Q. Who is this learner of yours?
Abby is a 6 year old, 33 pound, Miniature Australian. She loves to play with toys and she’ll do just about anything for a treat. She’s very smart and extremely athletic. She is shy with strangers at first, but after a few minutes she warms up to them. She gets along well with other dogs and cats and she loves children. She has been using buttons for 4 years and now has 85 buttons.
Q. How long did it take for them to press their first button?
Less than a day. Abby’s first button was “Outside”. I modeled “Outside” a few times the first evening and once more the next morning. Then, I was in the kitchen making breakfast and heard “Outside” from the Living Room. I looked up and she was standing by the button looking at me. As soon as she saw me look up at her, she went to the back door.
Later that morning, I introduced 2 new buttons and she used them appropriately that same day. I added her 4th button that evening.
Q. What have the buttons revealed about your learners that you wouldn’t have known without the buttons?
Abby alerted me to an ear infection by pressing “Ear Ouch”. I looked at her ear and it looked fine, so I decided to just keep an eye on it. Later that day, she was shaking her head and scratching her ear. A vet visit confirmed that she had signs of a beginning infection.
Q. What do you do to ensure the buttons remain an engaging and positive experience for your learner over time?
The main thing is to remember to keep modeling the buttons and add new words when it is appropriate to do so. Also, I try to react or respond to all button presses, even if I think a press is accidental. It lets her know that she is being heard and it also reinforces the meaning of each of her words as well as their location on her soundboard.
Q. What’s your funniest button moment?
Here are a couple:
One day, Abby came walking in the room with her blanket draped over her back. We had no idea how it got there because neither of us put it there. She walked purposefully to her board and pressed “Blanket,” as if to tell us of her great accomplishment of getting that blanket draped across her back.
Another time, Abby pressed “Water Now” but I was running water in the kitchen and I only heard “Now”. I asked her “What Abby Want Now?” She ignored me, so I urged her, “Abby Talk More.” She walked to her board and pressed “Abby Talk Good.” Then she pressed “Water.” I didn’t discover that she had pressed “Water” the first time until later, when I reviewed our motion-detection camera footage that I keep pointed toward her soundboard. She let me know that she “talked good!”
Q. What’s your most surprising button moment?
My most surprising button moment was when Abby and I had a back and forth conversation lasting across 10 sentences/phrases. (5 from her and 5 from me.) Most of her phrases were 2 to 4 word phrases. She started by going to her board and telling me she wanted to talk. I pressed “Yes, Talk Now”. We had a back and forth conversation and when she finished, she simply pressed “No Talk”. I answered “Talk All-Done Now.” Most of our conversations are not that long!
Q. What challenges have you faced with button teaching?
Modeling. I can see that she begins to slack off when I slack off!
Q. How do you decide when to introduce a new word to your learner?
After her first 4 words, she was getting an average of 2 new words each week. Her first words were words that I wanted her to have and they were mostly words that she already knew when I spoke them verbally, but I also wanted to make sure they were motivating words for her. However, as time progressed, many of her new words got added when she showed me a need for a specific word. For example, she was using “Food Box” to describe her puzzle feeder, so I added the word “Puzzle.” During a research project conducted with UCSD this past summer, she loved her sessions, so I added the word “Training” to her buttons and she has asked for “Training” several times.
Q. How have buttons changed your relationship with your learner?
Other than the obvious benefit of allowing Abby to advocate for herself and have more control in her life, a surprising benefit is having the knowledge that when I speak to her using words with more of an abstract concept, such as time-related words, I know that she understands me, because she has used these words on her soundboard appropriately in context. This has led to me talking to her more and I have noticed that when I speak to her or anyone else nearby, she is listening to me.
Q. What advice would you give to others who are interested in teaching their learners to use buttons?
Patience and consistency. It’s not a matter of if your learner can learn to use buttons, it’s a matter of when. If you’re unsure, you can try out a starter set. Just don’t give up too early.
Every learner learns at their own pace.
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