The Joseph Robert Shaw Foundation

Helping Children Recover from Brain Injury

More Problem Solving – Determining the best physical setup for all learners

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             One aspect we needed to solve early on in our ALPS adventure was the physical setup. 

In transitioning from working one on one to working in a group with Joey I was surprised at how Joey’s physical device itself interfered with connecting him with the whole group lessons.

Until now, I’ve only worked with Joey sitting next to him, when I can track his eyes on his screen and I know he’s thinking about what I asked or if he’s gone on to something else. Without knowing what he’s thinking it’s easier for me to over prompt or go on to the next student, thinking he is unengaged. The physical placement of his device stands between him and the front of the class, which means that unless we bring the object of our joint attention directly in front of him, he isn’t benefiting from observing his peers interact with the lesson. Unfortunately, the very item that gives Joey the ability to express himself with his peers creates a physical barrier between him and everyone else. 

After talking through the problem we re-designed our learning space so that Joey can both access his device and have a clear view of the classroom. We moved Joey’s seat from up-front to a place to the side where it is easier to see both his screen and the group. This involved monitoring the lighting in the room so that he has a clear view of his screen without a glare. We propped up cardboard in the windows – anything to help his access. 

We then designed our seating arrangements for group meetings. We want everyone at the same height so having the group on the floor while Joey sits in his chair does not work. Yet having everyone at a desk makes joint attention difficult and puts Joey further away from the discussion. We began having everyone move (taking their seats if they don’t want to stand) to an area closer to Joey. Now everyone has access to the daily message and group activities, and Joey is more aware of the other students’ responses.

Another aspect of physical problem solving we’ve also discussed is monitoring how many adults are supporting any given child in the moment. Although we all want to help Joey – adding adults next to a child immediately changes the community

that child experiences. Instead of being a part of the classroom community, the child transfers to having a community of them and the adults – with the peers on the outside. This is the opposite of what we want, and yet it is easy to find ourselves in the trap of having multiple helpers/teachers.

Of course, our problem solving is ongoing and we will continue to tweak and make changes as we go. Stay tuned to hear more about what we learn on our journey. 

 

What About Next School Year?

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As our virtual learning school year has wrapped up in Northern Virginia, we are all left wondering what will be waiting for our students at the end of this summer “break”. The public schools are trying to figure out exactly how to walk the fine line between addressing a public health crisis while also maintaining high levels of instruction for children, and attempting to achieve programs that provide equity for all students. Truthfully, I am thankful I am not making the decisions. In the end, the decision made will inevitably leave many people frustrated. The truth is, there are no “right” decisions. 

For my own typically developing children I have worries, but I also know we will be OK. They may not receive the great instruction they would in school, but being “behind” in first or third grade along with the rest of their peers is not going to topple them over in the long run. But for kids like Joey?

It’s nearly impossible to provide the needed instruction virtually for children like Joey. So what will happen? What’s more – a compromised immune system can make it even more difficult to go back into a fully functional school building. Add those concerns onto the idea that now we desperately need to make up for lost time and rebuild any communication and academic skills that were lost.

Where do we start planning, especially with the unknowns of what the schools will be able to offer next year?

One idea is to start to look beyond the schools and look at what we can potentially offer in addition to the limited school programs that will be available. What if we can create small groups that are able to safely meet in person while providing the social and academic support on those days that the schools will not be open. 

Digging deeper into this idea – what if these small groups are able to offer the inclusive opportunities we know are best for students? What if these small groups could provide communication and academic activities to students like Joey, while also providing challenging projects designed to enhance academic skills to the other children included in the program. What would that look like?

What could a program like that achieve? Could we offer all students opportunities for higher level thinking while focusing on communication skills and academic content? 

The wheels at Joey’s Foundation have been spinning for some time on this. Stay tuned for what’s to come. 

Thoughts on COVID-19

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If I’m honest, I have to admit that I have had a hard time writing this blog post. It has been a week and a half since the last time I saw Joey, and I suspect I will not see him in person again for a long time. I miss him, and wish it was easier to work on his AAC communication on-line. 

In the last few weeks the world turned upside down. For us adults, who have some perspective, this is scary and an unsettling, strange time. For kids – it is hard to know exactly how they are taking it. At first, my own children were thrilled with the lack of schedule. The first week was full of art projects and creativity. Then the news came that in-person schools would close for the remainder of the year, and my youngest crumbled. 

Even though she has all the words she wants at her fingertips, she had no words when she found out. She went to bed (it was 3:30 in the afternoon). The world and her feelings at that moment were too much for her six year old mind to handle. 

Sometimes we forget that kids like Joey, who do not use oral language, also have these big feelings when they are processing the world around them. They may not be able to crawl into bed, yell “go away” or even say “I don’t know why my stomach hurts, but it does.” 

As parents we never want to throw negative news on our children, and so we often watch them for cues that they are ready to process bad news. We search for ways to explain what is going on in the world and to make sense, in as mentally healthy a way as possible, of the current situation. For kids like Joey, it can be harder to find the words to explain because we don’t get the same easy cues of “I get it” or “this is too much information right now”. 

I’ve seen a few social stories about the virus going around. I read one with one of my clients and he shared that it was a stupid story and it answered NONE of his questions. “I already knew all that. Why don’t grown ups answer our real questions?” He could ask that. Kids like Joey can’t. They have to take the “stupid” social stories we give them.

There are no easy answers for any children right now. I can’t be with Joey to see how he is doing, or find out if he has any questions about the virus or why people are not coming to his house anymore. I know his family is on top of it and are talking to him about what is going on. I have to do what every teacher out there is doing right now – thinking about our students and wanting the best for them. 

Getting Joey Reading

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Joey continues to impress us with his strong visual memory. It seems as though I can introduce a sight word to him once, and he will soon be able to find it from a field of six. His ability to receptively identify these words in isolation continues to impress me. So we know he is able to recognize words. How do we get him from reading these words to reading and understanding what he reads? How do we measure that? How do we know when he is achieving it and it is time to increase the level of the work we give him?

One way I am working to make leveled guided reading books available to him is to use the on-line books offered from Pioneer Valley press. These books allow me to put Joey’s name into the book (giving him an anchor word on each page), and to print the books out at home. Although Joey and I can take turns reading each page of these books, using his device is laborious when matching each word, and he often makes mistakes, not because of his ability to recognize the word, but in his ability to maintain the motor control of his neck and to select the correct word. In short, it’s exhausting and no fun.

To work with his receptive strength, I began taking the repetitive line from the book, laminating and cutting out each word so that it becomes a sentence puzzle. From there, Joey can use the laminated and velcro words to match what is in the book we are reading together. When the author of the book changes the pattern between “the” and “a”, Joey must check what the author says and then find the matching word. It encourages him to look at the whole word – not just the first letter, and put the words in sequential order – using one to one correspondence – on the page. 

This technique allows Joey to practice many of the reading skills all beginning readers are developing, while letting me see how he is progressing in these concepts of print. The greatest problem here, is that Joey has not bought into the idea of the pattern texts within the leveled books. After he’s matched a sentence once or twice, he sees no need to do it again, even if the sentence is changing slightly each time. And I don’t blame him. It is boring, especially when he is used to reading more exciting books with me.

His kindergarten teacher has begun to give him sentences to read to himself and then asking him to match the sentence with a picture to access if he is actually able to comprehend what he is reading. This is brilliant, and a simple way to assess his comprehension without forcing him to painstakingly identify each word in a text on his device. 

We know he’s making progress in reading and everyone on his team is dedicated to developing his ability to read. We’re just watching him to determine the best way. Stay tuned as Joey shows us how we can teach him to read!

Measuring Joey’s Progress

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As Joey begins accessing more academic content, we are constantly attempting to assess how we can best measure his knowledge. Taking all of the potential drawbacks of the AAC device into account, how do we make sure we are measuring the pure academic skills instead of simply measuring his academic skills in relation to the AAC device?

This is a tricky line that many families and educators whose children use AAC devices walk daily. It is a decision point that we make when we ask someone who uses an AAC what they want to do next, and we watch to see if they seem confident with their answer to our question, or if they seem frustrated because they hit an incorrect icon. It takes understanding and professional judgement on the part of the communication partner. 

In an educational environment where we heavily rely on data and assessments to drive instruction, this creates a unique situation. How are Joey’s academic abilities assessed accurately, in a way that reflects his true understanding? If we wait until we are 100% sure that he knows a skill through accessing him on the AAC device, we often end up boring him and creating a disincentive for him to participate in our questions. If we presume he knows a skill, we risk pushing him to fast and creating frustration or holes in his academic learning. 

As with anything with Joey, we find ourselves falling back onto presuming competence. This does not always create clean lines in our assessments of him – and can leave my data sheets full of chicken-scratch to myself of how many times he took to answer a question on the AAC device, or whether I needed to offer him a chance to answer in another way, and in that case, how long did it take him to answer correctly. 

In recognizing Joey’s use of high frequency words, we’ve noticed that he is often able to identify these words receptively from a field of 6-8 when they are presented to him in a random order. However, asking him to use his device to read them creates a slower response with more chance of error. 

From here, we reach a decision point – is our focus on his ability to read the word, or is our focus on his ability to find those words on his device. And, there are times that each of these skills needs to be measured, and measured separately. Using his receptive knowledge we are able to reflect on how much he knows, and realize how quickly he is able to learn visual information. We can honor his intelligence and his knowledge and move forward with his ability to learn more words receptively. Yet if we stopped there, we would be limiting Joey’s ability to interact with the word on his device, and to show the world what he knows. And so, we continue to push each skill – walking that fine line between his knowledge and his ability to show it effectively. 

The essence here lies in teasing out each individual piece of the tasks we are asking Joey to complete, analyzing what each of these steps entails, and recognizing how Joey is able to access each of these steps. 

Saturday Serenade

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Test post for Saturday Serenades https://www.musichealsglennjan.com/saturday-serenades

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