Serve and Return is a term researchers and practitioners use to describe the back-and-forth communication we experience when we interact and respond to one another. It is essential in early development, and starts the first time your infant locks eyes with you and you smile back. The infant locking eyes with you is the serve – the opening of a communicative chain- and you respond to the infant’s communication attempt with a smile – the return. This simple interaction – two way, reciprocal communication – is where children start to learn patterns from their environment. It is where the neurons in the brain start forming connections with one another, based on the repeated discoveries of “when I smile at mommy she smiles back.”
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Pete the Cat…
Joey loves Pete the Cat.
Who doesn’t? Pete has bright colors, fun songs, and predictable story lines. With Pete it’s all good.
I am three years old!
I am three years old. I am three years old. I am three years old.
There is a button on Joey’s AAC device that he can select and it will give us that phrase. I am three years old. When Joey finds this button, he hits it over and over again.
Books and the AAC Device
Since Joey loves books, it was only natural that we’d want to use books and interactive read alouds to help him learn to use his Augmented Alternative Communication (AAC) device. Joey began using the device in December, and we initially struggled to find ways to motivate him to use it since prior to using the device he had developed a way to communicate that was working out pretty well for him. One way we were able to model how to use the system, encourage him to use it, and introduce new core words was through his interactive read alouds .
Caps For Sale
Joey gave me one of his huge, award-winning smiles when he saw me pull out my Caps for Sale book kit for the first time. It was clearly a book he was familiar with. I love this book, and I’d been waiting for the right moment to use it with Joey.
