Caught Modeling Core

Caught Modeling Core By Colleen Krasich , Jessica Gerth

professional development

You’ve gone to the training, taken the webinar and are all geared up to go back to work armed with what you have learned and want to implement. However, not everyone back home is as excited as you are. Now what do you do? How do we, as profes- sionals, close the gap between what we know and how to put it into practice? How do we close the gap between our students and staff? I attended the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) conference for the first time in January 2017. ATIA is a three-day conference and one of the world’s most extensive as- sistive technology conferences showcasing international excel- lence in the field. This conference goes beyond Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) into a whole realm of Assistive Technology and how multi-disciplinary professionals, parents and teachers can use these products to best serve those in need. The conference was a memorable educational experi- ence, to say the least. If you have not had the chance to attend ATIA (like I hadn’t before this trip), I definitely recommend at least looking into it. I went to some notable breakout sessions. I was able to hear speakers genuinely talk about their passion for Assistive Tech- nology. My colleague, Colleen, was in her Clinical Fellowship year and was just as excited as I was to be first time attendees. One of the more memorable sessions we both attended was Hard “Core”: There’s More (Than Stop and Go) to Explore presented

by Aldrich, Dubovsky and Katzen. In their session, these women spoke about Core Vocabulary and used an analogy that really made an impact on us. In their analogy, Aldrich, Dubovsky and Katzen stated that an ice cream sundae is like our language, our language as a whole. The main ingredient of the ice cream sun- dae is the ice cream, in which they compared to Core Vocabu- lary, whereas the toppings are comparable to Fringe Vocabulary because these are additional and specific to each individual. I also heard the following quote by Jane Kortsen for the first time: “The average 18 month old has been exposed to 4,380 hours of oral language at the rate of eight hours a day from birth. A child who has a communication system and receives speech lan- guage therapy two times per week for 20 to 30 minute sessions will reach this same amount of language exposure in 84 years”. This quote rocked us back on our heels, especially knowing that as speech-language pathologists, we were the ones providing that 20-30 minutes of speech therapy twice a week. After hear- ing this, we definitely realized that we had some work ahead of us! After leaving our first ATIA conference, Colleen and I were feeling both inspired and bewildered. We had already started a Core Vocabulary initiative within our Autism program; however, it was slow moving and realistically, not what we had anticipat- ed and hoped for, up until that point. We knew that something needed to change and we would be the ones to implement that

Jessica Gerth is a Speech Language Pathologist who works with children on the Autism Spectrum to help them communicate effectively and engage in the world around them. Jessica believes that just because someone is non-verbal, does not mean that they have nothing to say. She has worked for the Belleville Area Special Services Co-op for 12 years, 10 solely within the Autism Program. Jessica holds a Master’s degree in Speech Language Pathology from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Colleen Krasich is a Speech-Language Pathologist who currently works with elementary school children, in a rural part of the Midwest. She completed her CF year working with children on the Autism Spectrum, at Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative (BASSC), where she met Jessica Gerth and implemented the “Caught Modeling Core” program. Colleen graduated with honors from Western Illinois University, where she holds a Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology and Spanish Language/Literature.

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change. Our workplace consistently struggled with staff turn- over and staff participation, so we knew there had to be some- thing that enticed the teachers and staff. Having worked in the field of Autism, in a school-based setting for ten plus years, I knew positive reinforcement was going to garner the best results. This discussion led to a mem- ory from my childhood of a program that was implemented throughout grade school entitled “Caught Being Good”. When a student was caught having a preferred behavior, a ticket was given to that individual student. These same tickets would then be saved up and used to purchase items, such as: stickers, fold- ers or pencils from the “school store”. The program I participat- ed in during my elementary education was a Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS), which was a program used to achieve important behavior changes. Simply put, PBIS is a gen- eral term that refers to positive behavioral interventions and systems used to achieve important behavior changes. Therefore, it rewarded good behavior to encourage others to have good behavior as well. These two ideas gave rise to the PBIS initiative “Caught Modeling Core”. Our PBIS program was a bit different than the one used throughout my education because it was de- signed for the school staff, rather than for students, whom most PBIS are utilized. Colleen and I sat down with our administrator, who was previously a speech-language pathologist (SLP), and laid out the framework for structuring the initiative. Since it was after the ATIA conference, we knew we were running short on time before the end of the school year, so we wanted to implement a quick three-month initiative to track the use and modeling of Core Vocabulary across different activities and settings in our school. I know that there has been multiple conversations within the AAC world about how to classify and what to call this concept. Do we continue to classify it as modeling or do we call it Aided Language Input? For our “Caught Modeling Core” initiative we called it modeling (to simplify the terminology for our staff) and defined it as, “pointing to an icon on a core board or activating a button on an AAC device, while saying the word”. This defini- tion did not require the student to respond, rather it was just the adult showing the student. We printed this definition on a small, pocket-sized laminated card and provided it to each one of our teachers and staff members. We confirmed that our administrator as well as our fellow support staff, which included: Occupational Therapists, Certi- fied Occupational Therapy Assistants, and a Music Therapist, would all be assisting us SLPs, to watch and keep track of the teachers and staff who are modeling Core Vocabulary to their students. We informed our administrator of our plans for having staff incentives and that these incentive costs would be covered by myself and Colleen. We outlined the duration of the “Caught Modeling Core” initiative, explaining that we would hold this ini- tiative from March until mid-May, even though we knew spring break would come in the middle of this. From our experience,

we know that the teachers in our school rarely get to eat lunch outside of their classrooms or without students, so we wanted to have a meaningful incentive for our winners. We decided on the following prizes: (1) a restaurant gift card for the individual who modeled the most and (2) lunch that was provided by Col- leen and myself, for the classroom that cumulatively modeled the most. Not only was lunch going to be provided, but Colleen and I were to trade places and let the teachers and the class- room staff enjoy lunch in the workroom, while we sat with their students for that period. We also knew there would be staff hesi- tations, so we planned to combat those with extra trainings and core vocabulary meetings. To introduce our “Caught Modeling Core” initiative to the staff, we had the teachers and staff fill out a survey that includ- ed questions regarding their knowledge, familiarity and level of comfort in regards to Core Vocabulary and modeling. In the survey, we also asked them how many activities throughout the day that they were currently modeling core vocabulary to their students. We told the staff that this survey was their invitation to an ice cream social. Once the survey was completed, the teach- ers and staff were able to turn it in to receive their ice cream. Our related service staff was generous enough to serve the ice cream to the staff, since they were going to help us keep track during our program. While the teachers and staff were eating their ice cream sundaes, Colleen and I explained the “Caught Modeling Core” initiative and the reasoning behind it. We explained the definitions of Core Vocabulary versus Fringe Vocabulary by us- ing the ice cream sundae analogy that Aldrich, Dubovsky and Katzen used. Research tells us that Core Vocabulary makes up

A fun group lesson

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ter this, we laid out the logistics and framework for our “Caught Modeling Core” initiative and wished them luck. As expected, a few hesitations came out of this initial intro- duction from our teachers and staff. One specific hesitation was that the teachers never get out of the classroom; therefore, the modeling would not be seen as frequently. Thus, the teachers and staff wanted to model Core Vocabulary to their students, but wanted to make sure they were given credit where credit was due. We explained that our administrator, as well as other related service staff, would be more of a presence within the classrooms to assist with this concern. Colleen and I added more environmental labeling throughout the school building, such as picture icons on light switches, providing and planting core boards in the bathrooms, cafeterias, hallways, and outside on the playground. We also made mobile “to-go” core boards which were printed, laminated and put on lanyards, so they were easily accessible. We teamed up with our Occupational Therapists and Certified Occupational Therapy Assistants to make sure Core Vo- cabulary was intertwined to the Zones of Regulation that they were using on a daily basis. The environmental labeling was to help promote the fact that communication happens everywhere and our students should not be limited to certain rooms in which they can communicate. Another hesitation came from one of the classrooms in which the majority of the students were verbal. The hesitation was the fact that, “there was not a need to model since our students are verbal”. This hesitation made us aware of the need for more training. We explained with that classroom specifically, that us- ing Core Vocabulary static boards to expand upon what their

Another fun group lesson

approximately 80% of our language, just like ice cream makes up approximately 80% of your sundae. While the remaining 20% of our ice cream sundaes would be the toppings that are specific to each individual. This remaining 20% in terms of our language is called Fringe Vocabulary, which is the specific, contextual, non-generic vocabulary words used while we speak. These are made up of mostly nouns, but without them, we would have nothing to talk about. During our ice cream social, we also read Jane Korsten’s 84 years quote to the teachers and staff and ex- plained their role in this. We explained the importance of them modeling and using this approach with their students, since they are with their students more than we are during the day. Af-

Visual Tracking

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students verbally say, would encourage longer utterances from their students. Throughout the initiative, we always combated these hesitations with positivity and encouragement, as well as trainings, when needed. Colleen and I held staff trainings, sometimes alongside our AAC consultant, for our teachers and staff on ways to include Core Vocabulary into their classrooms. One training in particular that was beneficial was when Colleen and I brought in random toys from an overflowing speech therapy closet, empty plastic shoe boxes, and printed Core Vocabulary icons. You might be thinking okay, so they organized their materials? Wrong! We had our teachers pair up, grab a couple toys and then we gave them Core Vocabulary words to use. The teachers had to figure out different ways to use the toys they had, combined with their specific Core Vocabulary words to address multiple communica- tive functions. This brought on a fun, collaborative approach to teaching Core Vocabulary, rather than lecturing. The staff were involved and hands on, which is known as “hands on” or “experi- ential learning”, which research shows to be beneficial. Experien- tial learning is the process of learning through experience, and is more specifically defined as “learning through reflection on doing” according to psychologist David Kolb. Our teachers and staff agreed with this when they explained that these trainings were helpful. Our main goal for these trainings was to explain and demonstrate the fact that Core Vocabulary should be a part of EVERYTHING – not an additional task for teachers to imple- ment, thus focusing on embedding Core Vocabulary into their already planned academic activities. Even with the hesitations, when all was said and done, our teachers and staff did show improvement with modeling Core Vocabulary for the students. A post-survey was given (which in- cluded the same questions as the pre-survey) and it showed an increase across all areas that we looked into (e.g., familiarity with Core Vocabulary, settings in which Core Vocabulary is used, ac- tivities in which Core Vocabulary is used). Our winners were very pleased with their prizes and we were very pleased to see the modeling continue once the competition was complete. Our ultimate goal was to understand how we could be more effec- tive and intentional when implementing Core Vocabulary in our environment, while simultaneously inspiring the staff to want to be better communication partners for their students and in hopes, model Core Vocabulary in more settings and throughout more academic activities. The by-product of this initiative was the sheer amount of modeling in which our students were ex- posed. “Caught Modeling Core” ultimately increased the com- municative use of Core Vocabulary with both our non-verbal and verbal students, brought classrooms together and on the same page regarding the importance of communicating with our students, increased understanding and comfort level of us- ing Core Vocabulary, and increased the number of activities in which Core Vocabulary was used throughout the school day. As with any sort of new program being put into place, there

Environmental labeling

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Core program created a fun, engaging and slightly competitive way to encourage staff to further expand the use of core words in the classroom. The activities and trainings were brief, fun, low stress and encouraged participation by all staff. There was an in- crease in modeling of core words in all of our classrooms as well as throughout the school building”.

is going to be room for improvement and ways to make things more effective and efficient moving forward. Knowing this, there are things that we would change. We would make sure Core Vo- cabulary trainings were provided to our teachers and staff (spe- cifically new hires) at the beginning of the school year especially because of our high turnover rate. We would make the “Caught Modeling Core” initiative more collaborative and cooperative rather than competitive. We would have a Core Vocabulary word of the week designated, which would help in taking some of the stress off the teachers when trying to decide which core word to target, and we would make sure Core Vocabulary words are expanding beyond the basic few words, such as “stop, go, eat, drink, yes, no, more”. One thing that has been implemented, that was not done during our “Caught Modeling Core” initiative is providing one- to-one trainings to the teachers and staff regarding modeling. In these trainings, the SLP is using Senner and Baud (2012) S’mor- res Model in order to demonstrate modeling effectively. Senner and Baud break modeling into different components: (S) slow rate, (Mo) model in which you point and participate in self and parallel talk, (R) respect and reflect, (R) repeat, (E) expand, and (S) stop, pausing and allowing the child to respond. We have re- ceived great feedback since using this training method for the teachers and staff and we believe this will help our teachers and staff have a better understanding of how to use Core Vocabulary and modeling with our students. Overall, we are extremely pleased with how “Caught Mod- eling Core” turned out; however, I think our administrator summed it up the best when she said, “The Caught Modeling

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