Creating Novel Opportunities to Encourage Communication
One of my biggest pet peeves with regard to communication in special education classrooms is that the only communication time is the morning meeting. This is a time where the children talk about the weather and the about calendar. In order for our AAC students to learn how to make friends, develop social relationships and succeed in any academic program they have to talk about more than just the weather.
A friend mine who was consulting in a classroom told me of a great idea that one teacher had. She made her morning meeting time, Mrs. Greene’s Morning Show. Several students in the classroom had a role for the week. Roles included the weather reporter, current events, book/topic reviews, interviews, school events, etc. The class would prepare all week for “Mrs. Greene’s Morning Show.” Every Fridays it was videotaped. The class watched it on Monday and then the students switched roles for the new week. This was a great method to create a purpose for learning about the weather, talking about the date, and providing multiple ways that the students could use their communication devices.
What great ideas do you have for supporting and encouraging communication in your classroom?
We use peer helpers from a similar grade level to conduct interviews with our students. Because of limited resources, we only have one pair of students working together at a time with 2 step-by-steps. We have simple questions programed into each device and the students take turns asking each other questions. For my non-verbal students, we have made cards with picture symbols and words to answer the questions and the students has access to these for answering. The peer helper also has cards with his answers that he and the teacher made ahead of time. When the non-verbal student asks questions, the peer helper uses his words and cards to answer. We wanted the peer helper to model both the use of the assistive technology and the use of verbal vocabulary. We let the peer helper design a lot of the questions to make sure the are age and interest appropriate. We often have joke telling sessions using this same format. And more than once we have had burps and fart sounds recorded on our big macs and step-by-steps! Very motivating for pre-teen boys!