tell you more about the device.

My grandparents are gone, but I have two parents, one brother, one sister in law, two nephews, one niece, two aunts, one uncle, and five cousins plus my AAC family. I feel love and I know I will always feel love. In this issue, you will find information on professional development organizations and special interest groups on assistive technology, ATIA reports, and my mom is back with an article.

Mike Hipple

Newsletter Content

Page 1 – Welcome message
Page 2 – Grandparents and the AAC Communicator
Page 2 – Introduction to Special Interest Groups
Page 3 – CEC, USSAAC, RESNA
Page 4 – ASHA, AOTA
Pages 5&6 – ATIA Conference Recap
Page 7 – Minnesota STAR Resource for AAC Considerations & Disability Advocacy Day in Madison (March)

Grandparents and the AAC Communicator

Mike was very lucky to grow up with all four of his grandparents living close to him. They were so excited to be a part of his life. They did not treat him differently because of his disability; they spoiled him because that is what grandparents do. Grandparents do not have to juggle therapy and work or decipher an IEP. They love, encourage, give lots of praise all in an unrushed manner. Mike’s grandparents did things to promote his language development. Two favorites were sending him letters that I read to him and they encouraged him to use his device to write back. At first it was just a word or two but that is ok because it all builds language skills. Another favorite was Grandma Judy’s phone call on Saturday mornings during breakfast. They had a system where he would have a few things about his week prerecorded in his device and she would then ask questions that could be answered with one word or yes/no. This built conversational turn taking skills in addition to language skills. These both can be done whether grandchildren live near or far. See list for other ideas.

State a crazy sentence and have your grandchild do the same
Play “the device says” by having your child pick a verb and have grandparent act it out
Tell a story about their mom or dad and have them add it it
Play a board game like “Guess Who” or “Candyland”. Mike learned additions skills by playing blackjack with Grandpa Ron
Look at picture album books and ask your grandchild what they think was going on in picture
Have them watch you bake or cook, spell out ingredient name on their device

Just use your imagination and treasure the memories you are building for both of you

Sue Hipple

What are special interest groups and why does it matter for communicators, their family & professionals?

This issue is full of information about special interest groups, but we know a lot of families get our newsletter and you might not know what these groups are and why it matters to you. Every professional organization such as CEC, ASHA have special interest groups for people who work with students and or adults and they want to talk with colleagues. It is likely that they have a daily message board for members to ask questions and or to brainstorm ideas to help them with a problem. I know for me, it has been so helpful for me, because a lot of the time I learned something from the discussion. I am a part of 5 special interest groups on a variety of topics such as assistive technology and behaviors. Most of them have a journal and or do a quarterly newsletter.

Families, we are letting you know this, because we hope you understand that AAC/assistive technology is everyone’s job. AAC/AT is everyone’s responsibility and professional organizations understand that. I think that is key for families to understand. Let’s say I am working with a client and their school team on using their device. I know that we all have different styles and skills to help this student to have a meaningful life. I hope parents are willing to work with anyone on your child’s communication skills.

To young professionals that might be starting your career, I know joining an organization could be expensive and joining special interest groups, but I believe that it is so worth it.

Please take a look at these organizations and their special interest groups below:

CEC – Council for Exceptional Children Topic Groups

CEC is the national society for special education. CEC has 18 special interest groups on a variety of topics such as Learning Disabilities and the Arts for people who have a disability. AAC related special interest groups are Communication, Language, and Deaf/Hard of Hearing, and Innovations In Special Education Technology {ISET}. Both are phenomenal groups to be a part of. ISET is a little bit more active these days. One more special interest group that CEC has is Complex and Chronic Conditions, The Division for Physical, Health and Multiple Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children (CCC-DPHMD). They look at children with Complex or multiple disabilities in the school setting and in the hospital setting to make sure that they are getting the right and appropriate education. They do studies to find out what works the best for these students. LINK to CEC Website

United States Society of AAC (USSAAC)’s new website is here

We hope you had time to check out the new and cool website for USSAAC. They put in many many hours to build a new website for our community. They were all volunteers that tried to build a website for all the stakeholders, which was a huge project. We know when we were building the Network’s website, we had someone build that for us and still it took around a year to build the website. Please make time to visit this and we would like to say a huge thank you to the team of amazing volunteers. LINK to USSAAC Website

RESNA – Rehabilitation and Engineering Society of North America

RESNA (Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America) is an organization that encompasses many professions including engineers, educators, therapists, vendors and consumers of assistive technologies. RESNA considers themselves the premier professional organization dedicated to promoting the health and well-being of people with disabilities through increased access to technology solutions. It serves as an interdisciplinary association for professionals in assistive technology (AT), rehabilitation engineering, and related fields. The RESNA Assistive Technology Standards Board (ATSB) coordinates the development of voluntary consensus standards in the United States and represents the needs and views of U.S. stakeholders in international standardization forums. RESNA has several divisions including Access & Communication Technology. RESNA maintains the testing standards for the ATP (Assistive Technology Practitioner) certificate, as well as certifications for Seating and Mobility Specialist and Rehabilitation Engineer Technologies. LINK to RESNA Certification Website

ASHA (American Speech, Language & Hearing Association)

(ASHA) is a national professional and scientific organization that provides credentialing for over 241,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and hearing scientists. Its mission is to advance science and set professional standards to ensure that all individuals with communication disorders receive quality, evidence-based care.

As of December 2025 ASHA ended its Special Interest Groups. In their place are ASHA’s Topic Focused Communities. There are several communities that may be of interest to those involved with AAC including: Language Learning & Literacy, Neurogenic Communication Disorders, Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Culture Language and Identity, Geriatric Practices, School-based Professionals, and Telepractice and Technology. LINK to ASHA Topic Focused Communities

Okay, it is the truth time. The Network does not have an occupational therapist on the leadership team and this will be guessing which special interest groups are for AAC/assistive technology. We have been searching for one since Mike started the Network in 2015. We are sorry if we miss anything. If you are an occupational therapist and might be interested in serving on the leadership team, please feel free to connect with us. They have a community on assistive technology under the work and industry Special interest group. This group has been driven by members wanting a group on assistive technology. They have a group on sensory needs. To learn more about the ATOA and their special interest groups and their community of practice groups, please visit their website.

LINK to LINK to AOTA Special Interest Sections.

From OTs, Elisa Wern & Judith Schoonover – a new OT AT Community – If you are in the occupational therapy profession….please check this out. We are actively working with AOTA on the creation of a Community of Practice that is centered on Assistive Technology! One of the elements is data that this is something that the people (other than the organizers) want….

What does this look like?

Monthly virtual meetings with topics generated by participants, an AT Support group for OTPs!

Discussion board within the CommunOT space

Resources shared and developed for the community, by the community

I have heard from many people during conversations that they are interested…but please take a moment to complete this interest form at https://bit.ly/aotacopat or via the QR code in the image.

ATIA Conference

Assistive Technology Industry Association better known as ATIA conference is one of the biggest assistive technology and special education conferences in the world.

You can still participate until April 30 in the Virtual ATIA event in 2 ways

Register at ATIA Virtual Event that includes over 25 recorded sessions in all of the speciality tracks.
There are over 30 FREE recordings that you can access on the ATIA Website. These are FREE Company sponsored sessions that you can watch at ATIA FREE Session Bundle Registration .
All will be available until April 30, 2026, some recordings will continue to be available on the ATIA Learning Center.

We would like to talk about the wonderful workshops that we each went to over the three days.

Mike and Sharon went to the workshop called making your own chatbot. With the popularity of AI, why not make your life easier by building a chatbox for telling your AAC Communicator or AAC Communicators in your life how to ask a good question, how to write a paragraph, or something they enjoy doing. If they are older, let them build one themselves on a topic they know a lot about so they can feel important and in power. Maybe they want to build one on their favorite TV show or something they like a lot. It is really easy to do! First decide on which program that you and they want to use, then pick a question that they want to work on, then search for information about the topic on the internet, then paste the information in the chatbox, then you are finished. Hey middle school and high school professionals, I think this would be an excellent and age appropriate activity to work on. I hope everyone might consider exploring it.
Kentucky has a very very cool program for students who have a disability to explore job opportunities and work on life skills through VR. With this program students could see three different types of employment opportunities from their classroom. They also tried life skills, it was an amazing to see. Please check out UDL 3.0. They have some interesting new information on how to educate everyone with and without disabilities. You can read a blog post about it here. LINK to Readability Matters – CAST new UDL Guidelines
Google updates are on Google maps. You can see what accessible places are near you, you can change your background to what your vision needs, and you can read documents easier on a reader.
These updates are important to the AAC community because they will make lives easier for people who use AAC. The Tobii Dynavox company did and are doing a study on the Impact Of High Tech AAC: Societal and Economic Insights from a Multi-Country. Okay, I am trying to write this in a way that parents and professionals will understand, but it is hard to explain, so if you want to know more about this amazing and important study please email the network. They did this study in Germany and Sweden and they are doing this in the United States right now. The study looks at how high tech AAC benefits people, their family members and their support network, and the society at large. They want to know if using a device benefits them VS people who don’t use a device and how this impacts on the economy and family members. I took the United States survey and I hope you will do this too. https://web.norstatsurveys.com/survey/selfserve/53c/25051588#? Two things that I found to be interesting from the findings from Germany and Sweden are the low percentages of use there, but for people who use a device they reported that their life is two times better than before!! Well, that is it from me. (Mike Hipple)
- You can watch this session presented by Bethany Diener FREE at LINK to TobiiDynavox Session

Important FREE ATIA Lecture that you can watch now!

The Prentke Distinguished AAC Lecture:

Mateo Moreno’s Lecture Title:

Stories from the Kid with a Talking Box: The Vital Role of AAC Users in Educating Peers about AAC and Inclusion

Link to viewing the recording

(From Mike) Hey Kelly, Abbey, and Sharon how was Florida and did you actually go to the conference or you were in the pool?
- (from Kelly Fonner) I appreciate Mike’s humor, as I know that he understands how busy we all are at the conference. For myself, the conference begins during the 1.5 days of preconference sessions when presenting the AT Bootcamp along with colleagues from NB, IL, and NJ. It’s always great to see how many new people are entering the field of assistive technology. During the main conference, I’m busy with responsibilities of my role as an ATIA Strand Advisor, including moderating some of the recorded live sessions. I also present with colleagues, including Donna McNear, who is a vision specialist working with individuals who are blind, visually impaired and deaf/blind. We presented on the CEC & ISTE standards for paraeducators that coincide with Access and Communication Technologies. It is one of the recorded sessions in the virtual package. Find out more about CEC and ISTE on earlier pages of this newsletter. I also anchored the presentation from QIAT Conversations: Quality Indicators in Assistive Technology and presented a session that celebrated 30 years of Joy Zabala’s SETT Framework with colleagues, Judith Shoonover and Elisa Wern. this session is also in the recorded virtual sessions. See information on Judie & Elisa’s OT AT forum above. We also attended the USSAAC Meeting & I was surprised with my Brazilian Colleague & Presidente ISAAC Brasil, Mariane Alves Graciano! Who I had no idea was coming to the US. My ATIA experience always rounds out with trying to get in as many sessions, poster presentations and exhibitor booths as time allows. And the best part, mixing with colleagues, new and old, at the Friday night EdCamp Access, where we can all pick our own topics and have a chat, not a formal presentation.

Minnesota STAR Resource for AAC Considerations

The Minnesota STAR Program is pleased to offer a comprehensive, free AAC Consideration Toolkit designed for Minnesota IEP teams and educators serving students from pre-K through high school. While developed in Minnesota, these resources are designed for national application to help school-based teams systematically explore Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) options.

This toolkit provides a structured 8-week framework to guide teams through feature matching and informed decision-making. Key features include:

The AAC Guidebook: A step-by-step manual for the consideration process.
Streamlined application: Adapted SETT Forms for an informed start.
Trial Resources: Guidance on a range of AAC devices, symbols, and vocabulary selection.
Implementation Tools: Ready-to-use activity ideas and data tracking sheets.

While the AAC equipment in the toolkit is only available for Minnesota IEP teams, all of the accompanying resources are available for immediate download at the Minnesota STAR website: https://mn.gov/admin/star/resources/aac-consideration-toolkit/

Disability Advocacy Day – Madison, WI – 3/19/26

We hope that you can join the disability community in Madison, Wisconsin on March 19th 2026. It is an opportunity to advocate to your state legislators on what you need to be successful in life. 2026 is an important year in Wisconsin, we will be electing a new governor and legislators. They need to hear about the AAC’s needs and hopes for our community.

Please register at Disability Advocacy Day REgistration Link There is NO onsite registration

AGENDA AT A GLANCE:

9:00: Check in: There will be opportunities for storytelling. Resource gathering from 9-10:30. Monona Terrace, One John Nolen Drive, Madison
10:30: Briefing on Survival advocacy priorities, planning time and lunch
12:15: Rally at the State Capitol Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd entrance (3 blocks away)
1:00-2:30: Attend Legislative visits
2:30-3:30: Check out and debrief after your visit at the Capitol

Event Reminders:

Participants support Survival Coalition’s mission to maximize community inclusion for all people with disabilities.
Participants must attend the 10:30 a.m. briefing at the Monona Terrace Convention Center.
Attend your legislative visits at the scheduled time with your group.