"I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from top to bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people." (Eduardo Galeano)
Vocabulary is critical to language development. Without sufficient vocabulary, it is hard to understand others or to express your own ideas. We expand vocabulary by exposing children to words and their meaning. With people with complex communication needs we sometimes get stuck in focusing a lot of our effort on nouns simply because nouns represent things that we can touch or point to or match an object/symbol to.
In education, we often think of noun-related questions as the "easiest" questions as they require only "simple memorization". This noun-focused approach to teaching is known as "referential teaching". Referential teaching/questions require a specific one-word answer. These questions are sometimes referred to as "closed-ended". Referential teaching/questions require access to vocabulary that is specific to the topic that is being studied. If a student has a communication system, this requires that the topic-specific words get programmed or added to the system at the beginning of each new unit of study. These words often have limited functional value beyond that unit of study so do not necessarily stay on the system beyond the time of the unit of study. Because they have limited functional use, they also do not serve to increase a student's functional language skills.
Gail Vantatenhoven (2012) proposed that an alternative to a referential approach is a descriptive approach. In this approach, the vocabulary that is specific to the topic is still used but it is used by the communication partner/teacher/tutor and then concepts related to that vocabulary are talked about using high-frequency (core) vocabulary that is already available on the individual's communication system. The questions that are asked are more "open-ended" and encourage the use of common words for describing, defining, predicting, explaining, and/or comparing. This approach ensures that students can participate at pretty much any level of language development and that there is ongoing opportunity to work on language learning through the facilitating of more specific description using phrase/sentence construction, use of tense (past, present, future), use of word endings (s, ing, er, est...etc.),
Description and action words that could be used include talking about:
how something, someone or some place looks (pretty/ugly, straight/crooked, bright/dark,shiny/dull, neat/messy, it's color...etc.), sounds (noisy/quiet), smells/tastes (stinky, sweet, salty, hot, spicy, sour, nice...etc.) or feels (hot/cold, hard/soft, bumpy/smooth, heavy/light, sticky, fuzzy, slippery, wet/dry...etc.).
the quantity, size or shape of the person, place or thing: big/little, long/short, many/few, short/tall, empty/full, far/near, whole/part, all/some/none
how the person or thing moves and/or acts: fast/slow, push, pull, turn, roll, drop, fall, write, talk, tell, sing,
This post titled Fringe Makes Me Cringe on the blog voices4all shares a mother's story of changing from referential to a descriptive model.
I have just recently experienced the power of using a descriptive language approach with my son. He has an extremely limited number of spoken words and we have tried many different communication supports through the years. Last summer we started using a system that is Core Word based as well as focusing on Aided Language Input and using descriptive language both for his school-based learning and throughout the day. At first, much of what we did was modeling but after a few months, he started using his talk to describe things rather than just to name things. At one point, he wanted to go to a hotel and the word hotel was not on his talker so he proceeded to use words that describe the things we do or see in a hotel - car, sleep, swim, curtains, eat...etc. When I still didn't understand, he went and got a suitcase to try to help with his explanation. The picture included here is him when he finally got to go to the hotel.
At one point we also started sitting down each night with his talker and talking about what we did that day. Sometimes there were pictures on his iPad that helped and sometimes we just had to go with what we knew. We used a descriptive approach when we did this so there were a lot of things that were happening right within his day that we were wrapping descriptive language around. There was actually a stretch of time when he was asking to add words to his talker that were tied to things we were doing so that he could use them when we talked that evening (rather than trying to go back and describe it).
These are just a couple of examples of how we have used this approach beyond just classroom application. He has used it to describe quite a few other things that are meaningful to him as they have come up and as he started to do this around things that were personally meaningful to him, he also started engaging in descriptive language related to school content so we could move on from just the input stage and start having some back and forth interactions. The great thing about the approach is that we are able to use the context of what is going on in the classroom to meet him where he is at in regards to language development. We can focus on expanding answers to just one more word to get a bit more specific answer.
"Communication is the key to learning because a great deal of what we learn depends on our interactions with others. Communication can occur every time two or more people are in proximity with one another, whetehr in person or through electronic means. Although all human being communicate, some individuals may have limited communication skills due to the impact of their disabilities or limited contact with others. Individuals with significant disabilities may not have full access to or full control of the multiple means by which most individuals communicate (e.g. speech, facial expression, body language, print). This inability to express themselves as others would does not mean that these individuals have nothing to say, not does it diminish their need and right to communicate. Teachers and other service provides must assume that all people have the desire to communicate and, therefore, must use their expertise, experience, and commitment to facilitate the development of communication for their students." (Downing, Henreddy, Packham-Harden, 2015, Teaching Communication Skills to Students with Severe Disabilites)
There are many places within the communication process (outlined in the diagram below) where a communication breakdown can occur as a result of misunderstandings and confusion for both individuals with and without complex communication needs.
Understanding the communication process, how we can support individuals with complex communication needs to develop the skills needed during each stage of the process, and the potential barriers that exist at each stage positions us to (1) engineer the environment/situation/context for communication growth and success, (2) understand and implement plans related to how we ourselves and others can be more effective communication partners, and (3) support the individual to become a more effective communicator.
Context:The context is the environment that the communication occurs in. Communication partners and their beliefs about the competence of the individual with complex communication needs will impact the communication process. When we understand all actions of another as intentional, we create the context for communication to occur. Some other thoughts to consider in regards to the communication context for individuals with complex communication needs include:
What communication channel is being used by the people within the context? Is the same channel being used by all people in the context? Is the person who is expected to use AAC getting input through verbal language only or a combination or verbal language and AAC?
Does the individual with complex communication needs have access to a language system that will allow him/her to communicate a variety of messages for a variety of purposes or has he/she been restricted to only being able to say a handful of things?
Are there activities happening in the environment that require interaction and generative communication or is the environment set up in a way that people are working independently with a large portion of the communication happening being someone directing another person on what to do next?
Source: The source is the reason, or the motivation, that a person would communicate. Because the effort involved in using AAC is often greater than the effort involved in speaking for those without complex communication needs, we need to ensure that we are designing environments and activities that involve high levels of motivation to communicate.
"If the motivation to communicate is greater than the physical effort, cognitive effort and time required then communication will occur. If not, no message will be generated." (Bruce Baker)
If effort is always greater than motivation for an individual, communication development will not happen. When we force a person to communicate something they are already able to communicate effectively with an approach that is less efficient, we are creating the condition where the effort to communicate may be greater than the motivation to communicate. It is important to honour and recognize all the ways another person communicates at the same time as modeling a method that will eventually allow that person to communicate across all contexts and with all people.
Message:The message is what the individual is going to communicate. It could be a question, a comment, a request, a story, an answer, a thought/idea, a rejection, a greeting, a statement...etc. The message is originally what a person wants to say and as it moves through the communication process there are a lot of places where the message can become something different. Sometimes it is difficult to come up with possible messages for a given context. When an individual has a communication device or some other type of visual support, they are able to reference it for possible ideas related to messages that make sense in a given context.
Encoding:This is the process of taking the information that is in one's head and transforming it in to some form that can be understood by others. For those who use spoken words, this simply means putting ideas in to words and saying them. For those who use AAC, there is an complexity involved as it involves not just connecting thoughts and words but connecting thoughts and words and the alternative way to communicating (pictures, written words, sign language...etc.).
For obvious reasons, this is the stage of the communication process that we focus on when trying to implement AAC plans. This is about using the system to generate the message so it makes sense to put our efforts in to supporting this but if we only support this without intentional work for the rest of the communication process, it seems we would have difficulty achieving the goal of autonomous communication.
Channel:This is how the message is transferred - gestures, sign language, visuals, device...etc. The channel is often multi-modal. For individuals that use AAC, barriers related to tone, facial expression, gestures can come in to play. It is important to remember to support a person with complex needs to use multiple channels to communicate in the same way that we all do even if their channels may have to be adapted in some way.
Decoding:This is where the communication partner comes in as decoding is about the communication partner's interpretation of the message. When we are working to support the communication of an individual with complex communication needs, part of the work involves supporting communication partners with understanding and interactions.
Receiver: This is the communication partner. Receiving a message through a channel different from spoken words requires the partner to keep certain things in mind: allow time for the communicator to generate their message, do not put words in to the mouth of the speaker by finishing the statements they start, how to ask for clarification when you don't understand...etc. Developing these skills in communication partners should be part of a communication plan.
Feedback:This is the reaction/response to the message by the communication partner. Was the intended message delivered? Did the intended message create the intended action? Did the message serve to extend the social interaction that was taking place? This part of the process again reflects the importance of thinking about both the communicator and the communication partner when supporting the development of communication skills.
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness." (Steven Covey)
The goal of traditional behaviour interventions is the prediction and control of another person's behaviour. The idea is to reduce people's actions down to a science where behaviour can be controlled by setting up the environmental conditions to elicit "desired behaviours". Those trying to control the behaviour are primarily concerned with observable behaviour and pay very little attention to internal events such as a emotions and thinking. The idea is that through repeated conditioning using rewards or consequences, the appropriate behaviour will become an automatic pattern where the only thinking that is required is that tied to desiring a reward or fearing a consequence. Much of the theory behind this approach is rooted in animal studies and a belief that there is little or no difference between an animal or a human learns. What is missing from the theory is the concept of "free will" which happens is the space between stimulus and response that Covey talks about in the above quote.
The space between stimulus and response holds many opportunities for developing thinking, social, language, self-determination, and imagination skills. When we don't allow for that space in the way we interact with others we are unable to tap in to those opportunities. When we don't allow for that space we foster "learned helplessness" as it is in that space that people experience "free will" (aka self-determination).
Supporting the Development of Emotional Competence
There is a process (outlined in the visual below), that begins at birth, and is facilitated by adults that moves a child toward "emotional competence". Emotional competence is defined as "having the functional skills to recognize, interpret, and respond constructively to emotions in oneself and others." (Saarni,1999)
In the book The Development of Emotional Competence (1999), Saarni outlines a developmental sequence that involves the following 8 skills, placing particular emphasis on how pivotal the role of language development for a child to achieve the third skill on the list.
Awareness of one's own emotions.
The ability to discern and understand other's emotions.
The ability to use vocabulary of emotion and expression.
The capacity for empathetic involvement.
The ability to differentiate internal subjective emotional experiences and external emotional expression.
The capacity for adaptive coping with aversive emotions and distressing circumstances.
Awareness of emotional communication within relationships.
The capacity for emotional self-efficacy.
This is considered a developmental sequence so a student who has not yet mastered steps 1 through 5 would have difficulty with step 6. Step 4 and 5 require some pretty advanced thinking, language and communication skills. For a student who has difficulty with adaptive coping (Step 6) and has yet not mastered step 1-5, a plan would need to be put in place to both support the learning of previous steps and to reduce and support regulation during distressing circumstances. For a student with complex communication needs, this plan would need to include consideration for how the student will have access to both modeling and use of the language that is needed to develop these skills.
The following documents expand on the concepts of Emotional Competence and Internal Dialogue and offer suggestions for how to incorporate the learning of the above skills in to an AAC intervention plan.
A Communication Support Plan Instead of a Behaviour Support Plan
When a child is learning to communicate they move from non-symbolic to symbolic communication. Non-symbolic communication includes gestures, facial expressions, and movement patterns. Symbolic language includes things like spoken words, written words, use of pictures on a communication system..etc. Symbolic communication allows an individual to communicate with a variety of different people, across time and in a variety of different spaces/contexts. (Source: http://depts.washington.edu/augcomm/03_cimodel/commind2a_emerging.htm).
Bringing teams that support children/students with CCN together to increase awareness of the current forms and intents of non-symbolic communication (including those that team members may label as "bad" or "inappropriate" behaviours) positions the team to be intentional about next steps for supporting the emotional, social and communication development of the student/child. By creating a "communication" plan, rather than a "behaviour" plan from this information, teams are able to focus their efforts on developing the skills in a student/child that will allow him/her to eventually manage themselves rather than putting their effort in to trying to manage them externally.
Here is a possible document that can be used for this: Communication Support Plan. The first column lists a variety of communicative purposes to help frame the group discussion. The second column would include a description of what the student/child does and what we interpret that action as meaning. The third column is to used to ensure that all team members are on the same page in regards to responding to actions in a way that will not inhibit communication growth. If the behaviors/actions that come up during this discussion are unsafe, a proactive safety management plan would need to be considered. The last two columns look at ideas on how to grow skills, language and communication. When looking at the column related to emotional learning, it would be important for all teams members to be aware of what where the student is developmentally related to 8 skills listed above. Example: if the student is at step 3, it might be worth naming emotions with the communication system related with different activities so that the student comes to make the connection.
Aided Language Stimulation (ALS) is a "language stimulation approach in which the facilitator points out picture symbols on the child's communication display in conjunction with all ongoing language stimulation. Through the modeling process, the concept of using pictorial symbols interactively is demonstrated for the individual" (Goossens, Crain, & Elder, 1992). This approach is based on the assumption that children with complex communication needs will learn to use their devices or language systems through natural interactions in a language immersion environment just as other children learn to communicate using spoken words.
In order to use an ALS approach, the student and communication partner needs to have available to him/her a language system that has enough generative language vocabulary to be able to say whatever that students wants to say at any given time.
The following video outlines a few key concepts related to ALS:
When we model the use of a student's language system, students learn how to use real words in real situations throughout their day, a wide range of reasons for communicating (as we model more than just asking for our wants and needs throughout the day), how to put words and word parts together to provide more clarity to what is being said, how to use the actual device (example: navigating through the folders in the system), and how to repair communication breakdowns or errors. Students come to understand language and communication over time through observation and interaction.
Learning to use a communication system for both the student and the communication partner is like learning a new language and so it is important to also have a systematic approach for teaching and focusing in on language and communication skills. Two possible approaches are (1) Focused Aided Language Stimulation to teach and reinforce new words, or (2) Aided Language Stimulation based on focusing in for defined periods of time on different functions of communication. Focused Aided Language Stimulation
Focused language stimulation (Dirkinson, Cote & Smith, 1993) is an approach that involves direct teaching of new words followed by intentional and repetitive use of those words in a variety of natural contexts. The general approach to focused language stimulation is outlined is this PrAACtical AAC blog post as follows:
Introduce the new word(s) using focused aided language stimulation.
Teach the new word(s) with explicit instruction activities.
Elaborate on the new word meanings with engaging practice activities.
Provide repeated exposure to the new word(s) on an ongoing basis.
Check for understanding and reteach, as necessary.
One place to start with Focused Aided Language Stimulation is to teach the most commonly used words, known as core words (look for further explanation of this when we get to V - Vocabulary). Below, I have included a few links to sources that can be used to better understand and to provide resources for the teaching of more common core words.
Dynamic Learning Maps Video on Core Words: The beginning of this video offers some great background information about core vocabulary. At the 10:30 mark, the first 40 recommended words in groups of 4 are shared. This list could serve as a way to decide on which groups of words to introduce first when doing Focused Aided Language Stimulation. Between 11:50 and 20:30, there is discussion and several demonstrations related to direct teaching of core words.
AAC Language Lab Core Word Starter Pack: Includes lesson plans, books and activities that can be used to interactively teach some of the first core words. Many of the words are "mediating words" - words that allow the student to gain control over his/her environment.
AAC Core Word of the Week Packages by Jenna Rayburn: This is a link to a blog post by Jenna Rayburn where she outlines what her Core Word of the Week Packages are. These packages include materials and ideas for focusing in on a new word each week. At this point, she is still developing them. The blog post links to the Teachers Pay Teachers store where the first kit is available. Note that there is a cost associated with getting this packages.
My TobiiDynavox Website Core Lesson Plans: For those who are using the Compass App or the T-series devices, there are core word lesson plans related to the first 30 core words on the support website. Included for each word is a parent letter, ideas for teaching the word, printable books that can be used to reinforce the word, and ideas for implementing the word in to a variety of activities and school subjects.
Beyond teaching the first 10-40 core words, Focused Aided Language Stimulation can be used for any words. As a parent, the idea that using a communication device is similar to using a new language really hit home with me a few weeks back. My son is 16 and in the past year, as a result of moving to focusing on having access to a robust language system, core vocabulary and generative language approaches, he has started to play with language a lot more. I am also seeing him trying to explain more of what he wants to say to me. Some time ago, he managed to explain to me that he wanted to go to a hotel by pushing a series of words - "want", "car", "swim", "sleep" and then going upstairs and getting a suitcase and bringing it down to me. I figured out he needed the word hotel on his device and he is now able to ask repeatedly to go to a hotel. A few weeks later, he came to me again and was trying to tell me something else. He then put a series of words together "want", "car", "hotel", "eat", "no sleep". Because we have been doing this guessing game over so many things lately, I was able to fairly quickly figure out that he wanted to go to a restaurant as we often go out to eat when we are at a hotel. The word restaurant was already in his system but he had not yet mapped the symbol/location to the meaning of the word. Once I showed him, he was then able to use that word when he needed it. The reality is that he has known the difference between the spoken word restaurant and hotel for many years (as he could demonstrate the difference by signing eat or sleep when the word was said) but he had not yet learned how to say restaurant in the new language that he is learning. For me, this experience spoke to the need to ensure that I am doing some focused teaching or modeling of words that are associated with the activities and discussions that he is involved in. When thinking about school, it speaks to needing to think about the vocabulary associated with the classes he is taking and ensure that he can say it in the language that he is using (the AAC system).
Aided Language Stimulation - Focusing on Functions
Aided Language Stimulation can be overwhelming for communication partners because it is like learning a new language and learning a new language can be frustrating. Having a systematic plan that involves manageable steps assists both the student and the communication partners in the process. The above approach of focusing in on words is one way to get started. Another way is through focusing in on functions, teaching the words associated with a given function and then being intentional about modeling that function for a set period of time. Once their is comfort with that (i.e. it becomes more natural), then move on to a new function.
The PODD (Pragmatic Organization Dynamic Display) language system lends itself nicely to this approach as the pragmatic branch starters at the beginning of the book can be used to decide which function to focus in on for each stretch of time. The picture below shows the different communicative functions that might be focused on from page 2 of a PODD book.
So for example, for the first few weeks, teams might just focus in on making complaining comments by using the "do something" branch and then following the links to state what they want to do or what they are going to do. For the next few weeks, they might focus on "Somethings wrong" and then when things go wrong (or when things are set up to go wrong) that branch can be used to talk about it.
Not all language systems are arranged in the same way as PODD but the different reasons we use to communicate can still be used to frame the introduction of new aspects of the language system a student is using. The Pixon project contains 12 learning modules that each focus on a different communicative function. Each module outlines core words to focus in on as well as provides ideas on teaching and using the words in a variety of natural contexts. Below are links to two different manuals that include these 12 modules with a few minor differences to them. The first module is very similar to the many of the links as that module is related to mediating and focuses in on many of the same words as what make up the first 11-40 core words.
Four years ago, when we at the tail end of being a self-contained classroom, we had the staff in the room, parents, and some home support workers trained in PODD and after this, we began our first attempted at Aided Language Stimulation. It was not a smooth process and there has been a lot of learning of learning in the past four years... and there is still much to be learned... but as we have dipped our toes in to it, the benefits of this approach are being seen. What is also being seen is that it is a process and that it is important to have some sort of systematic approach in place that will allow the communication partners to learn to do aided language stimulation. Finally, it is becoming clear that this is a method that can only be used if the needed vocabulary is actually available.
Jane Farrall just posted an excellent article outlining the process implementing the use of iPads in a specialist school where she talks about moving from having the iPads available to use of Aided Language Stimulation to the use of Focus Aided Language Stimulation and the impact that it had on the development of language and communication skills in the students in the classroom. Check it out on her blog here!
It's hard to believe another year has come and gone. There were many times this year when I sat down to write a blog post but then the words just didn't seem to come. It wasn't that there was nothing to write, but perhaps more than so many of the things that I have been thinking about for the last few years starting to become consolidated in practice and in the time I wanted more to step back and experience it and let it evolve rather than to wrap too many words around it.
When I adopted my son 16 years ago, I knew that we were beginning a "special needs journey" but I did not know that we were also beginning a "complex communication needs journey". In those early days, I imagined a very different life for both him and I as his childhood years have unfolded.
When I made the decision to move from "general" to "special" education 9 years ago, I also knew I was on a new journey, but, again, I was unable to imagine what parts of that journey would become my North Star.
There are events that stand out now looking back but more so then the events, what stands out is a deepening awareness of how our knowledge evolves; How the way we see things changes as what we know and experience changes.
Up until five years ago, the work I was doing around communication with students with complex communication needs was pretty restricted to things like sign language, PECs, eye-gaze boards with only single layers, yes/no choices...etc. The work we were doing around "literacy" with this population was also restricted mostly to "literacy experiences" but we dabbled a bit in sight word reading programs. The school experiences of the students that I worked with were also restricted a majority of the time by the walls of our self-contained classroom.
The journey began with feelings of discomfort that I could not put my finger on, and then opportunities began to open up - a 2-day PODD training by Linda Burkhart, Literacy and AAC courses by Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver, Communication and Literacy workshops by Caroline Musslewhite, taking my Masters in Inclusive Education and Neuroscience, support from some to educational practice away from a self-contained classroom and toward supported inclusion in age-appropriate general education settings, Alberta's Literacy for All initiatives...etc. Through it all, the awareness of importance of literacy, language, and communication in reference to a person's autonomy and quality of life has grown.
In the middle of this growing awareness are explorations on how to make it all happen...which leads to more learning and more awareness. We have, by no stretch of the imagine, figured it all out. I'm pretty sure we have still just only seen the very tip of the iceberg. But we are also making progress and learning a few things along the way.
This summer, I want to do a series of blog posts and share what I (as a result of many interactions with students, parents and professionals) have been learning and thinking about supporting students with complex communication needs (CCN). I thought to frame it in an alphabet style and do 26 posts - one for each letter of the alphabet - sharing these thoughts. Tomorrow, I will start with A...
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Links to Completed Posts in this Series
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B is for Behaviour C is for Communication Process D is for Descriptive Language E is for Engagement
F is for Facilitators
G is for Generative Language
H is for "Helping"
I is for Inclusion
J is for "Just in Time"
K is for Keyboard L is for Language of Control
M is for Motivation
N is for Narrative Development
O is for Opportunities
P is for Play
Q is for Qualified (Presume Competence)
R is for Robust Language System
S is for Self-Determination
T is for Talk About
U is for Urgency
V is for Visual Supports
W is for Wellness
X is for Fix (Communication Repair)
Y is for Yelling
Z is for Zone of Proximal Development
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I've found it a bit more of a challenge to sit down and write lately. It is not that I do not have anything to say but more that I feel that there is so much to do that the time to sit and write is no longer there. I click almost daily on my blog and mean to write but then get sidetracked by something else.
It is taking some time to find a new balance to my life since finishing my masters in April. I didn't realize until it wasn't there anymore how all-consuming it became in the course of the three years. I needed time to recharge but I also needed time to process so much of what we had learned in that time.
Life is beginning to settle in to a new way of being both personally and professionally. I am becoming more comfortable with what my job has evolved in to. I am finding time again to be the parent that I want to be to Mikey. And I am also finding time for me.
I have, for some time, been clear in what I believe in and what I want to stand for but only in the past months do I feel that I can take the complexity of it all and find and articulate the simplicity of what it means right now.
I'm not really one for resolutions but am big on reflections. There are points in any year that invite reflection and I find this time of year to be one of those points for me... not because we magically change the number behind the month on the calendar but because it comes right after a relaxing time of reconnecting with family and friends and right before my son's birthday (January 3). It's a time to reflect and reconnect to others but also to myself. Instead of resolutions, it makes sense to me to think about the word that I want to guide my life for right now and this year "present" just seemed the right word.
Change is wonderful and exciting and it does energize me but you can get so caught up in what the dream is for the future that you forget to stop and recognize the parts of the dream that you are living right now. Blogging, for me, has always been part of being in the moment as it is provides the opportunity to reflect and so it is my hope that 2015 will bring with it a bit more regular posts from me :).
"The 'allegory of the long spoons' teaches us that when we struggle to
feed only ourselves, everyone goes hungry. But when we focus on our
neighbour’s hunger, we discover there are ways to feed everyone."
Weaknesses (spoons that are too long to reach our mouths) can inhibit our daily functioning if we think only in terms of trying to feed ourselves with what we currently individually have in our hands. If we step outside the box though and consider other strategies and other ways to use the resources that we collectively have, we can find ways that we can all be fed. When we remove students whose spoons are too long for them to feed themselves from their natural communities,
we also remove all the solutions and stabilizing factors that exist within that collective
community... which affects all members of the community.
Note that this post is a further expansion on my earlier post outlining the Mystery at Camp ALEC. The experience that we had at Camp ALEC has gotten me thinking a lot about inference and how language and communication development impact the ability to gain skills in inference.
"Inference is the mental process by which we reach a conclusion based on a specific evidence. Inferences are the stock and trade of detectives examining clues, of doctors diagnosing diseases, and of car mechanics repairing engine problems. We infer motives, purpose, and intentions."(http://www.criticalreading.com/inference_process.htm)
Inference requires reading the ideas that are behind words. Both listening and reading should be active, reflective, problem solving processes. Listening and reading require simultaneously taking in language (words) and constructing meaning about what those words mean in a given context.
Why was it that these campers, who were all proficient communicators and who all had access to unlimited vocabulary through speech or their devices, were able to engage in a process of inquiry in to "who done it" around this poster? Could a camper who did not have the autonomy that comes with access to an unlimited number of words have engaged in this process? How did the understanding of language lead these campers to solving the mystery?
In this process, we needed to take what was "literally" presented to us and use that as a starting point for our detective work. Early in the process, the campers tried to link what was being said to who might say those things and to explain why they might say them. Throughout the process, they found hints or had hints point out in the language that wrapped itself around the experience. They keyed in to the ideas on the poster trying to think through if it might be someone who had a potbelly and hair on his knuckles that would write such a thing, thinking through the sarcastic tone and the people know who might use that tone with their words, trying to remember the pronoun (we) that was used when they believed they had figured it out...etc.
Understanding more than what is literally on the paper and going beyond just laughing at and moving on, required access to language (words), understanding of the meaning of words and phrases that were being used, understanding the social conventions that wrapped around the way we used both oral and written language through the process, and understanding the context that all these words were sitting in the middle of. Even their final solution to get their last suspect to confess came down to the fact that they had spent some time with him during the investigation and believed that taking a round-about approach of smothering him with hugs and coffee until he confessed might work better than straight out asking had.
If I were given a "do-over" of this mystery experience at Camp ALEC, I think it would have been good to give it a bit more of an formal organizational structure by using a K-W-H-L chart. Although we went through all of these phases, it would have been nice to have this all more formally organized so that we could reference back to it as we went through the process. It would have also set the stage a bit better for wrapping up the experience.
I included the "teachers seeing themselves as thinker" part in title of this series of post for a reason. We came in to each of these days with what we thought would be interesting and useful literacy activities for the campers we were working with but in the middle of their excitement about this mystery, we had to scrap our plans and go with where they were leading us. At one point when we tried to return to the activities we had planned, one student interrupted the lesson and asked when we were going to get back to the mystery... and then typed in to her AAC device... "I'm in to that."
I'm in to that... These are perhaps the most powerful words that can ever come from a learners "mouth".
I came away understanding more deeply that if we want our students to engage in the active in-the-moment meaning making that is required for them to become a proficient reader, we might have to be willing to engage in the same process in the middle of the learning experiences that we are co-creating with our students. It come down to defining our purpose. If we know what we are trying to accomplish we can be open to the possibility of taking different paths to get there.
Our goal with these campers was to have fun (it was camp after all) and to gather the information for the informal literacy assessment that we were doing with these students throughout the week. We needed to gain understanding around these students print processing skills, their language and reading comprehension skills, their word attack skills, and their writing skills. We could have done this in a million different ways. Doing it this way meant that we didn't have to worry about motivating the students because they were doing that part themselves. We could then focus on engaging with them as they displayed the skills we were trying to assess in the middle of the mystery.
It didn't end with this mystery. In our work room, we ended up having campers who were reading of listening to mysteries to find language that would reveal clues, we had students who were creating clues for others to find the mystery word they were thinking of, we had students who came to understand revision through thinking of themselves as a detective looking for ways to add more necessary information to their writing. The potential around it is only limited to the length of time that the theme would remain a motivating factor to the campers (and the limited time we had with the campers). Did we capitalize on all the learning potential of this experience? No. We did not. But because of this experience, the next time a student-motivated learning opportunity presents itself, we will have more to draw from and capitalize a bit more on the potential. It was about being a community of learners. Perhaps this was part of the beauty of merging the literal role of being a student (taking the course) and being a teacher (working with the campers).
Student engagement is a challenge for us as teachers... particularly when we put time and energy in to planning learning experiences that we believe will be interesting and engaging for students. If they don't engage, we sometimes want to respond by trying to make them engage. As teachers we are constantly thinking and responding to what is going on with our students. We understand the importance of focused "on-task behaviour" (aka engagement) and we want our students to learn. It's why we teach. We know that if students are not engaged with the work they are doing, there isn't really going to be much chance of authentic learning. We sometimes even define students who are motivated by what we have designed/planned as being students who "want to learn" and those who are not motivated as "not wanting to learn". Sometimes in the process of wanting to ensure engagement in learning, we go down another path and decide that the student simply doesn't have the capacity to get anything out of what we are doing in our classrooms. We focus on the outward actions (behaviors)... the things we can see... the tangible results they can give us... and we end up putting our energy into the product rather than the process.
Sometimes when we are learning things... like the process and thinking and language involved in inference... we might not have a nice clean product at the end. It might simply be that we are able to have a conversation that allows us to fill in that last line of the KWHL chart... and then maybe someday when a lesson is being done on inference, background knowledge can be activated as a result of the experience that took place at an earlier time.
There are many questions worth considering. What in this can be applied to classroom where there are 20 to 30 students? Are there kids who actually don't want to learn? If there are, what would cause that? Are there kids who really not able to learn in the context of the classroom? Do all kids need to be learning the same thing? Perhaps most important, when we are challenged by a lack of motivation... Are we aiming to increase thinking, engagement and learning or are we aiming to decrease or eliminate non-engaged or distracting "behaviour"? Is there a difference? Can we actually force kids to learn?
I was introduced to the "Whole to Part" literacy framework during the first course that I took from Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver a couple of years ago. When things have time to stew and you have a variety of experiences with what yo have learned, a different level of understanding starts to emerge. I think that part of this is because some of this process involves unlearning some of the things you already "know".
We have traditionally associated early literacy success with alphabetic and sight word knowledge and as children enter school we look to support their reading development through phonics, spelling and decoding instruction. Many of us remember doing endless workbook pages that reflect this.
The role that oral language plays in literacy development is often given less explicit focus in early literacy learning. We expect children to master "the basics" before we tackle oral language, vocabulary, sentence structure or comprehension.
We are more aware now that for students to develop literacy skills, we need to pay explicit attention to both print-based literacy skills (alphabet, phonics, spelling, decoding...etc.) and language-based literacy skills.
Print-based literacy skills include alphabetic letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness (the ability to sound out words), sight word knowledge, and phonics knowledge. Developing these skills leads to a student who will be able to spell and decode single words. These are obviously important skills to develop in the journey to literacy but they are only a very small piece of the literacy puzzle.
Language-based literacy skills include vocabulary, semantics, sentence structure, grammar, oral language (narrative skills), sequencing, organizing, and comprehension. The development of these skills lead to being able to express oneself in writing and read a variety of text with comprehension.
Print-based and language-based literacy skills fit in the areas of Word Identification and Listening Comprehension respectively in Cunningham's Whole to Part Model of Reading Comprehension (graphic above). Having low language skills does not prevent a student from learning how
to do the mechanical act of reading. It will, however, impact one's
ability to interpret, predict, reason or infer information from text.
I've heard the statement made by many teachers that up to grade 2 or 3 students "learn to read" and then after that they "read to learn". This statement implies that the definitions of "reading" and "decoding" are not all that different. It also implies that one must be able to read to a certain level before one begins to work on literacy. It also means that when a child is struggling to read in the early grades, we simply assume that it is as a result of lagging print-based literacy skills. A quick search of reading programs for struggling readers reveals the steps that we can take to get a child reading...
I'm not arguing that a student's struggle to learn to read might be a result of lagging print based literacy skills but working with students who have language and communication delays or impairments has made it even more clear that the reason a student is not making gains in reading skills may be related to something other than these print-based literacy skills that we so often globally fall back on with struggling readers.
For students with complex communication needs, we need to pay particular attention to language based literacy skills and we can't wait until they have acquired the ability "to read" before we start focusing our efforts on developing these skills. We need to embed and connect communication with text through shared reading experiences very early on. We need to ensure that in the process of reading books with a student we are connecting what is in the book to their world and possibly even to their way of processing the world. We need to find ways to naturally embed pointing out the text structures that will be needed as a student moves from emergent to conventional literacy. We need to speak to the student about the text using the mode of communication we expect them to speak to us with about the text so that some day they can follow our model and be able to actively engage with text. We need to ensure that "reading" is far more than memorizing meaningless, disconnected words and completing endless workbook pages. Reading connected text with a student offers us many opportunities to work on reading, language, and communication skills. We need to pay attention to words in all three frames - in text, connected to meaning, and used for social purposes - to move along the literacy continuum. Social interaction (communication) and text are the sources that we can draw language from to make connection and meaning (which leads to comprehension).
I have not ignored the bottom part of the Whole to Part visual. Print Processing (what we loosely refer to as "fluency") is another obvious potential area of struggle for a student who has complex communication needs. Developing inner speech and projecting prosody are skills that must be learned through modeling and interaction.
The bottom line is simply that rather than starting by breaking apart and teaching each part one by one in sequence, we need to take a comprehensive approach to literacy and communication learning. These skills sit along a continuum and what we are aiming for is movement along that continuum. Starting by knowing the whole and working on the whole then positions us to look at the parts and figure out which part might need more attention at any given time to ensure that students keep moving along that continuum.
It has been a week now since I have been home from a ten-day trip to Philadelphia to be a part of Camp ALEC. I am still challenged to put in to words a reflection of the camp. I'm sure it is going to take more than one post when all is said and done.
Just to give a big of background... Tina Moreno, one of the two ladies that made this camp happen, explained the camp perfectly in her blog post yesterday:
This was the first Camp ALEC and the first camp of its kind offered in
the United States. Together, we gathered 15 campers and 14 educators,
speech-language pathologists and school administrators from the U.S. and
Canada at Variety Club Camp and Developmental Center in Norristown, PA
for a week of reading and writing assessment and interventions–plus a
typical summer camp experience. Each camper received a total of 17.5
hours of individual and small group assessment and instruction
throughout the week. The goals of Camp ALEC included building the
skills of the adults who participated and determining how the campers... can be supported in further developing their reading and
writing skills during the coming school year. At the conclusion of
camp, parents had an opportunity to have a conference with their child’s
educator, as well as Karen and David, and left with a report detailing
the results of their informal reading and writing assessment and
instructional recommendations. Our hope is that parents will share
those recommendations with teachers so that they can implement
evidence-based instructional strategies that will ensure greater
progress in school. (http://voices4all.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/what-i-learned-from-camp/)
In June 2011, I attended the kick off to the Literacy for All community of practice in Alberta. It was the first time I was exposed to the Whole to Part framework and to the resource Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way. In August 2011, Linda Burkhart came to our area and did a two-day PODD (Pragmatic Organizational Dynamic Display) workshop. The combination of being a part of this community of practice and gaining a deeper understanding of language and communication through Linda Burkhart's workshop and the fact that we were trying to figure out how to create more inclusive programs for students with complex communication needs in our division projected me down a path of exploration related to language/communication, literacy, inclusion and empowerment.
In May of 2012, I flew to Toronto and attended a week long intensive Litearcy in AAC course taught by from Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver. Although I learned much about literacy during this camp, the context that I was in the middle of in regards to being in the beginning stages of a Masters program in Inclusive Education and Neuroscience, our changing focus for the students that I had been teaching in a self-contained classroom and this immersion in information about language/communication and literacy, drove me to start thinking more deeply about learning more generally rather than just focusing in on all the amazing literacy and communication content.
It was becoming clear to me that although I had been teaching for almost 20 years at this point, I had never really taken the time to time to define or understand learning. I had thought more about the content I was trying to pour in to students then designing and facilitating exploration and discovery. It was actually only as I made the shift from general to special education that I started to see the difference between training/teaching and learning.
Sadly, this is probably because in special education we may have gotten trapped in believing that learning is rigidly linear, that learning with accommodation is not "real learning", that people with intellectual disabilities learn differently than those without (i.e. need everything broken down in to small pieces), and/or that it is more important for people with intellectual disabilities be drilled through "life skills" programs than to learn curriculum-driven academics. Rather than focusing on the function of what is meant to be learned, we focus on the broken apart steps/skills and/or the content and we conclude there is nothing that a student with an intellectual disability could get out of it. We don't recognize the opportunities that exist if we shift to focusing on function of what is happening in the learning experience. We want immediate tangible results so rather than engaging in the sometimes slow and frustrating process of finding ways to break down barriers to curriculum-driven learning, we fall back on a reductionist behaviour training approach and end up trapping these students in a world that will be hard to ever expand because expanding works inside-out rather than outside-in.
In the middle of everything that I was learning and experiencing, the question of how we shift the paradigm and start thinking about learning from the inside out instead of the outside in for and with this population of students emerged. It seemed there were a million separate pieces to answer... that maybe I the answer would never be one that could be clearly articulated because it was just too complex.
Training is often a passive process and is rooted in compliance. It is often a one-size-fits-all process. In education we like to train because the result of training is behaviour or simple memorization and we can objectively measure behaviour and memorization. We also like to train because we view it as an efficient process as we can "reach" a whole bunch of students at once. Training is an outside-in process. It is driven by those doing the training. Training results in putting our effort and resources in to managing and directing other human beings. The realm of training is limited... particularly to those who need support or accommodation to engage in the process of learning.
Learning is about developing and empowering people from the inside out. Learning is about the individual... but it also about the collective as learning is social and interactive process. There is a recognition that each person will learn something different from an experience because each person comes to the experience with their own unique background. Learning is messy. Learning can be noisy and chaotic. Learning can be frustrating. Learning might not result in a final product. We ultimately cannot actual control other people's learning. We can only create the conditions for it and support it. Learning is about design. Learning results in putting our energy and resources in to design and support and the growing of other human beings as individuals. The realm of learning is unlimited as long as one has the facilitated freedom and the literacy and communication skills that are critical to the learning process.
I have much to write about from this past week at Camp ALEC but I'm starting with the fact that this feeling of upset... of cognitive dissonance... of all of this being too big to manage or do anything about or to articulate... that I have been feeling since I sat in that first meeting for the Literacy for All Community of Practice three years ago is starting to subside to a manageable level. I am beginning to see the path through the forest. This camp allowed me to work directly with kids who were developing (or had developed) strong language/communication and literacy skills. I could clearly see how this is a starting point for all the other things that are part of the forest. These kids were empowered and driven and full of life... and the life they were full of was very much their own. Their futures were not limited to what others had decided for them even though they relied on others for care-related needs.
At the end of the week I was sitting at dinner with one of the campers and the same lady (Tina) whose blog I linked to above. This camper had known Tina for years. Tina had a son who was attending the camp who was close in age to this camper. This young lady was explaining to Tina how she needed to step back and let her son be independent of her at camp. She stated that he is a young man and he needs to be able to make decisions and function on his own without his mother's interference. I was able to get to know Tina's son through the week as he was one of the campers and she clearly did not need this lecture. Her son was an amazing and independent young man. This conversation was more one that this young lady needed so that she could consolidate the empowering experience she had during her first whole week on her own. She said it so passionately. She clearly was not just reciting rhetoric. She knew this as a result of consolidating her personal experiences. This ability to articulate thoughts like these comes from focusing on authentic language and literacy learning. It is not just about the words that are coming out... It is about the fact that she would be able to expand on and defend what she is saying because she clearly understood and owned it. She had made her own personal connections rather than just reciting what had been dumped in to her.
This past May I completed my Capstone project for my Masters program. At the time I was trying to answer the question of how we create cohesive and continuous inclusive programs for students with complex needs. When I was done writing the paper I mostly just felt frustrated. I felt that, although there was a lot of great content in the paper, it was still too big and too scattered and too overwhelming to figure how to move all of the theory in the paper in to practice in reality. I could not see the path in the forest... it was all still trees and underbrush.
If I were to write the paper now, after spending this time at Camp ALEC, I would narrow it down to focusing in on building solid communication and literacy learning opportunities because it is now clear to me that everything else that was in the paper will expands out from there for these students. If we get that piece right with them, they will have the skills and understanding needed to make the other pieces right themselves.
It amazes me how dynamic and non-linear (and exciting) the process of learning and understanding can be. The experience of these past three years has helped me to more deeply understand how what we key in to and process and integrate at any given time is extremely dependent on the background that we bring to learning. Each time we are exposed to new ideas we will see something different because we come to them from a different starting point than the last time.
I will start by just telling the story of what unfolded with the group of students that we were working with at Camp ALEC. Over the next couple of days I will share some thoughts related to the story...
On Tuesday (Day 2) of Camp ALEC the group we were working with began working on a writing project that began by examining Shel Silverstein's If You Want to Marry Me. Before reading the poem, we generate a list titled If you want to be my boyfriend... Our plan for that day was to make a comparison between our list and the list included in the poem. We were thinking that we would revisit the same text the next day and use it a model for writing (a mentor text). We were going to have students define what they felt various people in their life should do in their lives.
It seemed an innocent enough learning activity... but the next morning we came in to the room that we were doing our literacy sessions in and found a new poster on the wall...
When the campers arrived and saw the poster we began the day by wondering who might possibly have broken into our word room and posted the poster over ours. The other group of campers that was working in our room joined in our pondering and before we knew it, we were immersed in "a mystery" and statements like "this room is on lock down" and "we need writing samples from all of the potential suspects" were being thrown around. The Mystery of Camp ALEC had begun.
That day we did a lot of thinking and writing related to how we could figure out who did it as well as what we would do once we figured out who it was. We focused both on possible clues as well as investing through having conversations. We thought through what "interrogation" questions might help us in finding out more information. We recognized very early on that just asking someone if they did it wouldn't really get us any closer to solving the mystery.
We left camp that day not yet having solved the mystery and we decided we would revisit it the next day and think about what our next step was...
When we arrived (the literacy counselors) arrived at camp the next morning, this is what the entrance to our work room looked like...
We had to wait until the campers arrived before we could go in as we were informed that it was the campers themselves who had done this and not the "mystery people" who had put up the poster the day before. Once they arrived, there was much giggling and excitement as we went in to find what they had done. This is what we found...
After some giggling and wondering, we returned back to trying to solve the mystery of the day before. At this point, one of the campers piped up and told us that Karen (one of the instructors at the camp) had "slipped her lips" and told them she was involved in the poster we had come in to the day before. The campers called her and called on this. Apparently when they were being hands for the campers the night before and were asked to put the poster up, the question of where was asked and they said where and Karen responded with a clarifying question of "Oh do you want us to put it up over the poster we put up." All the campers picked up on it and they thought the mystery was solved but when they called Karen on it that morning she pointed out that she had used a pronoun they needed to think about. When they remembered her using the word "we" they needed to then figure out who the other person was. They decided it had to be other the instructor (someone they had suspected right from when they asked him to give a handwriting sample and he wrote a sample that was obviously not his own). Having exhausted all of their interrogation questions, they decided to take another approach and give David (the other instructor) hugs and coffee (it was morning and it had been a long week) until he admitted to doing it.
The mystery was solved.
But there was still the poster we had found that morning to figure out. We did eventually figure it out when we decided we needed to gather all the pictures together and write about the steps we had gone through to get to the point of solving the mystery. At that point we were given pictures of the group of campers working with Karen and Dave (and Alison) on creating the last poster in the series of posters. We had hard evidence of who had done it and the campers could not believe that they had been "ratted out" by the person who gave us the pictures for this final project.
The week unfortunately ended too quickly as, although we had time to reflect on and sequence the the process, we ran out of time to reflect more deeply on the thinking process. More to come soon on my thinking processes around this experience...
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