Download Literacy Development for Learners with Severe Disabilities

Literacy Development for
Learners with Severe Disabilities
& Deafblindness
PowerPoint Slides
to be used in conjunction
with the
Facilitator’s Guide
Session Agenda
• Introduction
• Session Goals and Objectives
• Types of Challenges faced by Learners
with Deafblindness and Severe Disabilities
• Defining Literacy
• Reading, Writing and Communication
Session Agenda, continued
•
•
•
•
•
Accessibility
Making it Happen
Raising Expectations
Summary
Evaluation
Introduction
• This session will provide us a common
understanding of literacy development and
approaches to teaching literacy to learners
with significant disabilities.
• Students who have cognitive and physical
disabilities require support for even the
most basic needs such as eating, going to
the bathroom, and transitioning between
activities and environments; this can make
teaching basic skills challenging .
Introduction, continued
• Yet, more attention is being given to
the development of literacy skills for all
students, including this learner who
has significant support needs.
• Frequently, some perceive that
learners with significant support needs
are best served within a curriculum that
focuses on functional life skills with
only limited, if any, access to academic
i l
Introduction, continued
• Learners with significant disabilities, such
as deafblindness, may be thought of as
being incapable of benefiting from literacy
activities.
• But literacy skills such as reading and
writing are functional life skills which
provide lifelong opportunities for learning,
sharing, and enjoyment for individuals with
severe disabilities.
Introduction, continued
• Exposure to literacy experiences and
access to academic instruction are critical.
• We must regard all students as capable of
learning and take a broader view of
literacy.
• Rather than lowering expectations, we
must challenge ourselves to find ways to
grant all students access to literacy
instruction and higher academic standards.
Session Goal and Objectives
• The goal of this is to examine the
need for literacy instruction in the
lives of learners who have severe
disabilities and/or deafblindness.
• It will explain why literacy is
important, the various forms literacy
might take, and what educators can
do to help provide appropriate
supports and strategies to build
lit
Session Objectives, continued
• Session Objectives:
– Identify reasons why literacy is important for
learners who have severe disabilities and/or
deafblindness.
– Identify examples of what literacy might “look
like” for learners with severe disabilities and/or
deafblindness.
– Select examples of ways educators might
promote the development of literacy for learners
with severe disabilities and/or deafblindness.
Types of Challenges faced by
Learners with Deafblindness
& Multiple Disabilities
• The needs of persons with
deafblindness and/or multiple
disabilities may differ significantly from
person to person:
Types of Challenges, continued
– Individuals may have any combination or
degree of disability within the areas of
intellectual functioning, fine and gross motor
development, sensory impairment,
communication needs, medical issues, and
adaptive (self-management and social) skills.
– Learners may have partial sight, partial
hearing, a total loss of one or the other
sense, or a total loss of both senses.
Types of Challenges, continued
– Maintaining and generalizing skills
across settings, people, and activities
are likely to be difficult.
– Typically, these learners require ongoing
and extensive support in order to
achieve the quality of life that exists for
people without disabilities. Educators
must individualize and adapt instruction
according to each learner’s personal
strengths and needs.
Types of Challenges, continued
• Another challenge is the “limited life
experiences” of learners with
deafblindness and multiple disabilities
– Unlike learners with good vision who see
people reading and writing for different
purposes, those who are deafblind usually
do not have opportunities to observe others
reading and writing unless those experiences
are specifically provided.
Types of Challenges, continued
– The focus for these individuals during the
early years is sometimes more on health,
safety and acquisition of basic skills.
– As a result, they may end up missing out
on early literacy experiences, as well as
the opportunity to express themselves
using augmentative communication.
Types of Challenges, continued
• Learners are also affected by our
expectations of them.
• If instructors value literacy and have
higher expectations for learners with
significant disabilities, they will be more
likely to create the necessary adapted
materials.
Types of Challenges, continued
• Although students with multiple
impairments may not be able to access
literacy in exactly the same manner as
their peers without disabilities, we
should still expect active and
meaningful participation.
Types of Challenges, Activity
• Using suggested “simulation activities” from the
Chen & Downing book*, try some activities which
involve identifying objects through active touch,
identifying preferences in relation to types of
touch, and communicating messages through
touch. These activities are to help provide
participants with valuable insight to strengthen
their own interactions with individuals with
deafblindness. One example follows:
* Chen, D., & Downing, J. (2006). Tactile strategies for children who have visual impairments and
multiple disabilities: Promoting communication and learning skills. New York: American Foundation for
the Blind Press.
Types of Challenges, Activity
continued
• “Communicating Through Touch”: Participants
pair up with another person to simulate
interacting with someone who is blind. The
“sighted person”, who does not speak, tactually
expresses (1) a greeting (e.g., hello), (2)
disapproval (e.g., stop that), (3) direction (e.g.,
let’s sit here), and (4) praise (e.g., great job).
The person who is “blind” responds to the
messages received through touch. After
switching roles, participants discuss what they
found easy or difficult to express or understand
and share their reactions and insights.
Defining Literacy
• History of curriculum and assessment for
learners with significant disabilities:
– A developmental model, focusing on
prerequisite skills, was used in the 1970’s.
– This was followed by a functional life skills
model, social inclusion, self-determination,
and currently, access to the general
curriculum.
Defining Literacy, continued
– Several federal initiatives implemented
between 1994 and the present specifically
address literacy skills for all students.
Extensions to the general standards are
being created by states so all students can
have meaningful and functional access to
grade level standards.
Defining Literacy, continued
• Presently, educators are challenged to
utilize instruction “that provides real-life
activities within a meaningful context of
academic learning” (Staugler, 2008, p.
1).
• Literacy instruction for all learners is
gaining in recognition and importance.
Defining Literacy, continued
• So what is “literacy”, and how does it
apply to learners with multiple
disabilities and/or deafblindness?
What’s its importance for these
students?
Defining Literacy, continued
• Often, people generally think of
literacy as the symbolic systems of
reading and writing.
• But not all individuals with significant
disabilities will achieve formal literacy.
Defining Literacy, continued
• When we consider literacy for persons
who have multiple impairments, we
must expand our definition of reading
and writing to include emergent literacy
experiences, as well as different literacy
modes.
Defining Literacy, continued
• Regarding broadening the definition of
literacy:
“Perhaps most essential is for those
providing opportunities for and instruction in
literacy to broaden their beliefs regarding
literacy to include emergent skills regardless
of the age or ability level of the student.
Defining Literacy, continued
• For example, skills such as learning to
recognize the meaning of a picture or
object, making marks on paper, and
requesting more of a story by tapping
on the page must all be considered
literacy skills. Students should be
recognized for their ability to
demonstrate such skills, which serve as
a foundation for more advanced skills”
(Downing, 2006, p. 41).
Defining Literacy, continued
• Emergent literacy:
– Based on the belief that every learner,
regardless of disability, is a developing
reader.
– All behaviors and skills are important
components of literacy development.
– Currently, a field of research devoted to
emergent literacy considers reading and
writing development from the learner’s
perspective.
Defining Literacy, continued
– Literacy is important for developing and
expanding communication skills, for
increasing interaction with others, for
sharing information with one another, and
for exploring and learning about the world
in which we live.
– Literacy is a functional life skill and an
essential component for improving one’s
“quality of life”.
Defining Literacy, Activity
• Divide participants into small group. Designate a
recorder and a reporter for each group.
• Each group reviews a copy of the state’s
extended standards for reading and writing (e.g.,
North Carolina Extended Content Standards,
2007, 2008,
www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/ncecs).
• Look through the standard extensions and
consider how a student with deafblindness might
demonstrate any of the access points at the presymbolic, early symbolic, or symbolic stages.
Reading, Writing and Communication
• Literacy and communication are intimately
intertwined:
– Communication within early life experiences
serves as a basis for reading and writing.
– As everyday activities are labeled and
described by family, friends, and teachers,
language develops.
– Communication may be either symbolic (e.g.,
print, sign language, braille, pictures),
nonsymbolic (e.g., body language,
vocalizations, touch), or a combination of both.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
– But, language is always symbolic. Therefore,
opportunities for communication throughout
daily routines and experiences are extremely
important to the development of language and
literacy.
– Are there opportunities for the learner to
communicate? Is there a need for the learner
to communicate? Are the learner’s expressions
received and valued?
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
– Learners with multiple disabilities need to
be active communication partners to
promote the development of language and
literacy.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
• Individuals with significant disabilities
and/or deafblindness should be
encouraged to participate in a variety of life
experiences. They must be assisted or
encouraged in exploring, discussing, and
reading about varied experiences.
– If photographs are taken and objects are
collected that represent materials seen, heard,
smelled, tasted, or felt during an activity, these
items may be used at a later time to further
communicate about the experience.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
– Items collected will also provide necessary
materials for meaningful literacy activities.
For example, learners may be assisted in
recalling an experience by feeling the
representative materials which are put in
the form of a tactile book or remnant book.
– Labels for selected items and experiences
need to be taught, and a dialogue
surrounding these experiences should be
generated.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
– A milestone for both literacy and communication
is when a learner begins to demonstrate that he
understands that people, places, items, and
actions have names that can be used to refer to
them.
– Using an adaptation such as a remnant book,
the item or photo collected, displayed, and
experienced becomes the message to be “read”;
and when the message is selected and shared
with another, the message is then “written”.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
– This “reading” and “writing” activity needs
to be reciprocal. Learners should be
assisted in participating as both an initiator
and as a responder during these
interactions. These experiences are not
something to be done “to” a person with
disabilities, but rather “mutually shared” to
stimulate growth. Literacy, like
communication, begins as individuals learn
about the world around them.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
• Another step toward literacy and
communication is the use of visual or tactile
signs:
– Use sign language/gestures to identify people
by name, including the individual with
disabilities.
– For those learners who understand objects
best, a learner’s hand may be guided to a
common item (e.g., watch, bracelet, ring) worn
on a daily basis by his communication partner,
so he may identify or recognize this person.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
– Other life experiences such as eating,
bathing, story time, going on a community
outing, and playing outdoors are rich
opportunities for literacy and
communication development.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
• Learners with severe, multiple disabilities
and/or deafblindness need to be exposed
to literacy experiences in ways that utilize
their individual receptive (input) and
expressive (output) capabilities.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
– This may be accomplished through a number of
different communication systems depending
upon the learner’s individual strengths and
preferences, for example:
• nonsymbolic communication,
• use of objects or pictures,
• sign language,
• tactile systems,
• verbal communication,
• augmentative and alternative communication.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
– For many, particularly those learners who
have vision and hearing loss, touch is
extremely important. The hands of a person
who is deafblind function as tools (for work,
play, self-care), as sense organs (to
compensate for vision and hearing loss), and
as voice (to express self).
– Learners should be encouraged to become
interested in what their hands are touching.
What these learners are touching or doing with
their hands can be a potential topic of
interaction.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
Examples of approaches to expose learners to
literacy experiences:
• “Tactile conversations”
– “Hand-under-hand”
• Nonsymbolic communication
• Augmentative and alternative communication
– Use of objects, pictures, print/braille, electronic
devices
• “Tactile conversations” are
encouraged by touching
and exploring items jointly
with the learner. Because
the experiences of a
person who is deafblind
are so different from
others, hands-on
exploration is necessary to
make literacy meaningful.
During hands-on
exploration, the
communication partner
should position his or her
hand or hands beneath or
alongside the learner’s
hands as they feel the
materials together.
• The “hand-under-hand”
approach allows for both
parties to share in the
experience and is less
intrusive and controlling
than putting the other
person passively through
the motions by using handover-hand assistance with
him or her.
• Learners should also be
encouraged to feel their
partner’s hands while their
partner is engaged in a
variety of activities that
involve feeling, smelling,
exploring, manipulating,
and demonstrating function
of items.
More specific examples are found
in the DB-LINK publication written
by Miles (2003), “Talking the
Language of the Hands to the
Hands”. Book shown: Geraldine’s
Blanket by Holly Keller, adapted
for tactile illustration, American
Printing House for the Blind.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
• Braille may be added to tactile pictures and
pages in a remnant book to expose readers
with low vision to words, just as individuals
with sight are exposed to print.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
• In addition, hands can be quite
expressive. Hands may be used to
greet, to praise, to show disapproval, to
give direction, to convey feelings, to
request, and to gain attention. These
expressions may be conveyed through
touch, gesture, or sign language. Sign
language may be visual or tactual,
during which the learner’s hands rest
upon that of his or her partner’s.
• Nonsymbolic communication
may be appropriate for learners
who do not yet associate a
symbol (e.g., object, picture,
texture, spoken word, gesture,
or manual sign) with a referent.
• Nonsymbolic expression may
be visual (e.g., eye gaze),
gestural (e.g., extended hand),
tactual (e.g., touch), vocal (e.g.,
crying, laughing), through body
movement (e.g., withdrawing,
eye gaze), through facial
expression, and/or physiological
changes (e.g., alertness).
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
• Those interacting with individuals
communicating through nonsymbolic
means need to be sensitive and
responsive to behaviors that may serve
a communicative function (e.g., student
looking toward the computer may signal
his desire to use it).
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
• Assigning meaning to a learner’s
behavior and responding consistently
each time it occurs facilitates
communication development and
interaction.
Reading, Writing and
Communication, continued
• If a learner’s communication attempt
results in something that meets his or
her needs, or gives him or her some
control, it is more likely the behavior
occur again. This cause and effect
interaction is an early form of literacy.