Development of LAMP within the UK

Session

6.7

Practice Report

• • Andrea McGuinness (ATtherapy)

Summary

Language Acquisition through Motor Planning (LAMP) remains a relatively new approach in the UK but has been widely used in the US. This paper will present facts and figures about development of LAMP across the whole UK and Southern Ireland. There will be consideration of what has worked most successfully and hypothesis as to why. Included and for illustrative purposes there will be a short case study of a student using the LAMP approach. Included in the paper will be demographical information on clients using LAMP and quantative data around implemenation.

Method/Activities/Techniques

Collection of data of students using LAMP including number of students progressing beyond an initial short trial, reason for selection of therapy approach, training received, number of therapy sessions received to help support the approach, vocabulary selected and ongoing support. As the Center for AAC and Autism, a technique that will help us in our practice is to investigate successful implementation and develop strategies based upon this.

Results/Findings

Ongoing study to ensure data is most up to date as can be by the time the paper is to be presented. To date, we have been collecting the above information on known clients of ours and those of LAMP certified professionals (10 professionals). For this paper, we will be scoping wider and liasing with teams across the UK.

Conclusions

Inclusion and exclusion criteria for LAMP appears to differ widely between individual services and a more cohesive inclusive approach is required. As LAMP is dependent upon a high tech communication aid, this also influences decisions to proceed with implemenation. Ongoing support is a key element and abandonment or limited capacity to move on is higher where less support is is place.

LAMP is becoming more well known within the field of AAC and this is evident in numbers of individuals who have received training, number of LAMP certified professionals and different organisations throughout the UK. As a result of the findings, we hope to ensure increased continuity and increased interest within the LAMP approach for non verbal individuals requiring AAC.

Level of Session

General

Age Group

Child
Adolescent

Interest

Primary school
Secondary school
Special school
Further/Higher Ed.