[ Post a Response | AAC, Special Education, and Inclusion ]
Posted by Speech_Chicky
on 8/26/2003, 6:44 pm, in reply to "Re: Severe-Profound MR class"
12.237.236.190
That sound like a plan. Gail M. Van Tatenhove has some free ministickers (sentence strips) online made with picture symbols. She has most of the Eric Carle books, including Brown Bear. You can save a ton of time by downloading hers. Just go to www.vantatenhove.com/materials.html, go to free materials and click on ministickers. I have also found "Writing with Symbols" program (also by Mayer Johnson) easier and more helpful than Boardmaker.
This is my 2nd year to work in a life skills class. I have learned that it does take time to do EVERYTHING. But make sure and laminate all that you do so you can use it year after year. I have found about 10 books with repeating lines (i.e. "Who said red" and "who wants one" by Mary Serfozo, "Brown bear" and "Have you seen my cat" by Eric Carle). I read the book and let the nonverbal kids "read" the second one by putting the repeating line on the switch. I also let them request "more" with the switch, which is used during high interest activities. You can take the stimulus away, and they request "more" before they get to play again. This is tough b/c you have to find what is motivating for each child. With one child it was food. For another, a top, etc.
For the kids that can handle more than one location on a switch, you can add comments like "this is fun" "This is boring", etc. We're dealing with basic communication here so it's so different than your average speech stuff. Another thing to know is that your first few months are HARD. You need to get to know their kids and how they communicate, what they prefer. Know that the more time you spend with each kid the easier it gets to make and implement goals with them. I hope this helped.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread