Functional Assessment Week 8

1. Functional Assessment Week 8

2. Updates • Task Analysis on Communication Skills due today. • Wednesday, May 18th- Instructional Plan for Functional Skills Due • Task analysis on academics due May 23rd • May 25th- Instructional Plan for Communication Skills • June 1st- Instructional Plan for Academic Skills • Ecological Assessment Report due June 6th • June 8th- Implementation Plan

3. Quick Review • Explain the difference between functional routines, discrete trials training (DTT), & pivotal response training (PRT)

4. Functional Routines Instruction

5. Discrete Trial Training

6. Pivotal Response Training

7. More Review • When would you decide to use a functional routine vs a discrete trial approach? • What is meant by prompt hierarchy?

8. Discuss your communication task analysis with a partner • Look at their steps….are they logical? • Look at the relevant/critical stimuli to vary box….are they programming well for generalization? • Discuss with them their plan to prompt these steps….total task chain, forward chaining, backward chaining…..why?

9. Augmentative & Alternative Communication is… • “any means that helps a person communicate when conventional speaking, writing, and/or understanding others are not possible.” (McCormic, Loeb, & Schieffelbusch, 2003) • “any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the self, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of children with disabilities.”(IDEA, 1990 ~ Federal Register)

10. Two types of AAC techniques • Unaided- Do not require any external equipment (i.e. manual signs, facial expressions, gestures) • Aided- Incorporate external devices (i.e., computers, microswitches, or speech-generating devices (SGDs) • Most people use both to communicate in different situations with different people

11. Communication System Combination of all of the techniques used by an individual student

12. Unaided Communication • Teachers need to be attuned to how student communicates • Understand what various gestures, vocalization, and other techniques mean

13. Gesture Dictionary

14. When is unaided communication appropriate? • Used when students have no other way to get their messages across • Must be socially acceptable & intelligible

15. Manual Signs: Pros & Cons • Some people who can hear use manual signs (e.g. ASL) • Advantage: requires no equipment • Disadvantage: Many people do not understand signs, therefore limited communication partners • What are other pros or cons?

16. When to teach signs • Poor prognosis for speech • Signing partners available • Physically able • Adequate cognitive skills • A portable communication system is desirable

17. Aided Communication • Low-Tech/Non-electronic: symbols, and communication displays • Hi-Tech/Electronic: Speech-generating devices • Advantages/ Disadvantages of both?

18. Symbols for Communication • Real Object Symbols • Photographs & Pictures • Line Drawing Symbols • Textured Symbols • Letters & Words

19. Selecting Symbols—What to look for? • Should make sense to the user & communication partners (assess with range of choices) • Similarity between the symbols & what represents should be obvious • Students sensory modalities should be considered • Symbols introduced gradually building on current communication skills

20. Communication Displays--examples • Velcro board with a few picture symbols that students point to • Plexiglas eye gaze display that a student uses eye to “point” (Figure 8-19, p.261) • Communication Book or Wallet

21. Considerations for Designing Displays • Messages: which are needed, in what contexts • Symbols: depending on the individual & messages • How symbols are displayed: booklets, notebooks, wheelchair trays, scanners • Organizing symbols: context specific, how many per page, etc.

22. Graphic arrays • Designing communication boards or communication notebooks • Choosing items • Size of each item • Positioning each item • Accessibility of each item • Perception of each item (both user and communication partner) • Item placement/ordering- groups? Effort in scanning? • Motor involvement in using array- vertical or horizontal?

23. Using Symbols to Promote Participation/Conversation • Calendar/Schedule Systems • Choice Displays • Remnant (e.g. Movie ticket, scraps from activities) Displays • Conversation Displays

24. Hi-Tech: Speech Generating Devices • Devices “talk” when a student touches a symbol on the device • What are advantages/ disadvantages??

25. Types of Electronic Devices • Single-level Devices: deliver a limited number of messages (about 20), simple to program & operate (e.g. BIGmack) • Multi-level Devices: Up to thousands of messages, more difficult to program, multiple symbol displays to program messages on two or more levels. • Comprehensive Devices: “dynamic display” technology

26. Supporting AAC learners is a collaborative effort • Family/caregivers & friends • Present & future employers • Teachers (SPED & Gen Ed.) • Speech/language specialists • Physical & occupational therapists • Student

27. Supporting AAC Learners (continued) • Access to AAC • Available • Accessible • Appropriate • Atmosphere of acceptance • Nonjudgmental - OK to make mistakes, model correct response, praise attempts, allow more time, minimize peer pressure, reinforce tolerance of individual differences.

28. Teaching Communication Skills • General Education Classroom Ideal environment- numerous opportunities to communicate with responsive communicative partners • However, students need specific & systematic instruction to acquire desired skills • Educational Team must develop teaching strategies and implement them consistently

29. Things to Consider with AAC • Mode of communication – Input: how the student receives the message; • Output: means in which the student transmits the messages to others • Mechanism for communication – Gestures, Vocalizations, Graphic • Type of selection - Direct selection, Scanning • Physical display - Number of graphic symbols, Spacing and arrangement, Background, Orientation, Fixed or dynamic • Vocabulary selection • Output - Print copy, Speech, Scan display

30. What do we choose to teach? Consider: • What to communicate about • Activities/environments used in • People communicate with

31. Initial Instructional Strategies • Establishing Want/No • Response Prompt Strategies (Time Delay, System of Least/Maximum Prompts) • Milieu Teaching- modeling, manding, time delay, incidental teaching • Environmental Arrangement & Interrupted-chain Strategy • Conversation skill training

32. Supporting AAC • AAC Training • Training for student, parents/family/friends, teachers, employers, peers • Training in the use/maintenance of the system • Training in facilitative/instructional techniques that promote communication

33. In-Class Activity • Please complete both sides of your in-class activity. • Please take about 30 minutes to complete the activity • We will discuss this together!

34. Brief Experimental Analysis of Sight Words (Baranek et al., 2011) • Multiple interventions for academic instruction compared to determine which intervention is best suited for an individual student. • Used for oral reading fluency, oral reading comprehension, mathematics, leetter formation, and spelling. • In this study used for sight words

39. Self-Directed Science Concept Learning (Jimenez et al, 2009/2010) • Currently, limited research on science instruction for students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities • Inquiry-based science instruction= a set of interrelated processes by which scientists & students pose questions about the natural world and investigate phenomena; • Students acquire knowledge and develop a rich understanding of concepts, principles, models, and theories