ISAAC has, over the course of the past number of years, developed a significant capacity to host informative and well-attended webinars. This has been done in close collaboration with our friends and partners at both ISAAC-US (USSAAC), AAIDD and, more recently, ISAAC-Canada.
Webinars
ISAAC hosts many informative and well-attended webinars each year.
Registration for live webinars is open to everyone.
All webinars, unless otherwise indicated, are recorded and will be made available for later viewing. Most are archived for members only. You can see the members only archive here.
Become a member of ISAAC to watch all of ISAAC’s webinars!
Upcoming webinars
Vocabulary Instruction: What does it mean to know a word?
April 22, 2025
7:00 p.m. EDT
Presented by Erin Sheldon, M.Ed.,
Director of Learning Design at AssistiveWare
About the presenter:
Erin Sheldon earned her graduate degree studying the needs of students with significant disabilities included in regular classrooms. Erin is a literacy and vocabulary specialist and is Director of Learning Design at AssistiveWare. She has authored multiple book chapters, articles, and internet modules on AAC implementation. Erin is wildly enthusiastic about vocabulary instruction, so come prepared to think in exciting new ways about the power of word learning!
Webinar description:
Our field has often reduced vocabulary instruction to getting an AAC user to select the button for a word. But what does it mean to truly know a word? How do we build both receptive and expressive knowledge of words? How can an AAC system support rich word learning? And how can we support teachers and clinicians to implement effective, engaging vocabulary instructional routines?
Join us as we identify the elements of effective instruction and how to enact them in busy classrooms. Whether you’re working in the classroom, therapy room, or at home, you’ll leave this webinar with practical, ready-to-use ideas that can make an immediate impact on your students’ communication skills. Come help us explore how to give AAC learners true access to the vocabulary they need to thrive!
Moderated by: Karen Congram
Webinar objectives:
- Participants will learn about the research related to how children learn new words, concepts, and categories.
- Participants will learn about how vocabulary instruction research relates to learners who use AAC.
- Participants will learn strategies to help AAC learners to build their knowledge of words.
Time-ordered agenda:
5 minutes: Introduction of speaker and topic – Moderator
5 minutes: Objective and Overview – Moderator
5 minutes: Introduction of vocabulary instruction – Presenter
10 minutes: Review insights from research into how children learn new words, concepts and categories – Presenter
10 minutes: Discussion about how this research extends to children learning language through the unique properties of a symbol-based AAC system – Presenter
15 minutes: Routines designed specifically to help AAC learners build their knowledge of words – Presenter
5 minutes: Conclusion and Summary – Presenter
5 minutes: Q & A – Presenter and Moderator
Disclosures:
Speaker
Financial:
Erin Sheldon is the Director of Learning Design at AssistiveWare
Nonfinancial:
No disclosures to report.
To register for this webinar please go to the following link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__2xyBexsTJ6MNakTns9nTg
From Problem to Practice: One Example of an AAC Implementation Process in a Complex Educational System
April 30, 2025
7:00-8:00 p.m. EDT
Presented by: Lisa Erwin-Davidson Ph.D., CCC-SLP
About the presenter:
Lisa Ewin-Davidson is a speech language pathologist with a 25-year background as a clinical practitioner specializing in assessment and implementation of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) with individuals across the age span. She is an Assistant Professor, AAC Research Lab Director and Clinical Instructor at California State University, Fullerton, where she provides clinical education to graduate students and independent research project advisement to undergraduates. Lisa is completing a 5-year community-engaged project seeking to understand how contextual factors influence the success of AAC and literacy implementation efforts and identifying barriers and facilitators to adopting literacy-language interventions in school settings. Lisa earned her doctorate from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill within the Center for Literacy & Disability Studies.
Seminar description:
This presentation will focus on a “top-down” approach to initiating, implementing, and sustaining a five-year research-practice partnership project between higher-ed and local-ed. The utilization of an Implementation Process Model (Liu, 2020) provided a structure to (a) identify district needs; (b) identify classroom contextual factors that changed over time and influenced success of implementation efforts, and (c) identify barriers and facilitators that influenced district-wide efforts to adopt a comprehensive literacy curriculum that placed greater emphasis on using aided language systems (AAC) to access and engage with the curriculum
Moderated by: Nicole Gallagher
SLPs who are USSAAC/ISAAC members may have their participation in this webinar reported for ASHA CEUs at no charge. Non-members must pay a $25 reporting fee.
This course is offered for 0.10 ASHA CEUs (Introductory level; Professional area).
Participants will be able to:
- Identify the model(s) of implementation that sought to spread the adoption of a three-pronged intervention package across special education classrooms and scale up to full district adoption,
- Examine the contextual factors, including classroom educator attitudes, school-wide AAC knowledge, skills, and understanding of the range of AAC purposes for enhancing learner engagement, and
- Identify barriers and facilitators to adoption of intervention at the classroom level, and threats to project derailment at the district level.
Time-ordered agenda:
5 minutes: Introduction of speakers, USSAAC and topic
30 minutes: Share the process from idea to implementation
15 minutes: Share lessons learned and project reflection
5 minutes: Share thoughts on replication- what pieces of the process might be replicable in your setting?
5 minutes: Q & A
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) CEUs in speech-language pathology and audiology are awarded by the ASHA CE Registry upon receipt of the CEU Participant Form from the ASHA Approved CE Provider, USSAAC. CEU Participant Forms are available online at Registration or via the QR Code displayed during the presentation. ASHA CEUs are provided to full registrations. This program is offered for .10 ASHA CEUs (Introductory Level, Professional Area). Participants must stay for the entire presentation and complete the questionnaire at the end of the webinar.
ASHA Disclosures:
Speaker
Financial:
Lisa Erwin-Davidson receives internal grants and donations. She is a full-time and salaried faculty member at CSUF.
Nonfinancial:
Lisa Erwin-Davison is a member of USSAAC and ASHA SIGs
Moderator
Financial:
Nicole Gallagher has no financial disclosures to report.
Nonfinancial:
Nicole Gallagher is a USSAAC member and serves on the Education Committee.
To register for this webinar please go to the following link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QHb0-K5qSHu2cjsJhZnGQw
Please note: Only the first 150 attendees to log into the webinar will be guaranteed spots.
USSAAC EDUCATION COMMITTEE:
Betsy Caporale, Kate DeJarnette, Nicole Gallagher, Richard Hurtig,
Mili Mathew, Michelle Phillipy, Wendy Quach, Sharon Redmon
Challenges to Gestalt Language Processing
and Considerations for AAC
June 4, 2025
7:00-8:00 p.m. EDT
Presented by: Cheryl Fletcher, M.A., CCC-SLP, BCBA and Tiffany L. Hutchins, PhD
About the presenters:
Cheryl Fletcher is a licensed speech pathologist, Board Certified Behavior Analyst, holds a certificate in Assistive Technology Applications, and is a LAMP WFL certified professional (language and motor planning). She has over 30 years’ experience working with autistic clients and individuals with complex communication needs. She is certified in the Hanen Parent training programs and has run numerous programs for parents of children with communication delays. She has published and presented nationally and internationally on communication issues in autism and on AAC. She also provides independent educational evaluations (IEEs) for students, assessing their speech, language, social communication and AAC needs.
Dr. Hutchins has researched the relationships from parent-child interaction strategies to child language and social-cognitive development. Her work is broadly concerned with the social origins of language with the goal of understanding and supporting communication in neurodiverse populations. She has developed and validated new measures of social cognition that are widely used in research and practice and has investigated the efficacy of story-based interventions to support social cognition. Most recently, Dr. Hutchins examined the role of autobiographical memory in social communication and has designed translational practices to support its development and expression in autism. Dr. Hutchins teaches courses in the development of spoken language, psycholinguistics, and language disorders.
Seminar description:
In this presentation we review fundamental challenges to the notion of ‘gestalt language processing’ in spoken development. These include definitional and conceptual difficulties, assessment issues, theoretical problems, a lack of an empirical base, and the nature of the language support recommendations arising from the Natural Language Acquisition (NLA; Blanc, 2012, 2022) protocol. We then argue that the application of NLA to AAC demands caution: AAC must be respected as a different modality that presents different constraints and affordances compared to spoken language. This, in turn, gives rise to specific concerns for adding ‘gestalts’ to a device that may prove counter therapeutic. We will describe the considerations that drive our concerns while urging caution around the application of NLA protocol to AAC. We will also address those areas in which we may sometimes agree with the therapeutic techniques promoted by some NLA advocates.
Moderated by: Elizabeth Speaker-Christensen
SLPs who are USSAAC/ISAAC members may have their participation in this webinar reported for ASHA CEUs at no charge. Non-members must pay a $25 reporting fee.
This course is offered for 0.10 ASHA CEUs (Introductory level; Professional area).
Participants will be able to:
- Describe definitional and conceptual problems surrounding the term “gestalt” in its application to the NLA framework.
- Discuss the impact of the NLA approach on AAC systems and possible consequences of proposed preprogramming of systems.
- Identify evidence based therapeutic techniques that support language development in young AAC users.
Time-ordered agenda:
5 minutes: Introduction of speakers, USSAAC and topic
10 minutes: What is GLP? What are some challenges?
10 minutes: Where is the theory? Spoken language? AAC use?
10 minutes: AAC as a different modality and the constraints
10 minutes: The issues with adding gestalts
10 minutes: Q & A
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) CEUs in speech-language pathology and audiology are awarded by the ASHA CE Registry upon receipt of the CEU Participant Form from the ASHA Approved CE Provider, USSAAC. CEU Participant Forms are available online at Registration or via the QR Code displayed during the presentation. ASHA CEUs are provided to full registrations. This program is offered for .10 ASHA CEUs (Introductory Level, Professional Area). Participants must stay for the entire presentation and complete the questionnaire at the end of the webinar.
ASHA Disclosures:
Speakers
Financial:
Cheryl Fletcher received an honoraria for a workshop on the topic of GLP and AAC
Tiffany L. Hutchins has no financial disclosures to report
Nonfinancial:
Cheryl Fletcher has no non-financial disclosures to report.
Tiffany L. Hutchins has no non-financial disclosures to report.
Moderator
Financial:
Elizabeth Speaker-Christensen has no financial disclosures to report.
Nonfinancial:
Elizabeth Speaker-Christensen is a USSAAC member and on the Membership Committee. She is a LAMP Certified Provider and an adjunct professor at DePaul University.
To register for this webinar please go to the following link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9tWneviLQAC8sZq_1mG6ug
Please note: Only the first 150 attendees to log into the webinar will be guaranteed spots.
USSAAC EDUCATION COMMITTEE:
Betsy Caporale, Kate DeJarnette, Nicole Gallagher, Richard Hurtig,
Mili Mathew, Michelle Phillipy, Wendy Quach, Sharon Redmon
Information about ISAAC webinars
Important Update:
Beginning in January 2021, the majority of archived webinars will be moved to a new location in the Members Only area portion of our website. (A number of webinars will continue to be publicly available here.)
What this change means is that now only members will be able to access the majority of our archived webinar recordings.
Registration for the majority of upcoming new webinars will be available from within the Members Only area, and a valid ISAAC member ID number will need to be entered at time of registration.
It is our hope that many of the people who have benefited from attending or viewing our webinars will become members of ISAAC in order to continue to enjoy this significant membership benefit.
For information on becoming a member of ISAAC, click here.
Thank you!
Information on ASHA CEUs for USSAAC webinars can be found on the USSAAC website, here
To request from ISAAC International a hosted or sponsored webinar, please return this form-fillable PDF with details of your proposed webinar and preferred time slot, to franklin@isaac-online.org.
Please note: A copy of the form MUST first be downloaded and saved to your local computer prior to completing.
