Empowering Paraeducators-The Key to Successful

Empowering Paraeducators-The Key to Successful Implementation by Jeanmarie Jacoby

augmentative communication

Empowering Paraeducators The Key to Successful Implementation

Communication Partner Paraeducators, or Paraprofessionals, play a vital role in the ed- ucation of many of our students that have Individual Education Plans (IEPs). It is safe to say that in many cases, paraeducators are the key person that spends the most 1:1 time with our stu- dents throughout the school day. However, of all of the possi- ble members of the student’s educational team, this is the team member that receives the least amount of training. In 2016, The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that there were 1.3 million paraeducators working in our schools. Often, the role of a paraeducator is to provide support to teachers and students with significant disabilities and health care needs. Who trains the paraeducators? When, and how often, varies drastical- ly from state to state and from district to district. When training is provided, it’s often focused on safety and health care needs. How many of these paraeducators are supporting a student that needs AAC? Opportunities to develop language proficiency for students using AAC are greatly influenced by the student’s support team, especially the paraeducators. According to a 2011 literature re- view by ASHA, some of the essential factors to reduce AAC de- vice abandonment include team support, access to ongoing training, and appropriate expectations from a user’s communi- cation partner. Ensuring success depends on a number of fac- tors including student buy-in and follow through supported by school teams. Implementation is one of the major challenges of educators and teams everywhere. As the most significant com- munication partner for students using AAC, shouldn’t there be

Research indicates that Aided Language Stimulation is a highly effective strategy to support students learning to com- municate using an Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) device. AAC Specialists and Speech and Language Pathol- ogists (SLP) work diligently to increase opportunities for success by modeling language-using AAC for students. Many states have built in training for families following an AAC evaluation to increase competency. Primarily the focus has been on working with special education teachers to increase awareness, support vocabulary development and to create engaging lessons to in- crease communication opportunities. Sometimes, training is given to paraeducators as well. Sometimes? For the past two years, my colleague Candice Steel- SLP-L, ATP, and I have been researching and developing paraprofes- sional training specifically focused on AAC. When we first start- ed this journey, we discovered that too often, paraprofessional training was left up to the teachers and squeezed into the few precious minutes before and after school. Time appeared to be the biggest obstacle to providing paraprofessional training on AAC in school environments. In interviews with dozens of AAC Specialists, we asked what the biggest obstacle was in success- fully implementing AAC in their schools. The responses were consistent and listed lack of follow through, lack of staff buy-in or motivation, lack of modeling and the abundance of different systems in one class. Our conclusion was that all of these con- cerns could be alleviated through systematic training for staff focused on adult learning models. What kind of impact could we have if we started training paraeducators?

Jeanmarie Jacoby M.Ed., Jeanmarie has over 32 years experience in the field of special education. She began her career as a special education teacher in the Boston area and is now living in Phoenix, Arizona. Jeanmarie earned her master’s degree in special education and holds a graduate certificate in Assistive Technology Applications from CSUN. Her many roles in special education include Special Education Teacher, Program Specialist, Assistive Technology Specialist and Adjunct Instructor at Grand Canyon University and Northern Arizona University. Jeanmarie has provided trainings and workshops for parents and educators nationally and internationally. She is passionate about advocating for students with disabilities, mentoring new teachers and providing training for parents and educa - tors in an effort to make the world a more inclusive environment for everyone.

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Snapshot of Module From Empowering Paraeducators Google Classroom

evidence-based training for paraeducators?

tural). • Taking the majority of the turns in communication. • Focusing excessively on the technology or technique and less on the message. These responses can result in limited progress, prompt de- pendency and of course, an escalation of behavior, not to men- tion device abandonment. Do these responses look familiar? Do you see similar results? Are you convinced of the need for paraeducator training yet? We were! At my practice in Phoenix, Arizona, we use all of our training time to work with teachers. There are those that soak up the in- formation and integrate strategies throughout their day. There are others that aren’t as successful. “I don’t understand this device!”, “Too many different devices in one classroom!”, “ Not enough time in the day to train the staff.” My colleague is a sixth grade special education teacher, she said, “I feel that by sixth grade, students that need an AAC device should have one and have at least some basic skills in communication. However, that is too often not the case.” Despite this, year after year, our model stays the same- we use all of our training time to support teachers and therapists. And year after year, students arrive at sixth grade without basic com-

Disempowerment Stephanie Faso is a graduate student at San Jose State Uni- versity working on her Master’s degree in communication, spe- cializing in the cultural communication of people with signif- icant physical and speech differing abilities. Ms. Faso is also a lifelong user of AAC. Her research includes how support systems influence individuals with complex physical and communica- tive differences. In her thesis, she concludes through research, that support systems disempower individuals with complex and communicative differences by not having enough knowledge about the details of the communication devices, by being un- willing to work with the individuals to communicate using the device, and by denying the potential abilities of those using the devices. Research by Light, Collier, & Parnes, 1985: and by Blackstone, 1999, outline patterns of ineffectual responses by paraeduca- tors. Their research cites paraeducators working with students using AAC and doing the following: • Paraeducators limiting questions to yes/no response. • Providing few opportunities of communication and missing opportunities to create communication. • Using large number of prompts (verbal, physical, and ges-

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Closing The Gap

munication or AAC skills. What can we do differently to increase student competency and independence?

were so many amazing resources available from so many Assis- tive Technology “rock stars”. Best of all, most of these resources were free! Candice and I identified what topics needed to be covered. We started with ten topics-Dispelling Myths, Core Vo- cabulary, Visual Supports, Operational Competence, Engineer- ing the Environment, Facilitating Communication and Model- ing, Communication Partners, Social Scripts, Communication Stories and Evaluative Feedback. We certainly could add more topics but the goal was to get staff trained and devices in the hands of students. Effective Learning Strategies Several studies have demonstrated what supports are most impactful. (Rispoli et al., 2011) Instructional methods used in these studies included Instruc- tional videos, written instructions, verbal instruction, modeling, practice, role playing and feedback. Conscious of how adults learn and retain information, we quickly realized that we were better off breaking up the content into modules. We also knew we needed to make the informa- tion fun and engaging. Our hope was if the materials were inter- esting enough, that not only would we have more of a success rate with completion of the training modules, but we would also have the side benefit of the paraeducators sharing the informa- tion with other staff on their team. Providing Options The modules included a two-minute homework assignment to be viewed before the training and an icebreaker activity or video to start the training. We created slide presentations with notes. That way, a trainer can present the slide presentation to a group and have talking points or ask paraeducators to view the presentation independently or in small groups. For those in need of a different format, we made videos of the slide pre- sentation. As best practices dictate, you must provide options! This also made it easy for paraeducators to review if they missed a training due to illness or if they wanted to revisit and review the training multiple times. The slide presentations are editable. Districts can add material or customize the text or pictures to address a school’s unique needs. We decided to add resources relevant to the module top- ics. This promotes further exploration and points participants to free resources available. Finding out there are resources avail- able and having the opportunity to view them only takes a min- ute but we had to limit the amount of resources in order to keep within our 15-minute time limit. Every Good Lesson Needs an Assessment We needed a method of determining if the material we were using was meeting the needs of our paraeducators. We created a Google form with questions directly related to our objectives. We didn’t want it to be intimidating as some of our paraeduca-

Empowerment Candice Steel works with adults that communicate using AAC. Four years ago, she was taken back by the amount of de- vice abandonment in the adult population. She started training paraprofessionals in a series of one-hour trainings. The results were amazing! Not only were the AAC users increasing their communication output, other staff in the room were starting to learn the strategies. The paraprofessionals she trained in her program called, “Power Partners”, modeled the talkers for the members and other paraprofessionals. Communication in- creased, competency increased, and staff started volunteering for the Power Partner training. Three years later, when you walk into her programs, devices are out and staff is modeling the be- havior. More importantly, members are using their devices and communicating. In schools, we see both success and abandonment. We hail the successes and work to support those classrooms where the teacher and paras have supported their students to become effective users of AAC. Clearly these teams are knowledgeable, trained in Aided Language Stimulation and value the impor- tance of creating opportunities to use AAC. The challenge is to reach the teams that aren’t seeing progress. Our students are counting on us to investigate and implement change! Within the schools, we do not have the luxury of time built into the paraeducators schedule to provide one-hour trainings. When I approached my supervisor about giving time for train- ing, there was a definite, “no” response. I could train the teachers or I could have 15 minutes before school started or at the end of the day. Fifteen minutes was a start. Determined to reach these classrooms, I started my re- search. Though there was a plethora of resources available, there were but a handful of programs focused solely on train- ing paraprofessionals to work specifically with students using AAC. There are several online programs, with one of the most well-known, from Pennsylvania’s PaTTAN. There are similar pro- grams offered in Connecticut, Minnesota and Phoenix all cover- ing a range of topics from an overview of eligibility categories, academic support strategies, behavioral plans and health and safety practices. This course work is independent course work and not always supported by school districts-meaning there may not be any “reward” for completing the program. Most notably, these courses are not going to address the time con- straints and require a lot of self-determination on the part of the paraeducator to enroll and complete the program. Starting Line I partnered up with my colleague Candice, who had already had so much success training her support staff for adults using AAC. We decided to create our own 15-minute trainings. There

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tors hadn’t taken a test in many years. For that reason, we la- beled our assessments, “Check for Understanding”. Having an assessment enables administration or teachers to determine if the paraeducator understands the topic or if they need further information and training before moving on to the next module. An Accessible Classroom Our last obstacle was how to organize and present the ma- terials. Google Classroom was our best option as our district was promoting G Suite within our schools. It made sense. Best of all, we would be teaching the paraeducators to utilize the technology we wanted our teachers and students to use. Too often we train the administrators, train the teachers, train the therapists and overlook the need to train the paraeducators (... again). Moreover, we were able to share our classroom with oth- er districts (outside of G Suite) enabling them to download ma- terials, make their own classrooms and copy the assessments. Results As mentioned earlier, this program worked great with the support staff working with the adults. I also used the trainings to train teachers, SLPA’s and paraeducators. We shared the class- room with AT Trainers in Arizona, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas and Wisconsin. Feedback has been very positive and has prompted us to make changes. We added separate objectives for participants to view before start- ing each module. We changed the order in which we presented each topic. Additionally, two more modules were added to the classroom. We felt we needed to add an introduction module to show participants how the trainings would work and how unintimi- dating they were! We wanted to start them off with a bang and build enthusiasm while also conducting a powerful activity to start this experience. In addition, a 12th module was added to recognize their el- evated knowledge. The 12th module is called “Celebrations”, and takes time to acknowledge their accomplishment but also outline their responsibilities moving forward. The expectation is not only that they promote the use AAC into the daily lives of their students, but also it is expected that they empower their teammates by sharing their new expertise in augmentative and alternative communication strategies. There are many school districts that are successfully imple- menting AAC into their school day. There are even more SLPs, therapists, AT Trainers, Special Education Teachers and parents that made it their personal mission to keep informed and utilize research-based strategies to increase outcomes for the students they work with. For Candice and I, this project was about the un- derserved, under informed and untrained paraeducators. This was for the educational teams that needed access to resources in a condensed, time sensitive platform. This project focused on the motivated caretakers that craved information but had diffi-

culty navigating through the wealth of information available. It is possible to deliver training and information even in the small- est increment of time slots. This project was for our paraeduca- tors and for those educators that believe that investing in our paraeducators will exponentially increase our outcomes for stu- dents using AAC. Empowering our paraeducators can be the key to successful implementation. Free samples of this project are available upon request. References IDEA Part B Issue Brief: Personnel Qualifcations. (2019). Re- trieved June 12, 2019, from https://www.asha.org/Advocacy/ federal/idea/IDEA-Part-B-Issue-Brief-PersonnelQualifcations/ National Resource Center for Paraeducators. (2019). Retrieved June 11, 2019, from http://www.nrcpara.org/ Stephanie Faso Colloquium May 2019 - YouTube. (2019). Retrieved June 3, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=NHXbZRu8PEE Training Resources for Supervisors. (2019). Retrieved June 12, 2019, from https://para.unl.edu/teacher/index.lasso

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