Literacy Development for Learners with Severe Disabilities

Literacy Development for Learners with Severe Disabilities

& Deafblindness

PowerPoint Slides to be used in conjunction

with theFacilitator’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.


• 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.


– 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.


• 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.


• 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.


• 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.


• So what is “literacy”, and how does it apply to learners with multiple disabilities and/or deafblindness? What’s its importance for these students?


• 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.


• 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.


• 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).


• 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.


– 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 pre-symbolic, early symbolic, or symbolic stages.

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/ncecs

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?


– Learners with multiple disabilities need to be active communication partners to promote the development of language and literacy.


• 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.


– 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.


– 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”.


– 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.


• 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.


– 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.


• 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.


– 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.


– 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.


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 hand-over-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.


• 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.


• 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).


• 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).


• Assigning meaning to a learner’s behavior and responding consistently each time it occurs facilitates communication development and interaction.


• 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.

Documents

Literacy Development for Learners with Severe Disabilities