End of the semester.

I can't help but smile when I look at this year from a distance. I was able to turn my life around I feel. I also was learning more than I could have ever thought I would. This class was amazing and I will never forget it I learned a lot about myself as well as the kids I will be teaching.

Teaching doesn't seem so scary anymore, now that I know I will have a great support  with me and I can do anything! I made some new friends and I hope one day some new collegues. The class was unforgetable, even though it was my second time taking it, I feel I learned more this time around no doubt.

Thank you Dr. Evans. You are amazing.

Presentations

So in this class we had to give presentations. They were, fun, challenging, and eye opening. I was in a group that dealt with the low vision and hard of hearing aspect of special ed. I looked at some interventions specifically for my group. That was really fun, I looked at something called visual phonics. This is where you have actual signs and pictures to represent the phonics in english. It is great to use because english can be complicated and by using this you are able to side step that difficulty a little bit.

I like it, here is a small example of it.

Visual Phonics

Boardmaker/LAIP 4

First off let me say that boardmaker is a pain at times. It is only on some computers and the license was out and it was a problem and ugghhh, now that I am done venting...

Boardmaker is a software that is great for making communication boards for students who are nonverbal. It has, what seems like, millions of pictures. I had to use it for the designing of a LAIP project, but I have had some experience with it in the past. I like the program for what it is, but it can at times be a little laggy and expensive. I hope that I am able to use it in my future classroom and that I have someone to talk to about it.


Here are my boards!

Brian Wojcek (I hope that is right)

I LOVED this speaker. He was amazing, he was fun, he was interesting, and to me most importantly he was a guy. He was very fun to listen too, his "lecture" flew by and I didn't even know the time was moving. He kept us talking and we were all so enthralled by the speech. The information he had about AAC was extremely great. I took notes on the topic before hand and will put them at the end of this blog. As I said earlier he was a male. This, to me at least, was a big deal. I have listened to some amazing people talk, but they are mostly female. There is nothing wrong with that, sometimes I just feel like I want the male perspective too, and I think that he was a perfect representation of what I want to be as a teacher.

Thanks Brian!!

 What is AAC?:

- AAC refers to a diverse set of  strategies and methods used by  people who do not speak, are difficult  to understand, or have language  retrieval issues.

-“An area of clinical practice that attempts to compensate (either temporarily or permanently) for the impairment and  disability patterns of individuals with  severe expressive communication  disorders”

 What are the two main techniques?:

-Unaided

-Aided

            -Low Tech: 1 response

            -High Tech:

 Name and describe 4 components for AAC aides ir devices

1.      Representational symbol set or VOCBULARY capability

2.      A means of selecting the symbols

3.      A means for transmitting the symbols

4.      Portability feature

 List the elements considered for pre-assessment of AAC device

1.      Communication of wants and needs

2.      Information transfer

3.      Social closeness

4.      Social Etiquette

 What are the critical questions when designing an AAC system?

1.      What type of system? Combination?

2.      What symbol system? What factors should be considered?

a.      Guessability

b.      Learnability

c.       Generalization

3.      Which vocabulary terms

 What is the hierarchy for symbol transparency?

-Letters, Words, Real objects. Photographs (Color/B&W), Line drawings

 Name the considerations for planning communication goals?

1.      Increase

a.      Environments

b.      Age-appropriate interactions

c.       Opportunities

2.      Honor topics valued by the student

3.      Honor topics valued by Parent/Guardian

4.      Use of the system by the ACC user – can it be put into place right away?

5.      Target enhancing the status of the ACC user

 List the steps to develop an AAC instructional program.

1.      Pre-assessment

2.      Develop goals

3.      Selection of mode of communication

4.      Selection of symbol system

5.      Method to enhance communication

 What are the display types?

1.      Static

2.      Dynamic

 What are the access methods?

1.      Direct Physical contact with the device

2.      Scanning

3.      Multiple access methods

a.      Switch, mouse, joystick, headpointer, etc.

 Name examples of AAC devices and use?

1.      Big Mack: Switch for power

2.      Eye gaze board: Ability to chose without having to move hands

3.      Base Trainer: Object Recognition

 How do you talk with an AAC user?

1.      Collaboration with adults in the child’s life, not just the disciplinarians

2.      Functional Skills should be taught

3.      Anyone coming into contact with the ACC can help instruct communication skills

 How do you promote literacy with an AAC user?

By using a board maker to give the students a chance to answer questions. They can also interact with the story.

visual strategies

What can I say about visual strategies? Well I can say that they are amazing, they are a great help to special ed. as well as general education classes. They are things like calenders, schedules, power cards, social stories etc. They are some times difficult to make, not because it is hard to actual make them, but instead it is hard to choose which one is appropriate for the child.

If you are to pick the wrong one, the student could hate to use it. You need to make sure it is not a one size fits all kind of mentality too. Not all kids are the same, in fact they are all vastly different and need different techniques to learn.

Assesing Language

We mainly talked about the assessment of language in today's class. The main thing that we talked about was the actual assessment of language. When a teacher is assessing a student you must make sure that you are using an assessment that has been tested in many different norms and has yielded positive results in the tests it has already administered. We looked at an assessment in class in our groups and we saw just how difficult it can be to make a positive assessment and how good they can be. My group got a great assessment. These were the questions that my group had and I think that they were great questions!1. How do you deal with the challenges of young kids and assessing them for language disorders? (some kids just don't talk and have no language problems at all, or sometimes they just develop a tad slower but catch on)2. How do you handle an assessment for a child who is an ELL?3. What ways can you as a teacher enhance language skills in the classroom? 

School Age Language

The main thing we talked about this week was the development of school age language.
These were the 6 things in Morphology and Syntax Development in School Age children!
 1. Inflectional prefixes ( un- and dis-)
2. Derivational suffixes :  word endings that
change the meaning of the words ( -ly)
3. Reflexives:  ( myself / himself)
4. Verb Tense:  ( have, be, has, had)
5. Continue to develop  advance sentence types
6. Development can be observed in their
writing

We also learned that the 2 main predictors for reading success are Language skills, Phonological ability.
This bit of learning seemed to really stick in my mind because of the practicality of it. I thought that the part of the lesson on how to monitor students was the most important. It said that if you need to see how a child interacts with language you should also look at their social interaction as well.