The purpose of this book is to offer medical, health, and social care professionals who work in acute, medical, long-term, or community care settings insights into the impact of dementia on an individual’s communication interactions and how augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies could enhance these interactions. The first half of the text sets the scene for understanding the nature of dementia and its impact particularly on an individual’s social and emotional life and their language and communication; the second half introduces AAC and what it offers as a set of techniques to support and maintain conversational autonomy in those living with dementia. Table of Contents: • Section 1: The nature and impact of dementia • A description of dementia • Social and emotional impact of dementia • Language and cognitive-communication assessment and approaches to intervention • Section 2: Interventions mediated through augmentative and alternative communication • Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) • Developing AAC interventions: A participatory assessment and intervention process • Communication partner AAC training and support • What everyone should know about dementia, AAC, and conversational partner training

Now more than ever, effective communication skills are key for successful patient care and positive outcomes. Arnold and Boggs’s Interpersonal Relationships: Professional Communication Skills for Canadian Nurses helps you develop essential skills for communicating effectively with patients, families, and colleagues in order to achieve treatment goals in health care. Using clear, practical guidelines, it shows how to enhance the nurse-patient relationship through proven communication strategies, as well as principles drawn from nursing, psychology, and related theoretical frameworks. With a uniquely Canadian approach, and a variety of case studies, interactive exercises, and evidence-informed practice studies, this text ensures you learn how to apply theory to real-life practice.

Emerging and currently available technologies offer great promise for helping older adults, even those without serious disabilities, to live healthy, comfortable, and productive lives. What technologies offer the most potential benefit? What challenges must be overcome, what problems must be solved, for this promise to be fulfilled? How can federal agencies like the National Institute on Aging best use their resources to support the translation from laboratory findings to useful, marketable products and services? Technology for Adaptive Aging is the product of a workshop that brought together distinguished experts in aging research and in technology to discuss applications of technology to communication, education and learning, employment, health, living environments, and transportation for older adults. It includes all of the workshop papers and the report of the committee that organized the workshop. The committee report synthesizes and evaluates the points made in the workshop papers and recommends priorities for federal support of translational research in technology for older adults.

The fourth edition of the foundational, widely adopted AAC textbook Augmentative and Alternative Communication is the definitive introduction to AAC processes, interventions, and technologies that help people best meet their daily communication needs. Future teachers, SLPs, OTs, PTs, and other professionals will prepare for their work in the field with critical new information on advancing literacy skills; conducting effective, culturally appropriate assessment and intervention; selecting AAC vocabulary tailored to individual needs; using new consumer technologies as affordable, nonstigmatizing communication devices; promoting social competence supporting language learning and development; providing effective support to beginning communicators; planning inclusive education services for students with complex communication needs; and improving the communication of people with specific developmental disabilities and acquired disabilities. An essential core text for tomorrow's professionals--and a key reference for in-service practitioners--this fourth edition prepares readers to support the communicative competence of children and adults with a wide range of complex needs.

The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) provides disability benefits through the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs. To receive SSDI or SSI disability benefits, an individual must meet the statutory definition of disability, which is "the inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity [SGA] by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months." SSA uses a five-step sequential process to determine whether an adult applicant meets this definition. Functional Assessment for Adults with Disabilities examines ways to collect information about an individual's physical and mental (cognitive and noncognitive) functional abilities relevant to work requirements. This report discusses the types of information that support findings of limitations in functional abilities relevant to work requirements, and provides findings and conclusions regarding the collection of information and assessment of functional abilities relevant to work requirements.

The U.S. Census Bureau has reported that 56.7 million Americans had some type of disability in 2010, which represents 18.7 percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population included in the 2010 Survey of Income and Program Participation. The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) provides disability benefits through the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. As of December 2015, approximately 11 million individuals were SSDI beneficiaries, and about 8 million were SSI beneficiaries. SSA currently considers assistive devices in the nonmedical and medical areas of its program guidelines. During determinations of substantial gainful activity and income eligibility for SSI benefits, the reasonable cost of items, devices, or services applicants need to enable them to work with their impairment is subtracted from eligible earnings, even if those items or services are used for activities of daily living in addition to work. In addition, SSA considers assistive devices in its medical disability determination process and assessment of work capacity. The Promise of Assistive Technology to Enhance Activity and Work Participation provides an analysis of selected assistive products and technologies, including wheeled and seated mobility devices, upper-extremity prostheses, and products and technologies selected by the committee that pertain to hearing and to communication and speech in adults.

This comprehensive text arms SLPs and other service providers with research-based strategies, supports, and technologies that improve outcomes for adults with chronic or acute aphasia.

Three Steps to Effective Intervention - A complete communication assessment and intervention tool

Recent advances in eye tracking technology will allow for a proliferation of new applications. Improvements in interactive methods using eye movement and gaze control could result in faster and more efficient human computer interfaces, benefitting users with and without disabilities. Gaze Interaction and Applications of Eye Tracking: Advances in Assistive Technologies focuses on interactive communication and control tools based on gaze tracking, including eye typing, computer control, and gaming, with special attention to assistive technologies. For researchers and practitioners interested in the applied use of gaze tracking, the book offers instructions for building a basic eye tracker from off-the-shelf components, gives practical hints on building interactive applications, presents smooth and efficient interaction techniques, and summarizes the results of effective research on cutting edge gaze interaction applications.

Individuals with disabilities often have difficulty accomplishing tasks, living independently, and utilizing information technologies; simple aspects of daily life taken for granted by non-disabled individuals. Assistive Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications presents a comprehensive collection of research, developments, and knowledge on technologies that enable disabled individuals to function effectively and accomplish otherwise impossible tasks. These volumes serve as a crucial reference source for experts in fields as diverse as healthcare, information science, education, engineering, and human-computer interaction, with applications bridging multiple disciplines.