Augmentative & Alternative Communication: Supporting Children and Adults with Complex Communication Needs, 4th Edition. David Beukelman & Pat Mirenda. $93.50

As AAC use continues to flourish and new technology revolutionizes the field, tomorrow's service providers need current, authoritative information on AAC for children and adults with communication disorders. That's why David Beukelman and Pat Mirenda have revised and updated the bestselling AUGMENTATIVE AND ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION — the trusted, widely adopted graduate-level text on communication disorders and AAC. The foundational textbook for SLPs, OTs, PTs, teachers, and other professionals in clinical and educational settings, this fourth edition is a definitive introduction to AAC processes, interventions, and technologies that help people best meet their daily communication needs.

Readers will get a thorough overview of communication and AAC issues for people with specific developmental disabilities (including cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, and autism) and acquired disabilities (such as aphasia, traumatic brain injury, and degenerative cognitive and linguistic disorders). And with helpful photos, figures, and photocopiable forms, readers will be ready to collect and use important information on assessment, individual communication needs, classroom supports, and more.

Autism and the iPad: Strengthening Communication and Behavior. Brian Friedlander & Christine Besko-Maughan, $13.95 (laminated reference guide)

Students with autism often have two primary challenges that greatly affect their ability to learn: communication and behavior. The iPad has revolutionized the field of education, especially for students with ASD, due to the wide range of applications (apps) that address language development, augmentative/alternative communication (AAC), visual schedules, social stories, positive behavior reinforcers, and behavior data collection. This reference guide provides valuable information on these apps, as well as tips and strategies that will assist in promoting the successful implementation of the iPad in the education environment.

The Cartoon and Script Curriculum for Teaching Social Behavior and Communication: Using Visual Strategies to Support Behavioral Programming for Individuals with ASD. Vera Bernard-Opitz, $32.95

This easy-to-use book is designed to help children with ASD find friends, become better communicators, increase their flexibility, and live lives that are less stressful. Skills are presented in the form of cartoons, scripts and role play — all evidence-based practices — that address a wide range of developmental levels. This book breaks down complex behaviors into manageable steps and provides methods to help children and youth generalize skills across settings and people. The result: individuals on the spectrum become more effective in managing everyday life.

Enhancing Communication for Individuals with Autism: a Guide to the Visual Immersion System. Howard Shane, Jennifer Abramson, Kara Corley, et al, $63.95

How can you help children with moderate to severe autism become more effective communicators? Discover the Visual Immersion System (VIS), a practical, research-based intervention framework that taps into the strong visual processing skills many children on the spectrum have. You'll learn how to use readily available resources-from photos and symbols to apps and software-to create a customized system of visual supports that boost seven key communicative functions (see sidebar). For each of the functions, you'll get comprehensive how-to guidance on choosing tools and materials, conducting systematic instruction, collecting data, and assessing how well interventions are working. A must for SLPs, interventionists, and educators, the innovative VIS approach will ensure better communication and higher quality of life for children with autism. Why the VIS works:

• Uses visual supports, an approach that's proven successful for children with autism
• Strengthens communication skills needed for learning and meaningful human interaction
• Builds on evidence-based assessment and intervention procedures
• Incorporates a wide range of low-tech and higher-tech options
• Flexible — can be used in home, school, or community settings
• Provides clear, easy-to-use instructions on conducting interventions
• Includes guidance on generalizing new communication skills

Hygiene and Related Behaviors for Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum and Related Disorders: a Fun Curriculum with a Focus on Social Understanding.  Kelly Mahler, $29.95

Beyond showers and tooth brushes — this fun and ready-to-use curriculum stresses the role of perspective-taking and the social impact of good hygiene.

These interactive books for children have proven to be powerful learning aids for all beginning readers. The books are fun and rewarding for children with and without special needs. Each book utilizes the power of visual strategies so beginning readers can learn to associate pictures with words. Students move and attach picture cards with hook and loop fasteners to match, identify, label, sequence and create sentences while learning to read.

Interactive Reading Books have six levels of activities to work on, making them appropriate for a variety of students at different academic achievement levels. Instructions for use appear on the inside cover of every book.

How Many? • What Color Is It? • I Go to School • Things I Do At Home • Action: Verbs with Who, What and Where Questions • Sounds Good to Me: Phonics and the Alphabet • The Ups and Downs of Opposites • How Do I Feel? An Interactive Reading Book of Emotions

I Have Feelings Too! An Interactive Reading Book of Emotions for Teens, Adults and Seniors • What Happened and Why: Inferences and Reasoning Activities • Pigs in Space: Prepositions, Animals and Rhyming Words • Who’s On First: Sequencing • Meet the Word Family • Show Me a Sign: an Interactive Reading Book about Signs • What’s it For: Function and Categorizing • What Do I Do: Appropriate School Behavior • What Do I Say: Social Responses • What Do They Really Mean? An Interactive Reading Book about Idioms

Interactive Reading Software Library 1. Joan Green, $129.95

Interactive Reading Software Library 2. Joan Green, $129.95

These two software discs contain all 16 books of the popular Interactive Reading Book series. The software reads the books aloud with highlighted text and lets the student click on any word for identification. It features picture-to-picture and picture-to-word matching exercises with a speech recording option. Includes an easy-to-use management system that lets you select specific books and activities for each student to work on and stores their performance results. Windows only.

ISPEEK at Home: Over 1300 Visual Communication Images on CD-ROM. Janet Dixon, $61.95

ISPEEK at School: Over 1300 Visual Communication Images on CD-ROM. Janet Dixon, $61.95

The collection of 1300 picture symbols on each ISPEEK CD-ROM provides easy-to-use and enjoyable tools for overcoming communication difficulties in children with autistic spectrum disorders. Each CD-ROM also provides useful word templates to inspire teachers, parents and carers in putting together daily schedules, as well as PDF samples to assist them in setting up visual aids for children with autism, helping them to interact better with their home or school environment. These bright, contemporary and culturally various symbols will be a welcome communication aid for parents, carers and other professionals working with people on the autism spectrum at home and school.

• ISPEEK at Home contains symbols for a wide range of situations typically encountered in the home and beyond, from feelings and facial expressions to health, hygiene and holidays.

• ISPEEK at School can be applied to a wide range of situations typically encountered at school, from social skills to school curricula, work and break times. These are also suitable for parents and carers to use at home, covering the important themes of transitions and independence.

Learning With a Visual Brain in an Auditory World: Visual Language Strategies for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Ellyn Lucas Arwood, & Carole Kaulitz, $40.95

Children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often present parents and educators with perplexing symptoms. Even though the skills of children with ASD can range from very high to very low, they have similar underlying learning systems. Knowledge about these learning systems helps provide direction for choosing effective assessment and intervention methods for helping individuals with ASD learn to behave, to perform academically, and to become socially competent.

Literacy for Visual Learners: Teaching Children with Learning Differences to Read, Write, and Communicate. Adele Devine, $49.95

This book takes a fresh look at approaches to teaching reading, writing and communication skills. It presents a wealth of innovative ideas specifically designed to support visual learners, including those with autism spectrum conditions and special educational needs.

Some children are more responsive to visual stimulation than spoken words, and this book shows how to engage these children in literacy lessons by using strategies that cover everything from the latest assistive technology to getting creative on a limited budget. There are tips for sharing stories with children who find it hard to sit still, supporting reluctant writers, enabling the pre-verbal child to answer questions and helping the child who never stops talking to develop listening skills. The strategies are supported by practical resources, examples and case studies, to show how to instil in children the confidence to create and share their thoughts.

This is a must-have resource for special education teachers and coordinators, as well as speech and language therapists, looking for new strategies for teaching literacy.

Outsmarting Explosive Behavior: a Visual System of Support and Intervention for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Judy Endow, Foreword by Brenda Smith Myles, $43.95

Outsmarting Explosive Behavior is a visual model designed to help decrease, and in some cases eliminate, explosive behavior. Using a train metaphor, the parent/facilitator and student identify triggers, design positive interventions to prevent the “anger” train from leaving the station and preventing a car from moving further down the line. The three-piece package contains:

• a book for facilitators that explains the model
• a large poster-size visual showing the train model with ready-made parts that can be personalized
• a workbook for the individual with AS designed to draw out
• the personalized interventions that will make the model work.

Though designed to encourage participation by the person with explosive behavior, positive results are seen even when the model is implemented on behalf of someone unable to actively participate, such as nonreaders.

Picture Directions: Building Independence Step-by-Step. Pat Crissey, $71.95

Many students can perform activities independently by following picture directions. This reproducible book features 46 lessons divided into five categories: Cooking, Crafts, Life Skills, Play and Discovery. Each lesson features an illustrated "You will need" checklist plus step-by-step instructions—four to a page. Teacher Tips help you plan your instructional strategies.

The goal of this book is to teach students to follow picture directions in sequence, complete important activities independently and recognize sight words paired with the illustrations. Includes a CD-ROM with printouts.

A Picture's Worth: PECS and Other Visual Communication Strategies in Autism, 2nd Edition. Andy Bondy & Lori Frost, $26.95

A PICTURE'S WORTH is the PECS primer written by the developers of the Picture Exchange Communication System. It examines verbal communication development and how autism affects these skills, and shows how a child's poor communication skills can lead to problem behaviors. Providing communication options — PECS and the other augmentative and alternative communication strategies (AAC) — described in the book—reduces frustration and enhances learning.

This new edition cites research that proves PECS (and other AAC strategies) doesn't interfere with the development of speaking skills, and actually can provide a boost to the acquisition of these skills. Thousands of people with autism and other disabilities have benefited from using PECS. The book's complete set of introductory lessons makes it easy for parents and therapists to get started using this low-tech strategy to help young children through adults develop effective communication skills!

Practically Speaking: Language, Literacy, and Academic Development for Students with AAC Needs. Edited by Gloria Soto & Carole Zangari, $44.95

When K-12 students use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), what can SLPs and educators do to ensure the best academic and social outcomes? They'll find out in this accessible guidebook — every professional's key to helping students develop the language and literacy skills that lead to higher academic achievement and positive peer relationships.

Rising to New Heights of Communication and Learning for Children with Autism. Carol Spears & Vicki Turner, $24.95

The definitive guide to using alternative-augmentative communication, visual strategies and learning supports at home and school.

The Secrets in Their Eyes: Transforming the Lives of People with Cognitive, Emotional, Learning, or Movement Disorders, or Autism by Changing the Visual Software of the Brain. Melvin Kaplan, $27.95

Vision therapy techniques can correct not only visual problems, but also cognitive, emotional and physical difficulties. Based on the pioneering work of Dr Melvin Kaplan, this research-based book explains the basis of vision therapy, who it can help, and the outcomes it can bring.

Visual perceptual problems can cause an array of difficulties, from reading and writing, to issues with balance, clumsiness, and tunnel vision. Severe symptoms can lead to a diagnosis of anxiety, depression, learning disability or even autism. In this groundbreaking book, Dr Kaplan shows how these symptoms point to interventions that change the way that the eyes process information, permanently counteracting visual deficits and impacting on behaviour. Case studies demonstrate how to plan and implement visual management programs according to a patient's symptoms, illustrating the wide range of life-changing results that vision therapy can achieve for people of all ages, regardless of severity of symptoms. Dr Kaplan also shares his expert knowledge of ambient yoked prisms - a tool that transforms light to alter visual stimulation, dramatically transforming perception and cognition.

This accessible book presents readers — including parents and families, clinicians, and other professionals working with individuals with visual perception problems — with a comprehensive introduction to the benefits and methods of vision therapy.

The Social Skills Picture Book: Teaching Play, Emotion, and Communication to Children with Autism. Jed Baker, $51.95

Winner of an iParenting Media Award, this book uses photographs of students engaging in a variety of real-life social situations. The realistic format plays to the visual strengths of children with ASD to teach appropriate social behaviors. Color photographs illustrate the "right way" and "wrong way" to approach each situation and the positive/negative consequences of each. A facilitator (parent, teacher, etc.) is initially needed to explain each situation, and ask questions such as "What is happening in this picture?" Children role-play skills until confident enough to practice them in real-life interactions.

The Social Skills Picture Book for High School and Beyond. Jed Baker, $54.95

The Social Skills Picture Book for High School and Beyond offers parents and educators of teens (and young adults) photos of actual students engaging in a variety of social situations. This visual learning format shows, rather than tells, students the right (and wrong) ways to interact in different circumstances. The photos illustrate the positive and the negative consequences of social interactions in a wide variety of real-life situations that are important to teens.

Solving Behavior Problems in Autism: Improving Communication with Visual Strategies. Linda Hodgdon, $60.95

Communication and behavior are intertwined. Using visual strategies to improve communication can significantly improve behavior situations. This book is packed with lots of samples and examples of visual tools that have worked for students with autism spectrum disorders and others with moderate to severe communication or behavior challenges — including aphasia, brain injury, processing disorders and more.

Teach Me with Pictures: 40 Fun Picture Scripts to Develop Play and Communication Skills in Children on the Autism Spectrum. Simone Griffin, Ruth Harris & Linda Hodgdon, $35.95

An easy-to-use resource for professionals and parents, this book provides fun and practical ideas to help motivate and extend communication and play skills in children with autism with the support of pictures.

The book describes how picture scripts can help facilitate play and learning and provides 40 photocopiable scripts across a range of different activities such as drawing, cooking, using construction toys, imaginative play, arts and crafts, and life skills. Tasks are presented in small manageable step-by-step picture sequences and support a range of skills including following instructions, increasing independence, comprehension, story-telling and choice-making. Readers can print copies of the scripts from the CD-ROM that accompanies the book.

Technology Tools for Students with Autism: Innovations that Enhance Independence and Learning. Katharine Boser, Matthew Goodwin & Sarah Wayland, $53.50

Technology holds great promise for helping students with autism learn, communicate, and function effectively in the modern world. Start leveraging that power today with this forward-thinking book, your in-depth guided tour of technologies that support learners with autism and help them fully participate in their classroom and community. You'll learn about readily available technologies you can use right now, and explore next-wave innovations that will help shape the future of autism intervention. You'll also get critical guidance on how to select the appropriate technology for your needs, weave technology into a universal design for learning framework, and conduct effective professional development so teachers make the most of new tools and strategies. Explore the benefits of technologies like:

• apps for education, communication, behavior regulation, and more
• video modeling
• language processing software
• customized digital stories and book creator apps
• element cue supports
• emotional regulation and sensing technologies
• interactive learning software to improve feedback and metacognition
• visualization and mind mapping apps
• text-to-speech and speech to text software
• e-readers and tablets with integrated multimedia (e.g., cameras, microphones, etc.)
• electronic data collection forms for use with handheld devices

Transition Strategies for Adolescents & Young Adults Who Use AAC. David McNaughton & David Beukelman, $43.50

Combining the best research-based practices from diverse fields — including special education, vocational rehabilitation, and communication disorders — this essential resource covers every aspect of transition planning for young adults with a wide range of disabilities. Professionals will get the knowledge and strategies they need to help young people who use AAC to make a smooth transition to a fulfilling, self-determined adult life.

Video Modeling for Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: a Practical Guide for Parents and Professionals. Sarah Murray & Brenna Noland, $27.95

Video modeling takes visual learning to the next level by using new technologies to create an effective teaching tool. This book explains how professionals and parents can use innovative video modeling techniques to support the development of young children with autism spectrum disorders in school, home or community settings.

Offering practical step-by-step guidance, the book shows how to film and edit personalized videos that highlight the exact skill that is being taught. Whether the focus is increasing attention, peer interaction, getting dressed or creative play, these videos are easy to incorporate into daily routines. They allow the child to learn new skills quickly and with less hands-on adult support leading to greater independence. Three video modeling strategies are presented – Basic Video Modeling, Video Self-Modeling and Point-of-view Video Modeling – along with all the information needed for readers to start using the techniques for themselves. The research behind the approach is also discussed and each chapter includes detailed case studies that demonstrate the techniques in action.

Video Modeling: Visual-Based Strategies to Help People on the Autism Spectrum. Stephen Lockwood, $13.95

The key to helping your ASD child may be right in your pocket! Help your child to learn new skills and overcome existing barriers quickly and independently, regardless of age or ability. Video modeling is an effective method of teaching that uses recorded videos and technology. With repetitive and consistent exposure to video models, success stories include:

• A child who would not brush his teeth
• A teenager being acclimated to a new work environment
• A four-year-old who has not developed proper play-skills
• A child who would not engage with her teachers in class
• And so much more!

Learn how, using only your smartphone, to create educational and beneficial material to help learners with autism increase independence, facilitate learning, and improve quality of life.

Visual Strategies for Improving Communication: Practical Supports for School and Home, 2nd Edition. Linda Hodgdon, $60.95

This revised and updated edition of this bestseller is the most comprehensive book to explain the use of visual strategies to improve communication for students who experience moderate to severe communication challenges. It is full of easy-to-use techniques and strategies that will help these students participate more effectively in social interactions and life routines.

Visual Support for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Materials for Visual Learners. Vera Bernard Opitz & Anne Häußler, $49.95

This book offers practical ideas and teaching methods for using visual supports with students with autism spectrum disorders and other visual learners. With hundreds of colorful illustrations and step-by-step directions, this book lays the foundation for how to structure teaching environments, as well as offers countless examples of activities for students, ranging from basic skills, to reading and math, to social behavior.

Visual Supports for People with Autism, 2nd Edition: a Guide for Parents and Professionals. Marlene Cohen & Peter Gerhardt, $34.95

Visual supports — any pictorial, graphic, or scheduling aid — are excellent tools for teaching academic, daily living, and self-help skills to people with autism. This reader-friendly and practical book shows teachers, parents, and service providers how to make low-tech visual supports, and offers strategies for using them. The second edition includes expanded information about using visual supports with the youngest children, advice on fading supports, and updated photo examples of:

• activity schedules, calendars, charts, checklists & to-do lists
• color coding, flip books, graphic organizers, mnemonics, nametags
• photo boards, Power Cards, scripts
• Social Stories, video modeling

A new chapter covers high-tech options for visual supports (iPads, smartphones, etc.) and how to choose appropriate ones, and particular features that are good for people with autism. 

Visual Supports for Visual Thinkers: Practical Ideas for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Other Special Education Needs. Lisa Rogers, $52.95

Visual supports have been proven to be a highly effective way to communicate with, and teach, a student with an autism spectrum disorder or other learning difficulty. This book is packed with simple, effective tools to assist in the education of students with special education needs. They can be adapted to be used with young children and older learners with a range of educational needs, including nonverbal learners. Based on the author's years of teaching experience, the book covers how the classroom environment is laid out, how to use schedules and time planning aids, different education approaches and the teaching of social rules and appropriate behavior. All the visual supports are clearly explained alongside examples and photos showing them in use in the classroom. The supports are also included on the accompanying CD as blank templates.

Visual Thinking Strategies for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders: the Language of Pictures. Ellyn Lucas Arwood, Carole Kaulitz & Mabel Brown, $36.95

Visuals of all kinds (photographs, checklists, line drawings, cartoons, flowcharts, stick figures, etc.) are commonly used as supports for individuals on the autism spectrum who tend to think and learn visually. However, not all visuals are created equal and, therefore, visuals don't all work equally well. This companion to Learning with a Visual Brain in an Auditory World helps the reader understand how to match the developmental levels of pictures and visuals to the developmental level of the person looking at the visual. In this way, appropriate visuals provide the language development for children with autism spectrum disorders. Drawing from their experience with children and youth for decades, the authors also show how effective communication can help reduce the confusion and anxiety that often lead to behavioral outbursts.