I don’t know about you, but where I work, it’s often hard to convince people that our students have SO much MORE potential.  The first step is presuming competence but the second step is providing our students with the opportunity to learn.  So many students have been passed over and deemed unable to learn to read or write.

Often the students with more complex needs are passed over for actual literacy instruction.   I’ve actually heard the phrase “maybe they can learn read objects.”  I don’t even know what this means!  Good literacy instruction involves words and print!  Do I provide students with multi-sensory stories and use objects with some of my kiddos with vision problems, absolutely.  But it’s NOT the only instruction they should receive!

I’ve had the pleasure of going to many trainings and presentations this year about literacy and how the students I work with can benefit from literacy instruction.  To clarify – I work with students with complex bodies and complex communication needs.  Many are nonverbal, many are in wheelchairs with limited fine and gross motor skills, many have complex medical conditions, and many face low expectations set by those supposed to teach them.  After listening to Caroline Musselwhite, Gretchen Hanser, Karen Erickson, and Susan Norwell I couldn’t wait to get back to school and start putting real literacy instruction in place!

The first step was reading up about the Four Block model for students with disabilities.  The second step was ordering information about alternative pencils.  The third step was to convince a classroom to adopt this model and give it a try! With the help of a fantastic teacher, an incredible SLP, and an amazing OT; we’ve been able to get actual reading and writing instruction off the ground!  We’re 12 weeks in and I’m going to be sharing a series of posts about:

1. How we got started!
2. Getting staff on board 🙂
3. Kinks we had to iron out!
4. Lesson ideas
5. Progress
6. Getting other classrooms on board!

We need to raise our expectations and take the plunge!  Literacy is a basic human right and ALL students are entitled to literacy instruction.  Let’s make this happen!

It’s so frustrating to do an AAC evaluation, finish the trials, and submit the report to insurance and then have to WAIT for months until the student gets his device.  I have a student who is practicing on the school Accent 1400 with NuEye until his device gets approved.  He has the best sense of humor and has been rocking the device!

This week when I was working with him during a literacy “Working with Words” group, he used the device to say “look look” when the teacher forgot to show him the materials!  The next day his teacher asked if he needed to be changed and he quickly said “do want need!”  He’s been chatting up a storm and making sure everyone knows he is there and ready to communicate!

Such a nice change from a few months ago when he had no communication system!

It’s both exciting and sad to be doing evaluations with older students who have complex communication needs.  To hear them say their first independent words and see them communicating for the first time is incredible!  But with it comes with a huge range of emotions – excitement and awe, hope for their future, and then an overwhelming sadness and urge to cry.  It’s so frustrating to see how much some of my students have to say and know that it took 18+ years for someone to believe in them and give them the tools they need to succeed!  How much farther along could we be if someone had done this years ago??

This week we did an AAC evaluation with a student who is 19.  He is unable to move except for slight head movements.  He often has his eyes closed and I hadn’t been sure what to do with him for some time.  His SLP and teacher showed him the Accent 1400 with NuEye and he was apparently cracking up to see his eyes on the screen.  So I brought it in last week, set him up, got it calibrated, and boy did he have a lot to say!!  He quickly advanced from 28 1-Hit with a field of 4, to everything unmasked, and then 28 Sequenced in a 30 minute period.  He actively explored all of the vocab and attended to the clinician’s modeling.  Soon he said “stop” and then closed his eyes to rest.  When he opened them, he said “go” and then got to talking!

We showed him the games on Look2Learn and then brought him back to the communicator.  He quickly said “play.”  His SLP modeled “want play” and he said “play want!”  His IEP is coming up and we asked him what he wanted to work on in the upcoming year.  I modeled that he could work on math, learning to read, going on the internet, etc.  His reply? “Xbox.”

Can’t wait to hear everything he has to say!

Working with students with complex communication needs, it is often difficult to figure out how we are going to provide the student with a robust language system when determining access may be difficult.  PRC’s CoreScanner™ is a robust language system that allows students to gradually increase vocabulary while maintaining consistent motor plans.

I have a student who is unable to make direct selections with her finger, so we started looking at two switches as an access point for her.  This made CoreScanner™ perfect for her, but she’s mobile!  She doesn’t have great body awareness so attaching the switches to her was not a viable option.  After some brainstorming this is what we came up with!

We cut an acrylic board to the width of her device.  We made sure to add holes that would align with the strap holes on the Accent.  There are small holes for the screws and larger holes so we can turn the switches off and change the batteries.  We attached PRC’s Freedom Switches to the device which work via Bluetooth so there are no extra wires hanging around!  Lastly, we etched the acrylic with the student’s name!

The nice thing about this system is that it ensures that the switches are always attached and available with the device.  When we went to the Smithsonian a few weeks ago, I wore the device across my body and when the student wanted to talk, she would tap it.  I would move it around to the front of my body and she could talk!  When she sits a table, the board is flexible (on zip-ties) so it sits perfectly on the table in front of her.

She’s been chatting quite a bit and we’re all thrilled that we figured out a way to make this happen!

Have you ever worked in one of those awesome classrooms where everyone gets on board with AAC?  A classroom where you can walk into the room at any given time and you know your students are going to have their devices right next to them?  It’s a rare and magical place and I love it!  This week, another SLP and I decided to have a THANK YOU lunch for one of our magical classrooms.  In addition to implementing communication systems, they have spent the last month learning how to use alternative pencils with their students.

We bought pizza and soda and got down to thanking the amazing paraprofessionals (and teacher!) who have gotten on board with communication and literacy.  One of their students was still at school and came to the party.  While everyone was talking about how great things have been going, the student reached for his device and said “fun.”  And he was so right!  It was fun and special!  I can’t wait to see what more this classroom has to offer!

Wanted to share another word cloud!  This is from one of my students using Puente 84.  It’s pretty awesome to see a mixture of English and Spanish words!  I looked at her “Top 10” data from one week and thought it was cool to see that two words made it into the top ten in both languages!

It’s exciting to see some of my students independently code-switching!  It’s especially fun to see that she uses both languages in the same activity.  For example I see her talking about the month and days of the week in both languages most likely during morning meeting.  Way to go!