Pacing

Today I stepped back a little. I prepared a stick figure image of the student and several thought bubbles over the figure before the student arrived. We came into the classroom and it was an unusual beginning because the student’s bus arrived more than thirty minutes late. We sat down across from each other to work.  

I drew simple pictures inside the thought bubbles – one of the science class (two kids sitting at a table and a flask), one of the student eating snack, one of the science class with a line across it with “not today” above the image, one question mark, and one with the student sitting near work boxes (labeled 1, 2, 3). Then I told/signed the story of how the student arrived at school and signed, “science, snack?” I pointed to the corresponding thought bubbles – signing/saying, “You were thinking about what will happen next – Science? Then snack?” I pointed to the “not today” science picture and told the story about the late bus and there would not be science today. I wrote out the sentence – Today is different – and we signed it together. I pointed to the workboxes image and signed “first work boxes,” followed by “then snack” as I touched the snack picture. I wrote out these sentences on the page and I directed the student to sign the sentence back to me. We put the picture up with the sentence strip – What will happen? – and started the day.

I did not put myself into the picture today or attempt to broach the concept that I was thinking something different from the student. I reiterated the student’s communication and made visual imitations of the signed communication. I then used these visual imitations to explain how the day was different.  This kind of intense one-to-one engagement over something this student really cares about is agitating. Also, trying to get the student to think differently about the way the day progresses is met with some resistance, but this particular student is quite motivated by the exchange and clearly is grappling to understand.

Later in the day I tried to incorporate these stick figure drawing strategies into a reading lesson. This particular student can, with more than 75% accuracy given a field of 3 to 5 picture choices, identify the characters in a story and one to two character traits. With less accuracy (but more than 60%), the student can also identify a main (or big) idea in a story. Here again I am trying to step back and teach/reteach the concept of characters, character traits, and main idea.  I had a separate paper for each concept. I placed the student, as stick figure, in the center of the paper and through pictures in thought bubbles tried to explain what each concept was. I labeled the pictures, and then used the visual images to talk about the concepts.  After looking at and explaining each thought bubble I would write a sentence (put the picture into written words) and the student would sign it back to me.

The student, with prompting, then read a short story and with assistance answered these questions on a communication device (iPod touch with Proloquo2go) The device is also new for the student and myself.

With all these strategies I want change one or two things, tweak them if you will, a day. The student has significant communication challenges and so evidence that these strategies are helping is harder to come by. I am trying to shift my way of approaching the student overall and create additional instructional tools. The student’s willingness to engage is my highest priority right now, although I think it’s important to nudge kids sometimes out of their comfort or stuck zones even if frustration is unavoidable. 

Proloquo2go 

Questions Met With Silence

 I am working with a student who repeatedly indicates an aspect of their schedule using a single utterance (in this case sign) to ask a question or seek out reassurance about the schedule. The communication is predictable, rarely strays off of four or five reiterated signs, and seems to carry a lot of underlying communication. The communication centers on the day’s schedule and sometimes the student requests a complex response by signing “first, second, third…” to indicate that he/she is waiting for a list.

MY OVERALL GOAL is to help the student understand that I understand the single sign as a question and that what I am thinking/understanding may be different than what she is trying to communicate. The student’s “lunch” + raised eyebrows, I understand to mean, “When is lunch?” The student’s “science, snack?” I understand as “What will happen next?”

I am fairly certain that sometimes the student is asking about the schedule and sometimes the student is trying to say something else, like “I am hungry” or “I don’t want to sit here right now, when is the next thing going to happen?” or “I don’t feel good, this is boring, I am frustrated, etc.” However, one of the only real back-and-forth exchanges the student has with folks has to do with understanding and reiterating the schedule. In these interactions I think the student feels some mastery over what is signed and what he/she can expect to see signed and spoken back and therefore he student is stuck inside this one concept.

Today the student was getting agitated during a science lesson and started signing “Lunch?” Because we were in a larger class setting I started by ignoring this repetitive question. Then we made eye contact a few times and I signed “not yet” and tried to change the subject. We moved to a one-to-one lesson. Here when the student would sign the repetitive question we would go get a sentence strip which had the longer “When is lunch?” written out on it. I signed, “You are asking me a question – (we read it together) When is lunch?” Then I handed the student a different sentence strip with the time lunch begins on it and had the student put both the question and the response in the sentence strip holder.

When the student asked me again, “Lunch?” I pointed to the sentence strips and signed, “You are asking me a question, you are thinking in your mind, When is lunch?” and then I signed the answer “11:35, time.”

When the student asked me again I drew one stick figure of me with a thought bubble over my head and one of the student. In my thought bubble I drew another stick figure of the student with a question mark above their head and the sentence - I think (name of student) is asking me “When is lunch?” Then in the student’s thought bubble I drew a lunch box and a question mark and the sentence “When is lunch?” Then I added, “I am hungry.”

As the student continued to make the request I added more possibilities to the student’s thought bubbles. My thought bubble remained the same. I signed/spoke the details in the picture as I added more questions the student may have been asking.

The student remained engaged in the interaction, but did not indicate if the different ideas in the thought bubbles seemed closer to what was being communicated through pointing or a smile. We moved away from the task as the student became less connected to the interaction.

Tomorrow I would like to try a more visual (stick figure/thought bubble) approach before bringing the student to the sentence strips.

My goals are to help the student understand that a question is being asked and model how a question is answered. I also want to help the student identify the question or communication more accurately. Additionally, I hope to help the student transfer the vocabulary they understand when reading and writing to the word bank they use when engaging in expressive language.