CAAC News
Education Innovation Awards 2008
Alecia Samuels received a Certificate for Education Innovation from the University of Pretoria at an awards ceremony held on 10th of November 2008. This award acknowledges exceptional contributions to education innovation by staff of the University of Pretoria. She received the award in the category "Innovation in learning facilitation / teaching (teaching strategies and methodologies)" which looks at teaching that influence, motivate and inspire students to learn; and contribute to the development of independent critical thinking and scholarly values.
Prof Juan Bornman's paper at SANDTA
Prof Juan Bornman presented a paper at the SANDTA conference in Johannesburg on 24 October 2008 entitled The ICF as a tool to guide clinical reasoning and intervention for speech therapists
- The ICF as a tool...(375kb PDF)
Visit by President of ISAAC for 2009-2010, Mary Blake Huer
We were indeed fortunate to have had Dr Mary Blake Huer visiting the Centre for AAC from 6-10 October 2008 to discuss issues surrounding South Africa becoming a formal chapter of ISAAC. This would mean that the local associations, for example Interface, the different schools in the various provinces, training institutions like the CAAC as well as government departments would unify to in one voice that represents the needs of our country within the international arena of AAC.
The benefits of this move are quite clear as it will not only elevate the AAC activities in the country and give them more visibility, but will also bring with it more international support. The challenges will be to make sure that all parties feel equally welcome at the table without being deprived of what they have already established in this country.
This is indeed an important milestone for the AAC community in the country as it opens up new doors for support and international collaboration.
Let's go for it and prove that we can work something out that strengthens all the activities and initiatives in the country to the benefit of all the children, adults and families in need. That is afterall what the International Society for AAC stand for: Communicaiton for All!
Farewell, Prof. Alant
Prof Erna Alant, Director of the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) at the University of Pretoria, will be leaving the University to take up employment as the incumbent of the Otting Endowed Chair in Special Education at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA from January 2009.
She has served at the University of Pretoria in different academic positions for the past 24 years, and founded the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication in 1990. Since then, she has dedicated her efforts to building a world-class training and research centre focusing on different strategies that can be used to assist non-speaking people to communicate. These strategies include manual signs, communication boards as well as advanced technologies. She is presently President-Elect of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication.
During her tenure as Director, the team at the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC), University of Pretoria, won the Education Africa Presidential Award for Special Needs in 1990, and in 1998 Prof Alant received a Rolex Award for Enterprise for the work of the CAAC. She was also an Innovation Ambassador for the Innovation and Sustainability Awards.
"This is not an impulsive decision," Prof Alant said when asked about her future plans. "The CAAC team under my leadership has been preparing for this step for a number of years. I would like to spend the rest of my working career in strengthening international collaboration between developed and developing countries in the fields of disabilities and early childhood intervention, and in exploring innovative solutions for those living in poverty contexts. I believe that only by strengthening mutual understanding and sharing resources can we find sustainable solutions globally for dealing with the challenges facing families and young children."
Friends and colleagues saying goodbye at her farewell
Prof. Alant presented at IASSID Conference
Prof. E. Alant attended the 13th IASSID Conference in Cape Town on the 27 August where she gave a presentation. The presentation is entitled, "AAC intervention in Africa: How do we become more effective?". It is available for download below:
Dr Kitty Uys' presentations
Dr Kitty Uys attended the 13th Annual ISAAC Conference in Montreal, Canada which took place from the 1st to 8th August. It was there that she gave the presentations entitled, "Narrowing the gap" and "Dare to Dream". They can be viewed in pdf format below:
- Narrowing the gap(681kb)
- Dare to Dream(10mb) Very large file!
Dr Pat Mirenda's Workshop
Dr Pat Mirenda gave a 2 day workshop in the Senate Hall on Inclusion of children with little or no speech and Positive Behavioural Intervention which was attended by more than 100 professionals. She also gave a most inspiring Neville Cohen Memorial Lecture on the first day entitled AAC: Bridge over troubled waters.
Centenary Research Indaba
On Friday the 11th of April 2008, Ms Alecia Samuels and Ms
Michal Harty presented at the Faculty of Pretoria’s Centenary Research
Indaba, held on the Education Faculty’s Groenkloof Campus. This day
showcased both current research project of both post graduate students
and staff of the faculty.
If you would like to find out more about their presentations, click here to download the pdf
version.
ITWeb Technology Golf Challenge 2008
The CAAC was selected by ITWeb as their beneficiary organisation. As this partnership will be developed for long-term benefits the CAAC is very appreciative to be their selected charity organisation. The IT industry has much to offer people with disabilities and especially those who are using alternative method of communication i.e. voice output systems
At a golf day that was hosted by ITWeb on 4th of March 2008, they raised R100 000,00 for the FOFA project that is presented by the CAAC. This donation is the lifeline of the project as it has to rely on outside funding. The FOFA project is in its 4th year in 2008 and 8 young adults with sever communication problems attend a week of immersed training on communication competence so that they can become advocates for people with disabilities especially those with severe communication problems and expose them to opportunities in the labour market. Leadership qualities are also addressed during the training.
Thank you to Jovan Regasek, the CEO of ITWeb and his competent team.
For more information on ITWeb, please go to:
www.itweb.co.za/events/golfchallenge/2008
Fanie de villiers, Dr Kitty Uys (CAAC) and Jovan Regasek (CEO of ITWeb)
UNICEF's Knowledge Building Seminar
Alecia Samuels gave a presentation on an intervention programme developed by the CAAC - The Beginning Communication Package (BCP) at UNICEF's knowledge building seminar on Early Childhood Develeopment. You can download her presentation here.
AAC Awareness Week!
As part of the International AAC Awareness month, AAC users Zach Joubert and Francois Retief together with some of the young adults at Pathways school assisted, the CAAC in creating awareness of the event on campus by handing out bookmarks and flyers regarding AAC. International AAC Awareness month is an inaugural initiative of the International Society of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) which aims to highlight the needs and capabilities of children and adults who use AAC. Other participating countries include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, France, Finland, India, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Taiwan and the USA.
The impact of arts on creativity and development of people with disabilities
A research seminar was held on the August 20-21 just outside Göteborg, at Ågrenska, a well-known resource-centre of competence for lesser known disabilities in Sweden. A few select people who choose to work as associated partners will be involved in this project namely, Sweden (ShareMusic), UK (Ulster University), Portugal (..), Russia (..) and South Africa (CAAC).
The aim of the seminar was to start developing a proposal for project application for the 7th framework programme within the European Community. This programme has put a special effort on humanistic sciences and more specifically to understand the participation and representation of the citizen as well as to reflect upon contemporary definitions, perceptions ad practices of citizens in the context of the European Union.
As all the partners are working in the field of disability, we decided to look at the impact of arts on the creativity people with disabilities as well as their empowerment.
Back: Thomas Borsbo, Magnus Magnusson, Kitty Uys, Frank Lyons
Front: Adelinda, Sophia Alexandersson, Lia Kalinnikova