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After looking through module 3's content I noticed many strategies to incorporate in my classroom with all of my students. I thought the Thaysa video was interesting and relatable. Many kids with autism struggle with communicating. The educators in her life tried different strategies rather than her banging and having outbursts. I have seen this behavior a lot. I have not had any experience incorporating assistive technology but it seemed to help her. If I worked with students that were nonverbal I'd definitely feel better having those devices  to support them.
I thought the article on Autism and social skills was interesting because people do seem to put labels on those students. The reference to using "roots" was awesome I thought. I will definitely use one of those goals with one of my current students.

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The aha moment for me when viewing the videos and completing the assessment on my student was realizing that sometimes you have to let student's express themselves in their own way in order to develop a means of communication that can become lasting and effective. The video with Thaysa reminded me of how sometimes you have to "go through the back door in order to get to the front." By this I mean letting a student express themselves and observing how they communicate certain things and understanding what they are attempting to communicate will allow you to develop a means of communication that can be universally understood by those who work with them and shown to others who are attempting to communicate with them. I used the Hear Me Into Voice assessment with my student and I was able to understand how certain gestures mean certain things and by understanding these signs helped me more effectively understand the message that the student was trying to rely. When a student "acts out" it doesn't necessarily mean they are upset or in a bad mood, it could just mean that the student is trying to say something but does not have the verbal capacity to articulate that message. The introduction of a communication device gave Thasya a voice and means to say things that she may not have the verbiage to say but being able to use her device gives her a means to do so. Even though it takes some training with the device from both parties, the student is able to learn that using the device gives them the opportunity to voice wants, needs or any other miscellaneous thought that they are trying to get across. Performing the Hear Me Into my Voice assessment allowed me to notice how my non-verbal student used a lot of body gestures and "grunts" to articulate his own wants and needs. One thing that my student does to protest is tuck his hands underneath his legs and lean on them. By developing other means of communication (picture dictionaries and him starting to use a communication device) give him a means to directly express to us what he is thinking or what he wants and this, I feel will diminish outburst due to people not knowing what it is he may truly be trying to say.

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The AAC video reminded me of just how important communication is during play, and play is the basis of learning in young children. We get so focused on academics in school (especially at the secondary level). We need to remember to enable social communication in all activities throughout the day. I look at some of the kids in our high school classes and wonder how different their development might have been (and how much richer their lives would be now) if they had been included in classes with typical peers from day 1. I also wonder how all our students' lives would be richer (including typical kids) if there were more room in the curriculum for play and socializing, including at the secondary level.

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It is so easy to take the acting out behavior of students as having the purpose of defiance, without considering why they may be defiant. It has a purpose, and I think the biggest purpose is to get our attention to say, "HEAR ME! MY NEEDS ARE NOT BEING MET!" The trick is figuring out what their needs are and how to meet them.

I can feel, viscerally, how important that sense of belonging is for kids with even the most significant of disabilities. How difficult it must be to have a body that doesn't allow you to express yourself. Advancing technology should help, but how many of us actually have the access and understanding of that technology to help students with the type of AAC that someone like Stephen Hawking had, and that wonderful student in one of our videos had?

Our school has a "Best Buds Forever" club, which helps with that social connection. I like that our kids with ID who are higher-functioning get to be role-models and leaders in this group, while also benefiting from interactions with typical peers. It's a great opportunity! Unfortunately, it's only 20 minutes every few weeks. That doesn't seem to be enough.

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I made a connection to this weeks readings and videos to one of my students. He is very self-sufficient, smart and non-verbal. He has Down Syndrome and is considered non-verbal due to his speech being inaudible. He can navigate his communication device with ease and has to often help me find words through all of the categories, but he does not or will not use the device independently. He has taken an interest this year towards a few select peers and I think that if he could or would communicate more independently he would be able to build more social relationships. He is able to independently take care of his needs and exhibits a lot of common sense skills but the communication piece is limiting how others see him. He is actually moving on this year and I worry that the new school will not see him for all the skills that he has due to the lack of independent communication. I would love to discover what would help him connect to independent communication.

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After reading this week's materials, I realized how important communication is amongst children with disabilities. I then began to think about times in the past year that I've been working with these special students and what each of them have accomplished. Many of the students I teach use Assistive Technology, which is a great tool to use, but some of my Ah Ha moments have been without the devices. I think as an educator, we need extra patience to allow these students to sound out what they're trying to say. I enjoy each of the students attempting to say basic words or new words. With Covid, wearing masks can be a challenge, so I often tell students to pull their masks down and take their time while trying to renunciate a word or phrase. I am thrilled when I see the hard work our speech therapist has been doing actually paying off. Such a great moment all around.

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We currently have a student with a difficult situation involving a group of typical students. This group of students seems to be picking on our one student with limited means of communication. I have talked to our student and to the group of girls. It is hard to decide what is one side or the other, and what might be the objective truth. I have given them a week to not even speak with each other. We are revisiting this week, to decide our path forward. I think these students are not bad kids, and I think that more than half of the the problem is with the communication needs of our one. It is so important for your message to come out the way you mean it, and for it to be received the way that you meant it. There are too many ways it can go wrong.

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One of my "aha" moments during the readings and videos occurred when I came across the simple question of "What kind of communication tools is your student using?" Again, in reflecting during this course on students that I have who are able to speak, but don't always do so- I really have started to wonder what tools I am giving them when they aren't able to find/use their words to express themselves. For my target student, I really like the idea of the communication wallet. She has some simple visual boards that I have made for her (more like contingency plans for certain feelings/behaviors), but this is a smaller, more portable tool that she can take with her outside of our class as well when she is around less familiar peers and teachers. I like that we can create a few tabs for different areas of communication needs- personal information, emotions, preferences, and general information on how to best approach her when she is feeling overwhelmed. I am hoping to bring this idea to fruition, sooner rather than later as my target student seems to have had a shift in her behavior over the last several weeks.

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During this year, as I have gotten to know my student, I have noticed that he has different sets of scripts for different social situations, such as talking to classmates, talking to known teachers, and talking to unknown teachers. He always waves to everyone and says hi, whether he knows them or not. When asked "how are you" by an unknown adult, he says "just peachy," but when asked by a familiar adult, he will say "I'm good," or "I'm going just fine." I have also observed that the student will usually adjust his tone and pitch of voice to match the person speaking to him. My "AHA!" moment occurred this morning as I was observing my student before class. even though he is usually quiet, he seems to always be observing. He watches the other students around him and mimics their behavior. If someone is laughing at something, he will laugh loudly with them. He pays attention to strong emotions, whether positive or negative, and mimics them. So even though he may not always be able to come up with the words to express his thoughts verbally, he is finding other ways to communicate.

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This week after watching the videos and completing the readings, it made me truly look at how my students are communicating both with me as the teacher and with their peers.  My target student has an AT device that she very rarely wants to use, but at home they use a completely different system so there is a disconnect.  I have requested from the family (that if they feel comfortable) would they be willing to show us how they communicate with my student at home and send in the device they use.  This year, although I have only been teaching for 3 years, that I have two families that do not send in their students AT devices that they use at home/ outside therapies.
My target student that I am working with can verbalize and reads aloud really well, but will not answer if it is an open ended question. At the end of last week into this week I have been using her device more with her, and having her classmates even look at the device with her. This was shown in the video of Thaysa, where the classmates take turns using it. After these activities she was more keen on at least looking at the deivce instead of leaving it in her backpack.

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After reading the chapter on Building Intentional Communication, Diego’s case does not fit my student. My students’ style of communication is one-word responses, mimics or repeats others, and physical gestures. Diego's intentional communication appears to be more advanced because he is more attentive to his environment, people, and places to give a proper response to the receiver. I really enjoyed reading about the level of communication this young man was able to achieve. As well as the patience and attentiveness his family and service workers have working with him. They allow him to be his own person as well as  learning how he can communicate his wants, needs, desires, as well as emotions. My target student demonstrates awareness in some instances. We are still working with him using low tech communication, it has been a struggle to see what he knows academically such as recognizing his name, letters, shapes, or colors. He has learned how to shred paper, and enjoys vocational time.

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After reading this weeks materials and watching the videos my "aha" moment was helping my target student use his assistive technology today and making corrections to it with our speech teacher. We collaborated together and decided that it was too advanced for him and way too many buttons and options on it for him to use. We started with only basics - colors, animals, places in school, teachers, feelings, common words used (I, like, want, help, etc.) I talked with her about that I think the reason he does not use it as much as he should is because he is frustrated that he cannot find what he is trying to say. As this student becomes more comfortable using his iPad and learns the buttons on it, we will continue to add more options to it.

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One thing that really stuck out to me this week was the Thasya Lungkewas video. As a music lover, and of course, a special education teacher, I think it really spoke to me! I’m a big advocate for technology in the classroom, as well, so it was inspiring to see how her standard talk box device wasn’t really helpful, but once the staff was able to start using the Vantage Lite, Thasya was able to become more involved in her class, both academically and socially. I also really enjoyed hearing the educators' insights on behavior intervention plans and PBIS. What a great example of how music, technology and PBIS have the ability to help our students achieve their best!

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Through all the videos and readings from not only this class, but our others, the importance of communication has been brought to the forefront. It is such an important part of who we are, both as individuals and as a member of society. The inability to communicate effectively must be devastating! It is not difficult to see how not being able to let others know who you are, what you want or don't want, and whatever else you would want to contribute would lead to greater distress and even negative behaviors. These chapters reiterated many thoughts that I have had about AAC devices, including the need to keep them with my students at all times, the need to keep them relevant, the need for them to be user friendly, and the need for the students to be able to use them not simply to express academic needs, but also social and personal wants and needs. I did see new strategies that I would like to try with my target student to get him to utilize the device more frequently. We need to encourage him to use the device even when we know what he wants without the device, due to body language or verbalizations. I need to put some of his favorite characters on the device so that he can tell us about them and let us know when he wants/needs a break to play/watch them. Through incorporating things that we know he is interested in onto the device, hopefully he will be more excited to use it.

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After the readings this week, I hope to expand the relationships my students have with the general education population.  We have a period of 30 minutes worked into the school time called Flex.  It is for students to work on assignments or meet with teachers for remediation.  On Fridays, I open my class up for students to come and interact with my class.  The student signs up to come in and to crafts or games.  They want to come in and it creates a natural relationship.  I would love to see what would happen if I opened up the sign up for everyday.  It would give my students in a self-contained class to have more relationships with general education students.
I am excited that the Unified Basketball was approved to start back up. It is an amazing way to have the students interact with students with disabilities. The whole school cheers on our students and it is heartwarming to witness.

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I believe the Ah ha moment I had in reading this weeks materials was that maybe my student does not use her Touch Chat all the time because we do not provide her with enough options in what she would like to say.  I want her to be able to use this iPad program fluently in all social situations.  I need to work with my team (my student included) to come up with more phrases that she would like to use on her Touch chat.  Some of the material has talked about not using such simple pictures and words for these students to express themselves.  I believe that is very true and we as educators should be pushing/working toward a better understanding of what we can provide for our students.

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I've been thinking about which assessment would be most relevant for my student and what could possibly follow him throughout his school years. I think I've finally set on the personal dictionary. He has lots of behaviors or stories that are specifically related to him. I like how it's laid out and that you can really personalize it to the student and their needs. I think it will be helpful to work with his parents on it too to make sure that it's something that can benefit them at home as well. I've had to call and ask his mom certain things he's trying to say or gestures he acts out and I think if we put something like this in place it would be helpful for all. It will also help him be able to join his general ed peers for morning meeting with less adult assistance. If we can make the other students aware of what he means or needs when he does things, they can communicate with him better. My ah ha moment was kind of a silly one. I was so focused on my target student that I didn't even think about how much this would benefit another student in my class. He has a really hard time with speech and people understanding him. This would be a great way to help him have the same success. I think these are simple ways that we can make a huge difference in our students' functional communication.

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My "aha" moment occurred with a student in my class that is completely nonverbal and often does not respond to his own name. He carries a communication device but we have started to believe that he doesn't have the language to understand or convey his feelings and emotions. This has caused a lot of melt downs as well as violent behaviors. I started to print, make, and buy different pictures of emotions, tasks, words, and different scenarios surrounding the room. We started training him to point to certain pictures as well as sign language since he has started to see them around my room. This has helped us to communicate with him because he now knows where to point to his emotions instead of searching for them on his device.

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As I was reading the assignment for this week and watching all the videos I was reflecting on my own class this year. I have a group of students who really struggle with proper communication and interactions with one another. Some of these students have been in isolation for almost two years because of the virtual learning. The students really don't understand how to be friends with each other and what they say each other is perceived in a certain way. In a couple videos there was the group who had interactions with their nondisabled peers. This helped them with communication and social interactions that were appropriate. I was thinking I could have a similar thing at my school. We have a 30 minute block built into our day for remediation, enrichment and socialization. I could have a group of nondisabled peers come and just play games with my students helping them to understand better how to socially react or interact with one another. My students would then feel more included and could also improve their communication with their peers. I think we are so focused on the academics that we forget that some students need the socialization also to be a better well rounded student. I would also like to have my students included in having lunch in the cafeteria. Right now I have enough room to socially distance in my classroom and therefore we have to eat in the classroom rather than in the cafeteria. Other students also eat in their rooms but they get to change classes and interact with many different peers unlike my students who spend their day in my classroom making communication quite difficult.

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I enjoyed the videos we had to watch this week and especially the video on Thaysa. When I was watching this video-it made me think about what vocabulary and communication is needed for my target student. In the video, Thaysa teachers realized that she wanted to say more but was unable with the device she was using, it was limiting her. Which is another ah ha moment - you should never limit someone just because they have a disability and you don't think that they can do or have the ability to do more. I know this but I felt it was a good reminder again. Creating a whole communication/vocabulary for a student requires that I need to really observe and understand what my student is doing in a day to day setting and then go beyond that. I feel that I personally will need to really be open to what more can this student say-express in his/her own way.

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After reviewing the readings in this Module, it confirmed for me a lot of the strategies and thinking that I have used over the years. My struggle however has always been finding genuine opportunities for my students to make real connections with their peers outside of our classroom. With our limited access to "normalized" social interactions over the past 2 and a half years, I have seen significant regression in my students' interest/motivation to interact with others. My target student understands and uses multi-modalities to communicate wants and needs to adult supports but she does not find the same value in her peers. In fact she often avoids interactions with her classmates and any general education peers. She has also lost interest in being at school; often communicating her desire to go home or not have school. I want to work with her on not only making connections but building relationships with her peers. I hope to be able to use student mentors and work with her family and team to support her interactions and increase her opportunities for socialization.

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This week's readings and videos talked about "Social Competence". I find myself constantly working towards having my target student tell me what he needs, wants and desires which is a vital functional skill. I find myself completely caught up with maintaining consistency, structure and schedules and don't spend as much time working on the skills shown above. I would love for my student to be able tell me how he feels, use strategies to have even a simple conversation, and be able to voice an opinion that is more than a gutteral sound of anger. Don't get me wrong, I do try to replace those sounds with socially acceptable words but my student generally repeats my words and they have no relevance to him. A new goal I would like to incorporate is to have those socially acceptable phrases be relevant to him and teach him to use them as a preferred method of communication. I will use gestural and verbal prompts to model appropriate responses in the moment. I do not feel comfortable bringing in general education peers at this time due to the high intensity and unpredictable nature of my student. We have made incredible strides with my student already this year and hopefully incorporating more meaningful and socially competent goals will further the ability to have him be able to have relationships with students outside of my classroom.

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I am currently looking for new ways to have my students have real and meaningful connections outside of my self-contained classroom. I am the sponsor of our schools inclusion club. We are coming off of a big fundraiser that has helped us spread awareness about the Special Olympics and how important it is to have inclusion in schools. This week while I read the articles and watched the videos, I really was interested in the Creating Paths to Belonging to Build Social and Communication Skills Module. Specially, the information about lunchtime circle of friends sparked ideas. When I think of my target student, she has a difficult time wanting to be at school. She screams, cries, and gets physical. Once she completes her morning routine and she is ready to learn, she will get through the day. There are certain classes she enjoys more than others and lunch is a time of the day she really likes. Incorporating inclusion during lunch, a happy time for her, will have the potential to help her gain meaningful connections that could help make her want to be at school.

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After watching this week's videos and reading my chosen chapter of the assigned literature (chapter 3), which focuses on a case study of boy with significant communication deficits called Moses, I had several aha moments. I decided to compare the similarities and differences between the 2 boys and find 2 things to focus on.

Moses often uses gestures and physical movements to communicate as does my student, J. Moses is very sensitive to sound and prefers to whisper when making verbal utterances as does J. Both J and Moses communicate negatively by moving away or pushing something away.

But there are 3 major differences between Moses and J. The first is that Moses can communicate his feelings, needs and wants, and participate in social interactions. We model this on his communication device, using words, and using sign language but he has yet to express himself in this way. As we believe J. prefers to spend time alone and not interact with others, we have not introduced him to social communication. This reading has motivated me to do so. Another difference is that Moses' parents seem to be very involved with his communication. J's mom is a single mother with 2 other children and a full time job. J. is very loved, but I believe she doesn't have time to spend focusing on his communication. Better home/school collaboration on his communication is another thing I would like to address.

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We got to watch the video about Thaysa in our class with Dr. Mary Evans. I love the video every time I watch it. Thaysa seems like a very fun, talented, and funny little girl and I hope to one day know of a group of students so accepting of a student with special needs. As high school teacher I don't see much acceptance or inclusion with special education students and general education students. About 5 years ago, I started a Champions Together club that builds friendships between ALL students. We had a great first 2 1/2 years building up our club with friends and partners but then COVID hit and our club diminished. We are trying to build it back up this year. We have our first real fun club meeting on Feb 9th and we have done a lot of promotion so I am hoping a lot more students attend. I love the idea of having lunch buddies because our students just seem to group together or sit individually by themselves.
When working with my student, Luke, I have used the Unique program to teach content vocabulary last year. My student would do well when asking comprehension questions with visual pictures on Unique. As I was looking at Luke's touch chat 2 days ago, I was thinking maybe he is not so into using it as much because it doesn't have things things he would like to say on it. He broke his iPad over the summer with his aggressive behaviors and was issued a new iPad with the basic 16 words on a page at a time. I would like to increase his vocabulary by having those words lead to more descriptive vocabulary for him to tell me more about passages being read to him. Luke loves to hear books or notecards read to him. While you read to him he points along with the words being read. I would love to add on his page questions stating "Will you read with me?" or "Will you read my flash cards?". This inspired me when Thaysa was telling jokes to her classmates. The only issue is he is in a classroom with other students who are nonverbal so he seems to only initiate with adults. I would love for him to branch out to his peers to build friendships/relationships.

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I currently work in a middle school with severe disabilities students. I have 2 nonverbal students that came to middle school with no communication device. The speech therapist has implemented a few single button switches in the room for my students to use. Reading chapter 2 really made me think about how my students do communicate with me despite not having a device to use. When I started utilizing the Hear Me Into Voice Assessment it made me realize it even more. I do recognize though my students are at a significant disadvantage with trying to communicate with others that do not know them well. I am able to understand some of the nonverbal ways they communicate but it is only because I have known them for a year and a half. I would love for them to have more meaningful ways of communicating and that will be of use to them throughout their life.

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This week's readings and resources gave me both an aha moment as well as strategies to use in the future. The aha moment were some of the suggested ways to promote social interaction. For example, at lunch, our students sit at a table with their same classmates. The Circle of Friends lunchtime gave me an idea for us to further integrate more general education students at this time. Most of our students at the high school level are what we call "functional communicators" where they can express their basic needs or wants. Social interaction is an area of challenge for most students.
One strategy I will work on with my target student is creating the social vocabulary using modeling to further her engagement with others. Currently, I model appropriate language use for her, but also could be trying to produce further engagement when completing different activities. This student also could benefit from having the ability to communicate her need for a break when she may be overstimulated. Like suggested in Chapter 5 of the AAC with Children reading, this student could be similar to Jada, where she can have a pocket/wallet communication card system to help her formulate the vocabulary that she needs. She is a reader, so could use cue cards.

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My aha moment was that we should not just be looking at general social skills, but we should be making friendship skills a priority for our students with IEPs. This is definitely a bit of a paradigm shift that will require a little time to adjust to, but I think it will be well worth it. I also appreciated the plethora of goal ideas that could be used when writing IEPs and this is something I want to start doing for my students. While I do use a few of these, there are so many more that might be more appropriate, especially in today's society.

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ah ha moment-module three padlet A. Gilchrist

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ah ha moment-module three padlet A. Gilchrist

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Today, when I was preparing to teach my new homebound student, looking at the materials I had been given, I thought of this course and all the pages of information about building communication. The student knows sign language better than I do, I thought as I began to read his IEP and reading materials provided by his school teacher. The book material was so secondary to him and me communicating in a meaningful way. When the family logged in with him, I saw he had glasses, and so did I. So instead of beginning with my name, I started a dialogue about our glasses and how alike we are because we have glasses. Although I used the book, I had him teach me signs for things like my name, Ms. G, I asked him to show me G. I began with what he is competent in, and what I wasn't and let him teach me to bridge the gap and start with what he knew. A session that mom thought was going to be disastrous because of the time of day and new teacher, turned out to be engaging and fun because he was interested to teach me things he knew.