"The CVES system has provided our patients with an easy and understandable way to communicate. Through this system, we have seen great progress and an increase in communication skills with many children." – M. Orsak, SLP

"CVES has made it easier for me to teach and train core words in the classroom. By marrying Picture Exchange with Core/Fringe words in one system, my students are better able to develop a functional communication system while learning basic concepts, sight words, and sentence structure. I also love the durability of the picture icons - they can handle pretty much anything."

– B. Wood, MHS, CCC-SLP/L, Chicago Public Schools

"CVES is a no tech solution with robust language. So different from PECS...and much better, IMO. Great for transitioning from no tech to mid-tech to high tech with consistency of icons, core, Fitzgerald key, and more." – B. Speaker-Christensen, SLP

"Thank YOU for creating this system. I think that there are so many amazing high-tech communication devices out there, but not so many low-tech options that are as complete and flexible as your CVES. You really have made a giant contribution to the AAC world, and I am grateful for your invention. The CVES really helps my daughter to focus on understanding and expressing communication without an electronic distraction. All in all, I think her understanding and expression of language is increasing with the CVES. She definitely wants to talk and interact with people more than she used to which is great to see. Thank you so much!" – W. Olberg, Parent

"This system is so functional...I absolutely love it! – SLP

"I've successfully used this with a kiddo who demonstrated success with a core word approach but had difficulty with attending to/activating/being motivated by anything high tech. He also had difficulty understanding communicative intent (clearly splinter skilled!). I thought this was a great step in teaching core vocabulary with some more "PECS"-like methods for teaching intent, etc. My hope was with some mastery of the core symbols and communicative intent, he'd ultimately transition to high tech!"

– J. Salley, SLP

"Since attending the CEU course for CVES at the TSHA Convention, we have begun incorporating the system into our clinic’s daily sessions. The response from each child and their families is INCREDIBLE. I have never had kids respond as quickly as they are now using CVES! One parent has seen so much success that she is ordering a CVES for her child to use in all environments. We have many different children using CVES, and it is amazing to see their increased ability to communicate, have their needs met, and their newfound independence. In fact, one of our non-verbal children began immediately verbalizing the pre-constructed phrases. He quickly moved into making various phrases himself and saying each word in the phrase. We believe that he is beginning to read the words on each CVES icon even though he isn't familiar with them. This child only scripted during sessions and never independently/spontaneously produced words or phrases for functional, purposeful speech until the introduction of CVES!” – Kate Permenter, MS, CCC-SLP, Beyond Words, PLLC

"I used CVES in my first-fourth grade cluster classroom for students who require moderate supports. I have a full class of 13 students; 4 students use a form of AAC to support communication (3 PECS users and 1 LAMP user), and the remaining 9 students primarily use verbal language to communicate but benefit from the use of visuals to support their messages. All have used core boards during small group lessons. I incorporated CVES in the context of small group academic and social lessons. Students used CVES to comment on a read aloud, answer questions, and describe illustrations. They requested preferred play items and direct play for example 'Want bubbles down' with CVES. Students also used CVES to tell how characters in a book felt or how the student was feeling. They also used social phrases in CVES during play activities like 'Wow,' 'Awesome,' and 'Yay!' When leading a CVES lesson, I used aided language stimulation with ease and students were very responsive to cues to use CVES as well. I am currently in week 4 of a 6-week literacy unit where we are focusing on writing. I'm incorporating CVES each week to model building sentences from the text we read or about the text. Students find a page in the text they'd like to write about. I find a sentence in the text, and we work together to construct the sentence using CVES. Afterward, I write the sentence on a whiteboard modeling sentence mechanics. By the end of the week, students are ready to copy the sentence from a model or construct their own sentences using a core vocabulary word bank. Overall, CVES has benefitted all levels of students in my classroom, and I see endless possibilities for future lessons that could incorporate CVES."

– S. Tabatsalis, LBS1-Mod/Aut(Int), Chicago Public Schools

Submit your Review