I was thrilled when my Journal of Early Intervention arrived this week with a study on the impact of sustained adult modeling of Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) with students with complex communication needs (CCN). I’m always excited to see AAC studies show up in special education journals. As the number of children are given access to AAC increases more studies are looking at how children develop language skills with AAC, and what are the best methods for teaching students to AAC. The more we know, the better we’ll be able to teach, so I quickly flipped open the study and read to see if it could help me in my work with Joey. [Read more…]
The Power of Being Able to Choose Your Words
When I returned from my month away, Joey had all sorts of new words added to his device. At first I was surprised to see so many new words had been added in such a short period of time, but as I watched him maneuver around his screen I was excited by his growth. He seemed to quickly understand that these new words gave him a greater capacity to communicate with us. [Read more…]
Fire Engines A Lot
I held up two books and ask Joey which one he wanted to read. He said “fire engine” with his eye gaze device, and then looked at Curious George and the Fire Fighters that was hiding behind my chair and NOT one of the choices I offered. OK. Here’s the thing. When Joey and I read Curious George and the Fire Fighters we never actually get through the whole book. Sometimes I have a compulsion to finish a book, and so this pattern drives me a bit crazy. So I don’t always offer Curious George and the Fire Fighters as an option. “Fire engine” Joey said again. [Read more…]
Reconnecting
Unfortunately, Joey and I were apart for almost a full month in April because I broke my ankle and couldn’t drive. It was wonderful to finally get back to see him last week. In just a month it seemed that he’d grown multiple inches! I was hoping that we’d easily get right back into our familiar pattern, and I hadn’t planned to do anything different or out of the ordinary during our sessions. I was excited to read Harry the Dirty Dog with him, so I dove right in with my plans.
Joey had other ideas. He wanted to talk. He listed every animal on his device, and then listed them again. He told me about helicopters and airplanes and occasionally let me read a page or two of the book. At one point he used his device to say “stop mouth” which I’m pretty sure was his way of asking me to stop reading so he could talk. That was one of the only phrases he used during that time. What was going on? The last time I’d been there Joey was full of early phrases and was starting to explore pronouns. And now?
We were both frustrated and both of us felt like we weren’t getting anywhere. I had to take a step back and remember that our relationship is more important than the work I’d carefully planned. (Didn’t he realize that Harry is such a fun book?) I’d just brought myself and my show to the table, and I hadn’t left any room for Joey. I think we do this often as teachers, especially at this time of the year when we are feeling the deadlines of the end of the school year approaching. Luckily, I don’t have that worry with Joey, but I think I did want to make up for lost time.
I needed to back up, slow down, and remember the boy in front of me. The smiling four-year-old with so much to say. So I paused, listened, nodded, and tried to acknowledge his list of animals. Once we were connected, we could move forward.
And we did. After re-connecting and taking time to rebuild the relationship, Joey dropped his musical shaker on the floor. He looked at what he’d dropped and then at his device. Carefully he selected different hear and then looked at the other egg shaker sitting on the table. He was asking for other musical instrument – the other instrument he can hear. We were back to meaningful communication with two word phrases.
It’s easy to forget how important our relationships with our kids are, and how much more they are capable of when we are working with them instead of teaching at them.
*On another note, I do not think Joey appreciates Harry the Dirty Dog like I do. Instead we are now reading Groovy Joe, which is a bit faster and more animated.
Preparing Harry the Dirty Dog to read with Joey
I’m very excited about introducing Joey to anothe
r of my favorite books – Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion. For those of you not familiar with the story, Harry is a white dog with black spots who hates baths. One day he runs away from home and becomes so dirty that when he finally returns home his family no longer recognizes him, even when he does all his tricks. Finally, he runs into the bathtub and begs for the family to give him a bath. Once he’s clean, the family realizes that the dog in their tub is actually Harry and Harry learns that baths aren’t so bad after all.
To get ready to read Harry with Joey, I’ve gotten a small stuffed white dog, and velcroed black spots to him. I also have a toy bathtub and a pretend scrub brush. I’ve added boardmaker pictures icons to the book to draw attention to key concepts in the book, such as the opposites of clean/dirty, and Harry’s emotions as he goes from happy, to sad, to happy again.
My main goal for this book will be for us to act out the story together, while engaging in back and forth reciprocal communication.
Harry is a fun book for children this age because it adds a certain sense of naughtiness as Harry runs away from home and does whatever he wants, regardless of how dirty he becomes. The story also lets us focus on the concept of comparisons as Harry becomes dirtier and dirtier. At first there is no dirt, then a little, then a medium amount, and finally – there is so much dirt that Harry is covered in black. Retelling this part of the story will work on Joey’s sequencing skills as well, as he helps us put part of the story in order.
To work on Joey’s early literacy skills, we’ll focus on the letters H and D, for Harry, Dog and Dirty. We’ll add pictures of dirty, dog, and harry to Joey’s alphabet book. To support Joey’s growing math skills, we’ll count the number of black felt spots we use to turn the Harry stuffed animal from a white dog to a black dog. We’ll also play a game where we roll a dice use a black marker to add that many dots onto an outline of a white dog.
Most of all though, I’m hoping to use Harry as a chance for Joey and I to play and interact. We can be silly as roll the stuffed dog through the felt and get him dirty. We can pretend to scold that dirty dog, and pretend to give him a bath. When we read the book with Joey on the floor, he can pretend he is Harry, and can roll around to get dirty just like Harry.
You can hear Betty White read it on the Screen Actor’s Guild’s website, Storyline Online.
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