learning more efficient. Random passive exposure to the sensory attributes of objects may create short-term attention, but in order to create coherence, an experience must be predictable, manageable and meaningful. When participation in an experience consists mainly of physical manipulation of a learner’s body, she may not have a chance to learn what other people do with objects, because no one modeled those actions for her. Names of things important to the learner may get lost in sentences containing many random unfamiliar words. In typically developing children, these important names are the words that acquire meaning first. Usually they include names of favorite people, foods, toys and actions. Infants and toddlers understand the meaning of words before they can say them. A typical two-year-old child comprehends the meaning of about 200 words and says about 20. A toddler knows he is going to get a cookie when he hears that word while sitting in his high chair, long before he can ask his mother for a cookie by saying the word (Hoff, 2013). Programs for learners with severe disabilities facilitate semantic development (i.e., understanding the meaning of words) most effectively when they build a solid experiential base for concepts about people and objects and when they pair symbols like words and pictures with the things they represent before using them alone (Kucker, McMurray, and Samuelson, 2015). Some programs tend to emphasize expressive communication skills almost exclusively. Words without meaning may be a useful stimulus for evok- ing a desired response in a specific context, such as an auditory scanning device, but they may not have the true symbolic content that makes them understood when used by different people in different contexts. Similarly, picture usage may occur with or without meaning. Conditioned stimulus/response relationships are useful. Most people’s phone displays have some images that are mean- ingful and recognizable in multiple contexts, while recognition of other images may rely on attributes such as color and location in one context only. Empowering learners in tasks such as choice making using non-representational arbitrary images can be effective; however, it is not semantic development. Understanding the meaning of symbols so that they can be used in multiple contexts is even more empowering. INTERVENTION The individualized education plan (IEP) team featured here used strategies and tools contained in The Sensory Learning Kit (SLK) (Smith, 2005) to design the intervention described here. The SLK organizes skills related to semantic development and cognitive development into three zones of sensorimotor stage function. The quiet alert or attention zone begins with the semantic devel- opment skill of passive sensory component processing and the cognitive skill of anticipation. The active alert or exploration zone includes active sensory component processing, comparison and egocentric use in semantic development and exploration, object permanence, cause and effect and imitation in cognitive development. In the partial participation or function zone, semantic devel- opment progresses to the understanding of what other people do with objects and to thinking of things named by others. Cogni- tive development expands to tool use and complex object to object spatial relationships. From October through December of one school year, Aarna’s IEP team used the SLK to assess her needs and plan her intervention. The team followed her progress from the initiation of instruction in January through the next five months. During that time, Aarna was a second grader receiving homebound services due to a repressed immune system. Her IEP team included her homebound teacher, teacher of students with visual impairments (TVI), physical therapist, occupational therapist and assistive technology spe- cialist. Her parents, grandparents and private duty nurse provided valuable information throughout Aarna’s intervention. After using SLK tools to review medical conditions and current evaluations, the team began the intervention by observing a regularly occurring familiar activity in order to establish a baseline or present level of cognitive/semantic performance from which to measure progress. Aarna’s present level was quiet alert/attention zone. During a lotion activity, she maintained alertness throughout, smiled and vocalized while responding to her teacher’s voice and touch and occasionally visually fixated on her teacher’s face. To see Aarna’s Lotion Activity watch December—Establishing Baseline at ( Beginning, next page ) The team designed the first instructional activities in Aarna’s intervention to develop the active alert/exploration zone cognitive skill of cause and effect. They knew that to be effective these activities would need to be highly motivating and consistent, repeat frequently and contain needed supports and accommodations. Aarna’s TVI and homebound teacher used an SLK assessment tool to identify attractive sensory topics for Aarna’s activities and to identify accommodations that made sensory access to media more efficient. Using this information, the team determined that the best topics for activities were the following: • faces (with complexity reduction in the visual field) • human voice • lotion (with slow rhythmic pressure)
• bells • iPad®
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