Accidental & Experimental Presses
Accidental and experimental presses will be the first types of presses your learner will make. Here we explain how you should respond to them.
Before you start
By accidental presses we mean any press that you don’t think your learner meant to make.
When you are starting out, this will be every press your learner makes. It could be because they are playing and accidentally run over a button, or step across the board on their way through the room.
Experimental presses are when your learner has deliberately pressed a button, but doesn’t understand what will happen when they press that button. That might be because they don’t yet understand how communication buttons work, or because that particular button is new to them.
Respond to all presses as if they are intentional
It’s so important that you treat all accidental presses as if they are intentional. Accidental presses are great teaching aids, and treating all presses as intentional is a key way we show our learner that pressing buttons means something.
We love this rule because it solves one of the number one questions teachers of beginners ask: “How do I know if my learner’s press was intentional?” Great news! It doesn’t really matter, because you’re going to treat it exactly the same regardless.
Feeling stressed out because you’re not sure if your if your learner is “getting it”?
Treat every press as if it’s intentional, and relax!
If you bring any of that stress to the soundboard your learner will pick it up - so chill, take a bath, treat yourself to a hair mask.
More about responding intentionally
The best way for learners to learn button placement is to see the consequences of their presses. That happens when teachers are consistent and follow through with the action related to the button pressed (or give appropriate acknowledgment like saying “love you too” back to a “Love You” press and giving their learner some love), instead of second guessing their learners (such as responding to that same “love you” press with “Oh you must need to go outside”). Buttons need to have clear consequences and words need to have clear meanings. The other really key thing we think makes a big difference at this stage is when learners get a positive reaction to all and any engagement with the board.
If you only listen to presses when you expect or want to hear that word, you’re stifling that communication. You’re also missing a key teaching opportunity, as you’re not showing your learner that buttons mean specific things. Your learner needs to understand that when a button is pressed, the action or activity relating to that word will happen reliably.
If you have the word “Ball” for example, then every time the button is pressed then the ball should appear and you should play with the ball, even if that’s only for a minute or two.
In the early stages we advise saying yes as much as possible, but you can use your word for “All Done” to set boundaries in times that it’s not practical.
So imagine it's clearly dinner time, and your learner hits “Play”. You might think your learner meant to say “Food”, but Instead of making that assumption, ignoring their press and giving them food, or, saying "No, press food" (you should never ask your learner to press a specific button) you should say, "Oh, you want to play? OK, let's play." It doesn't have to be a long play session, but you should offer to play. Then after the play session is done, you can model “Food” and feed your learner. That’s how your learner will understand that they need to press different buttons to get different things.
Play means play guys
Sometimes this will be annoying
Yes, it’s definitely annoying to go back outside for the 5th time in 20 minutes when you know your learner just hasn’t figured out how the buttons work yet or you think they really want something else. But this stage isn’t forever, and it’s worth it to push through it. You don’t want to shut your learner down when they’re testing out a new word. It’s important that you take as many opportunities as you can to demonstrate that word so they figure it out faster and learn how to use it appropriately. Try to focus on the fact that every press is a chance to model.
Experimental presses
Experimental presses can happen at any stage. New learners who are figuring out how buttons work will probably experiment a lot once they understand how to press buttons. They are also common with new buttons or when a teacher has made changes to the board.
Treat experimental presses as deliberate and be careful to respond in a way that is consistent with the meaning behind your button, so they are off to the best start in understanding what their new word means.
When teachers change their button type they will often find their learners go through an experimental phase - remember that communicating with buttons is not a natural behaviour for your learner and they will need to re-learn that these buttons too are a communication device they can use, so go back to your foundations, expect what feels like some regression at first, be patient, don’t make any other changes while they settle in, and do lots of modelling on the soundboard.
Have an open mind
There’s no stage you will reach at which everything your learner presses is 100% clear and intentional (at least we’ve never seen it!), but they have limited words and a lot to say, so while you should be open to presses being accidental or experimental, do think as widely as possible about what things mean to your learner rather than automatically assuming that if their presses don’t fit your meaning they didn’t have a clear meaning to your learner either - they might be more creative or observant than you give them credit for.
Takeaway points
Accidental presses are a good thing and a really useful opportunity for teachers.
Remember:
Don’t ignore presses.
Respond to all accidental presses as if they are deliberate.
Keep responding to accidental presses when your learner is fluent, and remember that they will benefit from a reminder of the fundamentals every time there is an addition or change to their board.
