2027 AAC Early Starts Conference
The only FREE, LIVE, ONLINE conference entirely devoted to enhancing early intervention outcomes for children with complex communication needs, from birth through 8 years of age.
The theme of this year's #AACES conference is: "Making AAC Work: From Access to Participation, Connection & Life.
The #AACES2027 Live Conference will take place February 11-13, 2027 .
Call for Presenters
The AACcessible board invites you to participate in the sixth annual AAC Early Starts (AACES) Conference, a collaboration with the global AAC community to offer practical, evidence-based, online learning opportunities for professionals and families supporting children ages birth through eight years with complex needs. Professionals across disciplines and AAC users, parents, and partners are invited to submit proposals to present a live webinar for this three-day event. Contribute your knowledge and experiences to improve AAC-related service delivery in the early childhood setting and support the non-profit mission of AACcessible Foundation - empowering professionals, communicators, and families on their AAC journeys through awareness, advocacy, education, and action!
start here to submit
Within this Call for Presenters document, you will find full proposal details and are encouraged to review all information before submitting a proposal.
You can review the call for presenters proposal page in full or jump to specific sections of interest using the buttons below.
submission schedule
The AAC Early Starts (AACES) Conference Call for Presenters opens on August 24, 2026, and closes on December 1, 2026. Notifications of acceptance/non-acceptance will be emailed to all applicants no later than December 15, 2026. Upon acceptance, presenters will be contacted via email to organize presentation timelines. Presenters are invited to submit more than one proposal if interested in offering a series of presentations or more than one presentation topic. Presentations will be scheduled between 9:30 AM and 6:00 PM Mountain Time on February 11, 12, and 13, 2027. Presenters will be prompted to choose one or more days and times within the proposal application, and all efforts will be made to honor requested presentation timelines when possible.
We know how much time, talent, and effort go into putting a quality presentation together! We appreciate your dedication to the field and your willingness to give us the gift of your time and talents. As a gesture of gratitude, all accepted presenters will be granted free on-demand access to the conference session recordings and CMH/PDH/ASHA CEU opportunities.
THANK YOU, AWESOME AAC VILLAGE, FOR MAKING #AACES2027 POSSIBLE!
our gift to you
theme & topics
The theme for this year's AACES conference is "Making AAC Work: From Access to Participation, Connection & Life". We welcome sessions on a wide range of topics, but will give special consideration to those that focus on topics related to the conference theme.
About This Year's Theme
AACES 2027 explores the question: What does it take to make AAC truly work in a child’s everyday life? Moving beyond access to a communication system, or AAC use as an outcome in itself, the conference will focus on the supports, relationships, environments, and opportunities that help children communicate what matters, participate more fully, build connections, learn, and exercise agency. We invite proposals that help us explore how we move from AAC access to meaningful communication, participation, connection, and quality of life across the places and relationships where childhood happens.
Conference Content Strands
AACES 2027 sessions will explore this question from multiple perspectives. From finding the right communication supports for an individual child to creating the relationships, environments, learning opportunities, and systems that allow communication to flourish. We welcome proposals across the following content strands and especially encourage sessions that make connections across strands to show how AAC supports meaningful participation in real life.
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Make AAC Work for the Child: Assessment, feature matching, starter AAC, complex access, vision/CVI, motor and sensory needs, regulation, multimodal communication, language development, and individualization.
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Make AAC Work in Relationships: Family partnership, responsive interaction, parent coaching, peer and sibling communication, friendships, modeling, and communication partner support.
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Make AAC Work in Everyday Life: Home routines, childcare, preschool, classrooms, play, recess, community activities, transitions, and authentic communication opportunities.
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Make AAC Work for Learning: Language, literacy, writing, classroom participation, curriculum access, self-care and daily living, questioning, problem-solving, and academic engagement.
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Make AAC Work Across Teams: Interdisciplinary collaboration, implementation plans, coaching, staff training, documentation, troubleshooting, transitions, and sustainable systems.
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Make AAC Work for What Matters: Agency, autonomy, identity, belonging, joy, self-advocacy, relationships, participation, and quality of life.
Please note that presentation proposals must focus on children, ages birth through eight years, and the stakeholders that support them.
policies & agreement
Individuals interested in submitting a proposal are encouraged to read the following proposal process and guidelines completely before starting the submission process. All submissions must be complete to be considered. Complete submissions include all required documents and information outlined in the following sections of this document. The proposal process and guidelines section outlines the submission process, defines terms, and provides explanations of information required to submit a proposal.
Presenter Agreement & Disclosure Policy
Before submitting your proposal to the Call for Presenters, it is important that you read, understand, and agree to follow the principles, guidelines, and procedures outlined in the Presenter Agreement and Disclosure Policy.
Editorial Board & Peer Reviewers
The AACcessible Editorial Board will review all proposals. The Editorial Board includes the Professional Development Director, two lead editors, and at least two peer reviewers. This board invites presenters, reviews proposal submissions to the Call for Presenters, and helps select the most informative and evidence-based content to include in the AACES Conference program. AACcessible’s acceptance of a proposal does not imply endorsement of course content, specific products, or clinical procedures.
You can volunteer to be a peer reviewer! Learn more here.
Presenter Agreement
By submitting a proposal to contribute a live webinar for the AAC Early Starts (AACES) Conference, you explicitly agree:
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If accepted, to adhere to the deadlines as detailed in the acceptance notification regarding additional information that is required, such as course registration details, webinar materials, media, etc.
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To provide appropriate evidence to support any claims related to efficacy, validity, or reliability of approaches to assessment, treatment, coaching, or instruction.
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To offer evidence-based content in a manner that does not ridicule, defame, or demoralize individuals or groups.
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To complete, by the stated deadline, the required disclosures that identify any financial or nonfinancial relationship that may create a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest, as defined in AACcessible’s guidelines concerning transparency and disclosure.
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To update your disclosure information and inform AACcessible if you develop or acquire a financial or nonfinancial interest related to the content of your presentation at any time before the “air” date of your webinar.
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Any research in which you participated and may be discussed in this presentation is in compliance with mandated national and institutional policies and procedures pertaining to animal and/or human subjects research.
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To comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, to ensure the privacy of patients/clients/students/families by refraining from using names, photographs, or other patient/client identifiers in your webinar(s) without the patient's/client's/student’s/family’s knowledge and written authorization.
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To follow the guidelines for crediting authorship for research presentations as outlined in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA).
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No part of the Webinar or Materials (e.g., PowerPoint, handouts) infringes upon any copyright or other intellectual property right of any third party.
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If any part of my Webinar or Materials involves the performance or reproduction of any pre-existing work, I am the owner of the copyright or have obtained permission.
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That the Webinar and Materials will contain nothing libelous, injurious, or untrue; AACcessible may host the webinar(s) and any related materials solely in connection with the AACES Conference, The AAC Academy by AACcessible, and AACcessible and its promotion.
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I grant to AACcessible and The AAC Academy by AACcessible a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free license for AACcessible and The AAC Academy to use and host the Webinar(s) and Materials, solely in relation to The AAC Academy by AACcessible and the AACES Conference.
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That I have full power and authority, free of any rights of any nature whatsoever by any person, to enter into this Agreement and to grant the license to AACcessible in this Agreement.
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That I shall indemnify and hold harmless AACcessible and its agents, board members, employees, affiliates, successors, assignees and licensees from and against any claim, damage, liability, expense or loss, including reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs associated therewith, or with the enforcement of this indemnity, arising from any claim asserted against AACcessible by any person or entity, arising from my actual or alleged breach of any of their representations and warranties in this Agreement or arising from the Webinar or Materials.
Please note that your presenter agreement outlines that all live webinars will be recorded for on-demand distribution within The AAC Academy by AACcessible for the timelines outlined in your agreement. Likewise, all pre-recorded webinars will be retained and used for on-demand distribution within The AAC Academy by AACcessible for the timelines outlined in your agreement.
Disclosure Policy
All presenters submitting a proposal for a webinar or webinar series are required to complete a disclosure form indicating any financial or nonfinancial relationship related to the content of the proposed webinar. This disclosure form is provided in the last section of the Call for Papers Submission form. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) requires full disclosure of financial and non-financial relationships for professionals seeking certification maintenance through ASHA continuing education units (CEU’s). Full disclosure details and requirements are outlined on the ASHA website here.
Completion of the disclosure form is necessary for all ASHA continuing education providers to meet the ASHA Continuing Education Board’s Requirement 3: Transparency in Course Planning, Delivery, and Marketing. This requirement promotes transparency in the design, development, and presentation of courses offered for ASHA CEUs, and aligns ASHA practices with current practices among other professions, particularly in the continuing medical education arena.
ASHA's Continuing Education Board defines a conflict of interest as any financial or nonfinancial consideration or relationship relevant to course content that compromises or has the potential to compromise professional judgment. Providers of events offered for ASHA CEUs must identify and disclose to participants any such interest on the part of any speaker or instructor.
Examples of relevant and disclosable financial relationships may include:
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Being an employee of, or a paid consultant to, an organization whose product or service you discuss in your presentation
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Receiving grant funds for a research project you discuss in your presentation
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Receiving royalties from the sale of a book whose content you discuss in your presentation
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Patent holder
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Ownership interest (stocks, stock options, or other ownership interests)
Examples of relevant and disclosable nonfinancial relationships may include:
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Serving as a formal advisor to a review panel
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Sitting on the board of an organization whose product or service you discuss in your presentation
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Receiving an award or honor from an organization whose product or service you discuss in your presentation
Please note that having a disclosable financial or nonfinancial relationship does not prevent you from contributing. Disclosing such relationships is intended to give webinar attendees a more complete context in which to consider the information you provide. As a general guideline, err on the side of disclosure.
If your proposal is accepted, your disclosure(s) will be included with the author information related to each webinar listed on AACcessible AAC Academy online marketing materials. Note that for financial relationships, dollar amounts are not disclosed.
In addition, you will be expected to disclose relevant relationships at the time of your webinar, verbally and visually. AACcessible will provide additional guidelines for “live” disclosures after acceptance.
The following guidelines walk you through each section of the Submission Form and discuss the supporting documents that must be submitted with your form.
Session Format
You must request one of the following session formats:
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1-Hour Live Webinar with On-Demand Access to Follow
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2-Hour Live Webinar with On-Demand Access to Follow
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1-Hour Asynchronous (Pre-Recorded) Webinar with On-Demand Access and the option for a live question-and-answer session
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2-Hour Asynchronous (Pre-Recorded) Webinar with On-Demand Access and the option for a live question-and-answer session
Please note that your presenter agreement outlines that all live webinars will be recorded for on-demand distribution within The AAC Academy by AACcessible for the timelines outlined in your agreement. Likewise, all pre-recorded webinars will be retained and used for on-demand distribution within The AAC Academy by AACcessible for the timelines outlined in your agreement.
The Editorial Board will review all submissions and consider all format requests. There is no guarantee, however, that your submission will be accepted in the format you request.
Title
Enter the title of your proposal, not to exceed 15 words, using title case. Do not use all caps or unnecessary punctuation, such as quotation marks around the title or a period at the end.
Audience
Outline the intended audience(s) for your webinar, such as speech-language pathologists, communication partners, occupational therapists, special educators etc. You may check all that apply in the submission form and add any that have been missed under “Other”.
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Students
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Public/Consumers
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Researchers
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Related Professionals (e.g., TVI, BCBA, RBT)
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Assistants (SLPA's, paraeducators, COTA's, etc...)
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Early Career Professionals (under 5 years experience)
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Speech-language pathologists (SLP’s)
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Occupational therapists (OT’s)
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Families/Caregivers
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Special educators
Instructional Level
For webinars geared to a professional audience, indicate whether the instructional level of your proposed webinar is introductory, intermediate, or advanced.
Introductory Level:
Instruction at the Introductory Level is generally intended for students or professionals with novice experience in the content area. This type of content presents a basic overview of fundamental concepts or skills in the topic area and may be suggested to precede other courses at more advanced levels. The pace of an introductory course lends itself to the learning needs of an individual with little to no familiarity on the topic.
Intermediate Level:
Instruction at the Intermediate Level assumes some familiarity with the basic literature as well as some experience in professional practice within the area covered and targets more experienced professionals. The pace may be more complex, and the topic content presented goes deeper into the topic area to build on a foundational skill set.
Advanced Level:
Instruction at the Advanced Level assumes the participant already has established experience, knowledge, and skill within the area covered. Content presented at this level will be more intensive in density and pace, with higher levels of clinical application and reasoning required.
Multiple Levels
Instruction at the Multiple Levels designation is designed to be relevant to participants with varying levels of knowledge and experience in the topic area. Content may introduce foundational concepts while also extending into more complex applications, examples, or strategies that support learning for both newer and more experienced participants.
Learner Outcomes
You must include at least three (no more than five) observable and measurable learner outcomes for your presentation.
Examples of observable and measurable learner outcomes include:
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Participants will be able to identify three strategies to assess the current communication skills of non-speaking individuals.
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Participants will be able to describe five essential areas to assess in AAC assessment.
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Participants will be able to identify at least two resources to assist in treatment planning for preschool children learning communication skills through AAC.
Learner outcomes that indicate that an attendee will learn, understand, or know something are not measurable and will need revision to be accepted. You will be asked to submit three learner outcomes for each webinar. If you submit a proposal for a webinar series, you will need at least three learner outcomes for each webinar in the series.
Abstract
You must include an abstract relevant to your target audience. Abstracts should not exceed 1,000 words and will be used by the Editorial Board, along with your learner outcomes, to review your proposal for candidacy. Your abstract must include at least five scholarly references.
Time-Ordered Agenda
You must provide a time-ordered agenda that outlines the planned content and learning activities for your session. Include the approximate number of minutes for each segment and account for the full proposed session length, including instructional content, demonstrations or activities, and Q&A. This information will be used to review the scope and organization of your proposal and to determine eligible instructional time for continuing education credit.
Example for a 60-minute session:
Time Session Content / Activity
0:00–0:05 Welcome, presenter disclosures, and introduction
0:05–0: 20 Overview of key concepts and supporting evidence
0:20–0:35 Practical strategies and examples
0:35–0: 50 Case study and application of strategies
0:50–0:55 Key takeaways and implications for practice
0:55–1:00 Questions and discussion
Total: 1 hour (60 minutes)
Instructional Methods
You will be asked to indicate one or more instructional methods that you intend to use to deliver your session, including:
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Lecture/presentation
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Demonstration
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Video analysis
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Case study
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Guided reflection
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Audience polling
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Discussion/Q&A
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Practice/application activity
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Panel/interview
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Other
Instruction Information
You will be asked to provide information for each instructor/presenter associated with the proposed session. This includes the instructor’s full name, professional credentials (when applicable), title/role (when applicable), organization or affiliation (when applicable), email address and other requested contact information, a brief biography, and a current headshot. You will also be asked to describe each instructor’s qualifications and relevant experience related to the session content and to identify and describe any relevant financial, professional, personal, or other relationships that should be disclosed to learners.
what to include in your proposal
The AACcessible Editorial Board needs volunteers to serve as peer reviewers for proposals submitted during the AAC Early Starts Conference Call for Presenters. Each proposal submitted to the Call for Presenters will be reviewed by one Lead Editor and two Peer Reviewers. The overall purpose of the proposal review is to ensure the provision of evidence-based, quality learning content at the AACES Conference. The details of the Peer Reviewer position are outlined below.
Peer Reviewer Term & Responsibilities
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Join a reviewer “pool” where you will be asked to participate in proposal reviews as you are able.
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Work with Lead Editors to review proposals, up to 5, during the review period (October 1 through December 15).
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Complete the review document for each proposal reviewed and submit the completed document to the Lead Editor by the deadline provided.
Skills or Traits for This Role
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Professional with education, training, and scope of competence in the field represented in the proposals (e.g., SLP, education, AT, AAC, OT, PT, Vision, Behavior).
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Caregiver, partner, or AAC user with experience in the topic being reviewed.
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Positive attitude with a desire to work with others to benefit the AAC community.
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Administrative, time management, and organizational skills; detail-oriented
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Reliable access to email and Google Drive.
Application & Selection Process
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Interested applicants should complete the Peer Review Interest Form.
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The AACcessible Editorial Board will meet to discuss all interested reviewers, and selected candidates will be notified via email.
Reimbursement for Service
AACcessible and The AAC Academy are a non-profit entity that thrives on charitable donations and volunteers. Selected candidates who review at least five proposals will be considered volunteers for the organization and will receive complimentary, on-demand access to the 2027 AAC Early Starts Conference recordings and CMH/PDH/ASHA CEU options.
Call for REVIEWERS
Call for moderators
The AACcessible Conference Committee needs volunteers to serve as moderators for sessions taking place during each day of the 2027 AAC Early Starts Conference.
Moderator Responsibilities
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Moderate at least three live courses during the conference. The conference planning committee will do its best to pair you with sessions of your choice.
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Briefly introduce the presenter(s) and the session
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Keep the session on time by providing presenters with reminders at session time milestones
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Assist with the chat window as indicated by the presenter and as needed for technical assistance
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Share basic housekeeping information with attendees through mic and chat window communication
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Connect with a tech assistance volunteer if any technical issues arise in the session
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You will not be expected to solve technical problems, only to connect with the event volunteers from AACcessible so that they are aware. You will not be expected to solve technical problems, only to connect with the event volunteers from AACcessible so that they are aware.
Application & Selection Process
Interested applicants should email info@aaccessible.org by January 5, 2027.
The AACcessible Editorial Board will meet to discuss moderation needs, and selected candidates will be notified via email by January 20, 2027.
Reimbursement for Service
AACcessible and The AAC Academy is a non-profit entity that thrives on charitable donations and volunteers. Selected candidates who moderate at least three proposals will be considered volunteers for the organization and will receive complimentary, on-demand access to the 2027 AAC Early Starts Conference recordings and CMH/PDH/ASHA CEU options.