Communication is Power

I thought you might enjoy a specific story about a student in my class.  For the sake of this post, we will call this student Dan.

Dan transitioned to middle school this year and ended up in my class. I had met Dan last year while doing my practicum. The very first day of practicum, while we were having free time, he walked over, grabbed my hand, walked me over to the CD player, and handed me a CD. Despite his clear intelligence, he tended to refuse to do any work.

His favorite things are anything to do with music (tapping a rhythm, clapping, playing the keyboard, etc.).  He also loves going on bike rides, swinging, and chewing on things.  Last year, his mom purchased an app on his iPad to try to encourage him to begin conversing, as he has no functional communication.  Despite lots of work, he did not really seem to grasp the power of communication last year.

Midway through the first semester I had a practicum student in my class. As she started thinking about a project to complete, we decided to give Dan another chance to try using a communication device. We tried a different app on his iPad (LAMP Words for Life). My practicum student spent four weeks working to teach Dan nine different words using LAMP. Over this time, he was able to go from no functional communication to being able to request several things on his iPad (bike, walk, toy, chewy, finished, etc).

He even started using the phrases on his device for new meaning. For example, he had learned to use finished when he was done riding the bike. However, he started using the word finished to let us know that he was done communicating and wanted to go back to playing his favorite game on the iPad. Just this week he has learned how to navigate in and out of apps by himself to go between communicating and playing his games.

Initially, I didn't think he would get past 84 possible words to use for communication.  I honestly wasn't sure he would succeed in 4-5 words. However, when it became obvious that he learned words quickly, I had to do some reconfiguring of his device. He now has to tap up to three different icons in order to have the device say a word (instead of just one).  Although this is harder for him than what he originally did, he is already starting to learn how to do this (we have only been doing this since coming back from Christmas break). We have also added additional words to his vocabulary (swing, upstairs, downstairs, etc).

This has all been a major reminder to me of how important it is to give students a new chance at learning over and over again. Last year, he wasn't ready to communicate, but it seems like something has clicked this year and he is learning that his words have power. It will be fun to see how Dan continues to increase in communication skills as the year progresses. Our biggest challenge now is keeping Dan busy as he is no longer content to sit at his desk. He wants to go on bike rides, play with his iPad, take a walk, etc. I guess this is a good problems to have!

A Reason to Communicate

It has been a long time since I last posted. I will likely be able to update more regularly now. My first semester was a struggle. It took all my energy to get to know my students and get everything planned for the next day. I felt like I was treading water.

Christmas break was wonderful. I had a great time with my family in Montana. I also did some planning and was able to make some changes to my daily schedule. Even though we haven't been able to implement that schedule very often due to the recent bad weather as well as standardized testing, it seems to be working well.  I thought I'd take this moment (now that I have some extra energy) to share some fun success stories from my class. I'll probably do several longer posts in the near future to give more details on some of these.

• One student has learned to tie his shoes and another is close
• One student has been attending art class and another just started science class today
• Two students have learned to zip their coats
• One student has memorized his lunch number and now enters it independently in the cafeteria
• One student has moved from a communication device that had 84 choices to one that has over 500,000 options.
• Four of my students can now add single digit numbers
• One of my students has moved from no functional communication to being able to express 9 or 10 words using a communication device. 
• One student has learned how to shred paper, including independently going and getting the paper that needs to be shredded. 
• All my students have participated in a low ropes course multiple times
• One of my students hugged another student today (this is huge for a child with autism)
• One of my students has gone from being able to read zero words to being able to read over forty words and write sentences using his words. 
• One of my students is able to clean the tables in the cafeteria after breakfast

I'm sure there are some I am missing, but we have been working hard. I am so proud of my students and how far they have already come. We still have a lot to work on. I thoroughly enjoy going to school every day and am thankful for the other staff in our school, especially my aides. I am also thankful for my students and their parents. We have a lot of fun each day even though we are working hard. I am looking forward to seeing what the rest of the school year will hold.