John Costello
John has been a Speech Language Pathologist in the Augmentative Communication Program at Boston Children's Hospital for 40 years and is director of the Augmentative Communication Programs. He provides clinical care to people with non-speaking conditions and is an adjunct faculty at Boston University. He founded the first of a kind full-time inpatient augmentative communication service in the ICU/Acute Care as well as the first dedicated full-time ALS AAC Program where he has focused extensively on voice preservation for those at risk of losing speech. John has lectured internationally on topics of AAC, and authored/co-authored articles/chapters related to AAC.
MY SESSIONS
AAC in hospital: Meeting the Needs of Patients who are Nonspeaking or at Risk of Losing Speech
The inability to speak when in the hospital can profoundly impact the quality of care and quality of recovery for patients in the hospital setting. Proactive intervention for those at risk of losing speech due to medical condition or planned medical procedure is critical to quality of care. Meeting the needs of patients who use AAC at baseline or who have an acute non-speaking condition is critical. But through all this, it is also important to support the emotional and psychosocial needs of children in the hospital. This session, highlighting the work of the Rachel Santiago, Meredith Sager and Juliet McCrate of the Children's Hospital Boston Inpatient AAC team, will provide an overview of service delivery and ways to start a program in your hospital. It will also highlight steps to be taken both at school and home to prepare someone using AAC to participate in their own care when in the hospital.