The Joseph Robert Shaw Foundation

Helping Children Recover from Brain Injury

Using Wordless Shorts to Inspire Language

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A few weeks ago I was able to watch a webinar from Lauren Enders in regards to fun activities to jumpstart AAC learning. Last week I shared how much the need for making our lessons fun and connecting with our students resonated with me, particularly as we begin to meet with our students in person and may feel pressured to make up for lost time.

I loved many of the ideas Ender shared, and one that I cannot wait to use with Joey is to use wordless animated short videos. Although I have always loved wordless books it had never occurred to me to use wordless videos to encourage language use.

In order to get the most language out of using these videos, Enders sited Rachel Madel and Susan Berkowitz who recommended first setting your intention with your student, then watching, pausing the video, modeling the language using the AAC device, and then rewinding and watching again – either to repeat your model or to allow the student to produce the language themselves if they are ready. 

First of all, not only had it never occurred to me to use these videos, I did not even know these videos were out there! I fell into a rabbit hole of watching wordless shorts and dreaming of all the possibilities. The best videos are the ones that are full of age-appropriate humor. Enders points out one called Jurassic Farts, which involves dinosaurs farting. May not be dinner-time conversation, but what young child doesn’t want to giggle and talk about farting dinosaurs? 

I’m excited to try Ornie the Pig with Joey. The pig is determined to get a snack on top of the refrigerator. Think of the prepositions and verbs that you can use to tell what is going on as the pig struggles, as well as words that describe all the emotions the pig is feeling while he tries (and fails) to reach the cookies. 

Take time to explore some of the wordless shorts out there and find ones that may be perfect for your communicator! There is so much potential for not just language, but for facilitating laughter with these short, silly videos! This blog also has a great list!

Sibling Love

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Right before the whole world shut down for the COVID-19, my daughter and Joey’s older brother were home from school so they both participated in my session with Joey. My daughter was thrilled to get to see Joey again and read the high frequency words along with him. I think Joey’s older brother may have been happier to have not joined our group of kindergarteners, but he was a huge help regardless.

I like to think I know Joey pretty well, although I often worry that sometimes I give him too much credit. It’s that sad special education teacher voice in the back of my head that whispers, you saw it once, but have you seen it 8 out of 10 times? How do you know it’s mastered? That voice forces me to be overly cautious sometimes, although even then I like to think I am responsive to Joey.

And yet, in this group session, I was taken aback when multiple times during our session Joey’s brother quietly and respectfully interrupted me. “I think he’s saying share because they are sharing in the story.” And yes, that is exactly what Joey was saying. I’d been showing Joey the math word half that I was targeting, and after introducing that had already moved on when it appeared he randomly said “share.” Of course it wasn’t random, it was just a delayed response as he found the word share in his device. It took his brother, who is familiar with Joey’s rhythm and thoughts to know this. 

Later in the session Joey became slightly agitated and was looking at a specific place in the room. “He wants to play with the robot,” his brother explained, to which Joey replied, “Understand” and gave him a loving gaze.

His brother gets him. 

We all need someone who gets us, who knows our facial grimaces and can read our minds when we are trying to be polite to the rest of the world. I don’t know why I was so surprised by how fluidly Joey’s brother was able to interpret for him, but I was. I suppose it is because my own girls have the same age split as Joey and his brother, and I’m not sure my oldest can read my youngest quite as fluently. But she doesn’t have to. My youngest usually makes her intentions clearly known to the outside world. Joey can’t. 

I love how Joey watches his brother with such love, and how his brother shares that love back with him. I’ve known other siblings in similar situations where the typically developing sibling downplayed their sibling’s abilities. Joey’s brother doesn’t do that. Instead, he brought them to my attention, not letting me, Joey’s teacher, go on without fully seeing what his brother can do.

Knock Knock! Discovering the beauty of telling jokes on the AAC

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I have a love/hate relationship with knock knock jokes. For the love side, they are fun, silly, occasionally clever, and a great way to joke around with young kids. I’ve even introduced them as replacement behaviors when children want to engage with a peer but don’t know how. “Want to hear a joke?” is much better than “Our teacher is stupid and ugly” or simply pushing a peer to get their attention. So I know my fair share of knock knock jokes. On the hate side, once a child tends to learn a good knock knock joke they tend to use it repeatedly, expecting you to find it funny each and every time. And then there is that developmental window before children understand why the knock knock jokes are actually funny to other people. They create their own – “knock knock, who’s there? Cow? Cow Who? Cow cat dog dance with meeeee and the CHICKEN!” And you have to laugh even though it makes no sense.

So when Joey discovered knock knock jokes on his device I was celebrated ecstatically and braced myself for what was to come. 

Even the discover of the jokes was an accident. During the beginning of a recent session with Joey I realized that almost none of his current vocabulary words were on his device. In trying to retrieve the old words we accidentally added ALL of the words and programs to his screen. We had one session where Joey had access to everything before someone more talented with the device than I am returned it to its correct setting. 

With his access to a new, larger vocabulary, Joey flew through the different word menus and new choices, trying out words, deciphering what pictures went with what word, and were these new words were hiding. And then, he found gold.

Joey discovered the pre-programmed jokes. There are riddles, general jokes, and knock knock jokes. And they are horribly fantastic.

“Knock, knock?” (conversation partner responds who’s there?)

“Luke” (pause while conversation partner responses with “Luke Who?”

“Luke through the peephole and find out!”

There are also the pre-programmed phrases of “Ha ha ha” and “That was a good one.”

It’s amazing. I am not sure that Joey has heard or understands knock knock jokes, but he knows humor when he finds it. Every time he selected a joke he cracked up laughing. 

Yet even introducing knock knock jokes requires a bit of instruction. We had to work on the sequence and pacing of the joke itself. First, it’s appropriate to actually ask someone if they want to hear a joke. Then, you can select the “knock knock” icon. From there, you actually have to wait on your conversation partner’s response in order for the joke to be funny. Although at first Joey could crack himself up, I found that we needed to practice the script in order for these jokes to be ready for the road. Luckily, Joey is highly motivated by this activity.

As necessary when you teach any kindergartener new jokes, this also involved teaching Joey when it was OK and not OK to tell jokes. I have rarely seen Joey as upset with me as he was when I insisted on pausing our joke telling to do more academic work. He complied, but not without asking me (just once) “Do you want to hear a joke?” in the middle of the lesson. I appreciated that he asked first before just going to the joke page – most kindergarteners interrupt with the joke first before you have a chance to redirect them. 

Our recent sessions have been nicely sandwiched in between joke telling and working, and Joey’s family and I have already memorized all of the knock knock jokes. I don’t care how lame the joke is, watching Joey crack up at delivering the punchline of the joke never gets old. 

Who Reads? Creating new routines for learning new skills

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Joey turned to me, putting his eyes directly in line with mine. “Miss Ann-Bailey. Teacher” he said, smiling. While this is true, I quickly recognized the attempt to negotiate with me. My friend, it is only because I am your teacher that we are having this battle, I explained. And I’m holding firm because I know you can do it. One day you will read many books all to yourself. Right now, we are reading this book together. Now, find “IS”.

He gave me a similar look to what he gave me years ago when we first started using the eye gaze and I insisted on him using the device instead of simply looking at what he wanted and laughing. Back then, he believed he had a communication system that worked for him. The idea that I would change this system made him mad. Eventually, Joey and I worked through it, and now he uses his device like a pro. To get here though, he needed to bend and I needed to bend until we found our middle ground.

Now, I am changing the nature of how we read books. When I present him with a simple book that has a repeated pattern sentence on each page, he is not sold on the idea that he should read the whole page to me. That’s not what we do. Miss Ann-Bailey reads to Joey.  Because she’s the teacher. As he pointed out to me when I asked him to read the sentence to me. 

It was not that the task was too hard for Joey. I scaffolded it down to make it fit right with what I knew was an easy task for him. Joey has many high frequency words and can quickly find them on his device. And yet, he still refused to read the sentence. He grabbed the book and hugged it, and then threw it on the floor. He loudly protested. He told me what the last word in the sentence was. He told me the first word in the sentence. He would not, he made it clear, read the middle words of the sentence, even when I helped him find them on the device. Reading, he seemed to be saying, was my teacher job. 

Joey’s mom entered the room at the end of the session and asked who won. Did either of us win? Eventually, Joey selected the word is. Once. But this will resume in our next session, and Joey will learn to read these books. With repetition, persistence, and encouragement, Joey will read words in books just as he learned to communicate with his device, and moved away from his previous communication method of crying or laughing to express his wants/needs. 

I appreciate Joey’s strong willed nature, even when he turns it against me. It’s his greatest strength, and I’ll happily figure out how to meet him where he is to get him to where I know he can go. 

Learning to Read on an AAC Device

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Joey and I have been working on reading predictable pattern books that are typically introduced at this time of year in kindergarten. Joey is doing well with these books, and shows an understanding of using the words and pictures to recognize unfamiliar words. It’s exciting to watch him grow in these abilities, but there are certainly challenges that arise from making sure Joey has appropriate access to leveled reading materials. 

One challenge is simply selecting the right books for him. I like to use a computer program from Pioneer Valley that lets you put the child’s name into the book. It gives the child at least one firm, known word, and who doesn’t like reading a book about themselves? Yet, when I first began with these books, I realized Joey didn’t have his name on his device. He could say the phrase “My name is Joey”, but couldn’t just say “Joey.” I had to cross out Joey and write “I” over each word. (Joey was quickly added and he can now read his own name, and is working on saying it!). 

Another challenge has been finding books that have words that are on his device already. This week I brought a book to practice high frequency words, only to realize that the main word, “here” on each page isn’t on Joey’s device yet. We can read it together and take turns with the words, but it is not the same as providing Joey with a book he can read independently.

There is also the matter of finding appropriate books. Because I can put a name into the book, the book may say “Joey is swimming. Joey is running”. Making him read a book about himself swimming, running, or jumping seems very wrong. I can put his brother’s name into the book, but that too seems a bit unfair. 

More than anything though, I can tell how quickly he tires from reading. Unlike just learning words on his device and exploring new vocabulary, now he has to be careful with exactly which words he selects. When he is just speaking, he can use words that are similar in meaning to another word if he can’t remember where to find it, or if he is having difficulty getting his eyes to focus on one specific word. With reading, he needs to match the word exactly. Once we finish with one of these books, Joey is exhausted. If I take a ten minute language data sampling after we’ve read, Joey will say only around 11 words, when before the book, he may say up to 30 or 40 words. Over the last few weeks I’ve seen Joey’s stamina grow for selecting high frequency words and reading print on the page. Still, what is a two minute book for a typically developing child, is a ten minute struggle for Joey – not because of difficulty recognizing the words – but just the attempts at finding each word to make a sentence.

I struggle with this, because I see Joey’s potential, and continually am surprised by how fast he is learning to recognize high frequency words. I don’t want to exhaust him, frustrate him, or make him hate reading, but I also don’t want to lower my expectations and have him not get access to the grade level reading standards I think he is capable of. I am continuously looking into new ways to support his reading development that will maintain the high standard without overwhelming him.

Saturday Serenade

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