Feeling frustrated with the lack of AAC implementation? Have you provided professional learning only to discover that what you shared is rarely put into practice? Training alone does not move the needle with AAC implementation. Communication partners need ongoing opportunities to practice new skills, receive feedback, reflect on their implementation, and develop confidence applying those skills in authentic interactions. The presentation emphasizes shifting service delivery models toward intentionally building the skills of the people who communicate with them.

In this highly practical session, participants will explore a systematic approach to coaching communication partners, including teachers, paraprofessionals, therapists, family members, caregivers, siblings, and peers, to support language development with AAC. Participants will learn how to identify and prioritize one meaningful communication-partner skill, establish a measurable baseline, create an achievable goal, and design a coaching cycle that builds that skill over time. Examples may include aided language stimulation, increasing wait time, appropriate prompting, asking fewer questions and making more statements, descriptive teaching, shared reading practices, and structured approaches such as MASTER PAL and RAAP.

Rather than simply explaining what someone should do, participants will examine methods for helping partners actually learn how to do it through demonstration, verbal rehearsal, role play, practice in natural contexts, observation, constructive feedback, and reflection. Participants will learn a practical Six-Session Coaching Model that provides a repeatable structure for moving from identifying a communication-partner skill to measuring meaningful growth. We will explore how video can establish a baseline, make progress visible, and support collaborative reflection; how coaches and communication partners can alternate between observing and implementing; and how repeated coaching cycles can help new practices become sustainable habits. The six-session structure turns coaching into a focused, observable, and measurable process. Rather than providing information and hoping implementation follows, coaches help communication partners see what they are currently doing, practice one meaningful change, reflect on their implementation, and collect evidence of their growth. Once success has been established with one skill, the coaching process can expand to another skill, context, or communication partner.

Participants will also practice the interpersonal side of coaching: building relationships, asking reflective questions, supporting partners in analyzing their own practice, and fostering growth without turning coaching into evaluation. Throughout the session, the emphasis is on starting small, achieving success with one salient skill in one well-defined context, and then expanding.

Participants will leave with a coaching action plan identifying who they will coach, the skill they will target, a goal for the communication partner, and a plan for putting the coaching cycle into action.

Arrive as a trainer. Leave as a coach!