optimal accommodations and supports. Screen displays with high contrast and movement increased visual attention. Positioning for comfort and trunk stability allowed Aarna to move her head to press the switch and to shift her gaze between her teacher and the iPad screen. An arm clamp attached to her tray elevated the iPad so its positioning was in Aarna’s best viewing area, which is upper central. Sometimes routines become overly familiar and performance declines because of boredom. The team decided to develop a new iPad routine designed to maintain high motivation and to expand skills. Aarna’s new routine was Rufus Reading. One of the items on Aarna’s list of highly motivating topics for routines was human voice. Aarna paid intense attention to voices in her environment. She knew when someone addressed her and she worked hard to look at her social partners. In social speech, attention to attributes such as intonation and changes in pitch and rhythm provides cues for interpreting emotional content. In her Rufus Reading routine, Aarna used her head switch to turn pages as she listened to the language in her story. In this context, intonation and changes in pitch and rhythm are part of syntax development, (i.e., attention to the arrangement of words and phrases). In early development, interest in the structure and rhythm of language exists with or without semantic content (i.e., understanding the meaning of the words heard). Aarna may have understood some of the words she heard in her Rufus Reading routine. She clearly demonstrated that she understood some of the syntax of the language she heard. She waited until a sentence finished before she initiated a social comment directed toward her teacher—a smile or a laugh—and she anticipated favorite parts of her story as demonstrated by smiling and laughing when the preceding text was heard. CONCLUSION Learners with severe multiple disabilities need high quality interventions designed to help them understand what is going on in their environments. When they are free of the stress caused by incoherence, they confidently interact with people and objects. Semantic and cognitive skills develop because of these interactions. Active participation is required. When motor impairments pre- vent full execution of actions, a learner’s mental imaging of actions helps to achieve active learning. Learners must understand what is happening in order to imagine what they want to do. Aarna developed coherence for the three activities described here because they provided the motivation, consistency, repetition, and accommodations/supports she needed. She used mental imagery and limited movement, with and without assistive technology, to develop semantic and cognitive skills. Some motor responses, such as the movement of her left foot, improved over time. She progressed from a baseline of quiet alert/attention zone skills to partial participation/function zone skills over five months.
PRODUCT INFORMATION American Printing House
Sensory Learning Kit American Printing House for the Blind - The SLK is research-based and uses best practice strategies that align with the common administrative practices in place in most special education programs. The material contained in this product gives teachers of learners with visual and multiple impairments the tools to • conduct sensory efficiency and learning media assessments; • address IEP areas such as instructional settings, accommodations, and goals; and • provide highly effective instruction using a collaborative, consultation-service delivery model.
Sensory Learning Kit - American Printing House
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