THE ROLE OF AT IN LITERACY FOR STUDENTS WITH SEVERE
COGNITIVE DELAYS
Presenter #1
Patricia Ourand
Associated Speech & Language Services, Inc.
Day Phone: 410-336-7991
Fax: 410-296-5710
Email: POurand@aslsinc.com
PRESENTER #2
Roslyn Canosa
Kennedy Krieger Partnership Schools
1600
Zip/Postal Code: 21239
Day Phone: 410-396-7463
Fax:
Email: Canosa@kennedykrieger.org
This session discusses the integration of technology for educators and AT
for students with significant cognitive, linguistic, sensory and motor delays
when completing literacy activities.
Williams (1994) writes that despite the fact that he has a severe physical disability,
uses a wheelchair and has difficulty speaking, he defines his success with one
word, “literacy”. He continues by stating that literacy is a tool that
can be used to develop other life skills. Sturm (2003) notes that
literacy skills will increase and improve the quality of life for all, and
perhaps more distinctively, those individuals who use AAC. Being literate
can have many definitions. This session will define it very broadly to
mean that an individual is able to listen, speak, read, write, and think about
what has been heard, spoken, read, or written. Literacy is not only
reading or writing, it is using language and communication in numerous and
varied ways to become a better communicator, and to be able to engage
cognitively with more of the universe of ideas, things, people, and activities,
that is to do more thinking. The more a person can think about, the more
t!
hat individual can listen, speak, read,
and write effectively.
The definition of literacy has evolved along with a broadened understanding
of human behaviors and technologies available to support and augment
communication for students with a combination of cognitive, linguistic, sensory
and/or motor deficits. To some, it means proficient reading. To others,
it includes the ability to recognize functional visual images, such as the
Golden Arches (e.g., McDonald’s, actual photographs, labels
from packaging). To some, it is a requirement that whatever is “written”
must be related to the alphabet, yet to others, the choices and preferences may
include any type of visual depiction or caricature that the individual is able
to produce in order to convey/read information on “paper”. Others realize
that even some degree of involvement or participation, as opposed to independence,
constitutes “literacy”. All agree that literacy:
v expands opportunities across environments
v occurs along a continuum
v applies to individuals of all ages
v is continually moving, but may be very slow and require significant
adaptations.
Many students enrolled in the various special education centers around the
country experience some combination of significant cognitive, linguistic,
sensory and/or motor skills and deficits. Despite these weaknesses, each
of these students is entitled to opportunities to increase and enhance
literacy, if only at the pre-emergent level. From birth we are all in
various levels of transition with regard to literacy. With very young
children, or those individuals who are very low functioning developmentally,
including limited world experiences and behaviors, this process may need to
begin with play. For students with severe-to-profound multiple
disabilities, while the process of literacy is continually progressing, the
progression may be very slow and will likely require significant adaptations
with regard to temporal expectations, materials development and other issues.
As educators, we all acknowledge that both low and high technology
strategies can be effectively applied to literacy learning. This technology
must be used by the educators and related services staff, as well as students.
The use of mainstream technologies such as digital cameras, scanners and
computers can be readily employed to create both hard copies of books as well
as virtual books and enrichment activities on paper and on the computer.
However, we can’t diminish the role of low technology such as books with
sensory adaptations and other supports used to stimulate interest and
participation in the process of listening and reading.
Rush (2005) reminds us that the use of single switch access to literacy
activities on the computer or even with adapted books can support learning of a
multiplicity of concepts including categorization and association, which will ultimatly help to support the effective development of
other skills (e.g. the use of dynamic display communication systems). AT is
available to support movement along and within the Literacy Continuum that
looks at literacy from pre-emergent to emergent to transitional to conventional
skills. It provides the means to make it meaningful and functional.
The professional challenges associated with providing literacy activities
for all students are to:
v continually and actively engage
individuals who rely on AAC in meaningful reading and writing experiences over
time and across environments. The human component of these literacy
solutions is understood when reading the Literacy Bill of Rights.
v allow for and create the broadest-possible range of literacy abilities
for individuals who use AAC regardless of age or complexity of communication
needs
These students include those who appear to have:
v a limited attention span, and/or
v little motivation, and/or
v a lack of focus, and/or
v little interest in books or reading
They are often the students who benefit optimally from a Functional Life
Skills program that addresses the following domains:
1. Recreation / Leisure
2. Personal Management
3. Vocational
4. Community Based Instruction (CBI)
The goal of all literacy activities for these individuals is to insure
repetition and motivation to enhance learning and skill development across the
continuum from partial participation to some level of independence! When
working with these students various activities and scaffolds can be designed to
support: communication goals, such as vocabulary exploration and expansion,
along with practice and reinforcement of carrier/familiar phrases. As
well an individual’s social goals (e.g., dialogue and conversations; jokes, and
other social discourse) can be addressed. This session will review all of
the issues introduced above, while offering actual examples from a Kennedy
Krieger Partnership program in the
References:
Rush, Elizabeth S. Emergent Literacy For
Individuals With Severe/Profound Multiple Disabilities. 2005 CSUN 20th Annual International Conference "Technology and
Persons with Disabilities" Proceedings.
Sturm, J.M. Writing n AAC. The ASHA Leader. September 9, 2003.
Williams, M. Alternatively Speaking. June, 1994. Volume 1, Number 2.
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