Supporting Autism Communication in Schools with Kinephonics
School
Overview
- Organization: Joseph Varga School
- Location: Randwick, NSW
- User Type: Special Education School (Educators, Students,)
- Timeframe: October 2023 – Present (ongoing, extended for 3 additional terms in 2025)
- Number of participants: 8
Opportunity
Joseph Varga School supports students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through a specialised education approach. The need for individualised speech and language support prompted exploration of assistive technology tools that could complement traditional intervention while fitting into a structured classroom schedule.
Impact
“JVS has trialled Kinephonics for 1 year & have found it a very useful assistive communication technology. Each session is tailored individually to engage and scaffold communication potential and importantly acknowledges and incorporates important body movement factors that students are displaying (that can be easily ignored by adults). The students have enjoyed the sessions and based on some pleasing results we will continue it next year.”
JVS School
— Principal, Joseph Varga School
Goals
Each student’s goals are individualised and collaboratively developed with the teacher and school Principal. Goal areas include:
- Speech (vowel shaping)
- Social communication (e.g. responding to yes/no questions, self-advocacy, asking questions)
- Emotions (identifying and expressing feelings)
- Reading fluency (e.g. reading stories and personal recounts aloud)
- Literacy (e.g. syllable counting, spelling, writing, reading comprehension)
Solution
Kinephonics is used weekly alongside traditional Speech Pathology services, tailored to meet the school’s routines and student needs.
Implementation Highlights:
- 1.5-hour weekly sessions by a Kinephonics Speech Pathologist
- 1:1 therapy delivered for 15–20 minutes per student (4 students per week, 8 students total)
- Sessions occur just outside the classroom with available support from staff
- Use of low-tech AAC (e.g. Yes/No boards, emotions boards) integrated into sessions
Key Features Uses:
- Entrainment Tool (Mirror, K button, text box): used for shaping speech patterns and reading aloud with visual/audio feedback
- Content Library: structured tasks for literacy, reading, social communication
- Personalised Content: tasks centred on the student’s interests and personal experiences that can be adapted to the students communication method within session (e.g. excursions, favourite games, favourite songs, classroom activities).
- Review Space: used by the clinician to document session progress notes
- Reporting: clinicians submit termly reports (½–1 page/student) with goals and progress
- Village: close communication with teachers and the Principal allows for collaborative goal setting and tracking
Results
- Students are actively engaged and responding well to individualised sessions
- Improvements in students’ ability to express basic needs and feelings in sessions.
- Evidence of increased confidence in reading aloud and participating in class
- Ongoing use approved with extension into 2025, reflecting satisfaction from educators and leadership
- Students used a range of communication types including speaking, AAC (e.g. Proloquo2go), gesture, vocalisations and visual aids whilst using the platform.
Outputs
Insights & Learnings
- Kinephonics complements in-classroom therapy with structured, engaging tools
- Students responded well to the multimodal platform as it could be adapted depending on their communication abilities.
- Collaboration between SLPs, teachers, and leadership is essential to success
- The platform supports structured documentation, important for school tracking and funding reporting.
- The platform tracks a student’s body movement and the readability score of the content in the text box. This provides additional insight and metrics into how the client develops over time and across different session goals and outcomes.
Waiting for a speech therapist?
Start practicing now & share your data with your therapist
Getting access to a speech pathologist can take weeks or even months. Kinephonics can help bridging that gap.
With therapist-approved tools and built-in tracking, the platform helps individuals begin learning straight away. And when your appointment arrives, your speech pathologist will have detailed reports and insights to hit the ground running.
2 min setup