My Experience with Assistive Technology and How I Will Use It in the Future.

A long time ago I used to work at public school as a teacher assistant.  I worked with exceptional children.  Some of them required multiple assistive technologies.  One of my students used to have hearing aids and when he arrived to school, he took them off and put on audio trainer.  Then the deaf child’s teacher put on the microphone to speak to help the child to hear better with a help of little sign language.  The teacher and I developed the cards that had pictures with words on them.  It helped him to point and understand what he was trying to do next.  For example, one of my teachers demonstrated a picture of a kid playing at the playground to a deaf child.  It helped tremendously because deaf people are very visual learners and they rely on what they see.

            In the future, I would like to continue to develop picture cards for children to read and recognize what they see such as picture schedules, word with pictures on multiple objects, and much more.  It would not only help children to recognize, but it would help with developing vocabulary skills, communication skills, sequential skills, and would help them make a connection from the pictures to the objects.  They will develop strong sense of print awareness, concept of book print, story sense, vocabulary development, phonologic awareness, alphabetic understanding, speech/print match, and control of reading and writing (Cook, Klein, & Tessier, p. 320-321).  When they grow older, they will develop a strong literacy skills as well.      

Reference:

Cook, R.E.,M.D. &Tessier, A. (2008).  Adapting early childhood curricula for children with Special Needs (7^th Ed).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Prentice Hall

Task Analysis

            Task Analysis of adaptive skills is the process of breaking down a skill area into its component parts (Cook, Klein, & Tessier, p. 239).  My choice on task analysis was to cut with the scissor.  I know that I was using this task for my focus child.  However, I believe that task analysis can work for every child whether they have disabilities or not.  I devised  task cards with pictures to help the children to read the words and look at the pictures to make the connections.  I am a firm believer that my focus child who has a poor fine motor skill would be very accommodated for having the task cards to follow through. 

            My task cards were showing the every step from the beginning to the ending with pictures demonstrating:

1.         Grab the scissors.

2.                  Pick up a piece of construction paper.

3.                  Insert your thumb into the big hole.

4.                  Insert your fingers into the crescent shaped hole.

5.                  Push the scissors as you open and close the scissor.

6.                  Place the scissor back on the shelf.

Reference:

Cook, R.E.,M.D. &Tessier, A. (2008).  Adapting early childhood curricula for children with Special Needs (7^th Ed).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Prentice Hall

Communication Skills

            My focus child has multiple delays and disabilities.  His communication skills is one of the delays he has.  He demonstrated the ability to communicate using words, phrases, and some simple sentences up to 5 to 6 words in length. When he talks he lacks verb endings such as –ing, and eliminates some verbs.   When asking a question instead of saying “Is that my corn?”  He would say “That my corn?”  Another example is when he said “You leave?”  instead of “Are you leaving?”  He tends to miss a lot of verb usage and tense  in each sentence when he talks with anyone.  He has not developed the concept of “Yesterday/today, before/after, and more/less when he communicates with his friends or teachers.  In other words, he needs to enhance his overall receptive and expressive language skills while communicating with others.  He will need to learn how to develop narrative forms, which means stories or explanations that have a beginning, a middle, and an end, (Cook, Klein, and Tessier, p. 261). He is also greatly impacted by his delayed social skills which limits his successes in communicating effectively with others.        

            My approach to enhance his communication strategies would be to walk along with my focus child and encourage him to meet someone and communicate.  I could model for him how to talk based on what he needs from other people or begin modeling basic conversational interactions.  If all the therapist and teachers that work with this child daily encourage and require conversation he will be able to improve his ability to use language more comfortably.  Communicating his wants and needs will be the starting point for out interactions and behavior modeling.

Reference:

Cook, R.E.,M.D. &Tessier, A. (2008).  Adapting early childhood curricula for children with Special Needs (7^th Ed).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Prentice Hall

My Focus Child’s Motor and Self Help Skills

            My focus child has a developmental delay in motor skills.  The delay is in his fine motor skills and he needs to keep working on cutting with scissors, using pencils with a three pinch finger position and he also has mild difficulty using small materials to manipulate. He is able to pick up pencils, crayons, and marker with his hands but could not handle them appropriately in writing and drawing. 

            I learned that “Most fine motor skills, as far as reparation for manual control is concerned, involve hands and fingers” (Cook, Klein, Tessier p. 223).  I knew from the beginning that he has demonstrated fine motor skill problems.  So I discussed with my focus child’s teacher and came up a plan to improve his fine motor skills by providing several papers with lines to cut and the next time I will bring a similar activity except I added simple shapes such as square, triangle, and rectangle to give him a little challenge and develop mathematical concepts.  I am looking for how much improvement he will get by the end of this semester because he has improved since Mid January. 

 Reference:

Cook, R.E., Klein, M.D. & Tessier, A. (2008). Adapting early childhood curricula for children with Special Needs (7^th Ed).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Prentice Hall.

Social Story- Solitary independent play/ turn taking issue.

Social Stories are great implements for helping children.  My focus child has several disabilities and issues such as ADHD, Asperger’s Syndrome, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  The story I was telling him encourages him to develop a relationship with other children.

            He has no ability to interact with others because he is totally focused on his on tasks.  However, he also bounces one center t the next for most of center time.  My focus child will begin to play with a toy phone and put it down and walk away after a short time, when his happens another child will pick it up and begin to play with it.  Once my focus child notices someone else has the phone he will begin screaming and screaming.  He walked toward the other child and grabbed it to yank it away but the other child kept holding it even harder.  I stepped in and told my focus child and the other child about “Taking turns”

One kid loved to play basketball.  He was shooting the ball into the goal and made it several times for days.  One day, a child shot the ball and missed the goal.  Another child took the ball and the first child screamed “Hey that is my ball!”  The angry child tried to snatch the ball back but the other child was defending himself by keeping the ball.   The teacher walked into an angry child and the ball snatcher.  The teacher was guiding them by thinking about what can they do to work out the situation.  The children thought about the problem and then the ball snatcher had an idea and told him that he would shot the ball and the angry child while take the ball and shoot also.  “We can take turns!!”  The teacher commended them for working the situation out.

            So my focus child decided to tell him he could have the phone and when he was done then he can have the phone back.  They learned how to take turns and share the phone.  I told them that it was okay to be angry but it was not necessary to shout or be rude to each other.  You must recognize the problem, admit it, and remain calm at all times.    

How Goals of Focus Child Will Be Embedded into Activities?

First thing I would do is to understand the strengths and weakness in the child.  Then I would develop a goal and break it down into several smaller objectives to help the child to take steps to reach the year long realistic goal. 

            I believe that interventions should be embedded within the daily activities and routines (cook, 2008).  That means that no matter what we, as the teachers, want to teach we must focus on individual strengths and needs.  Everyone has different ways of learning and we have different ways of teaching also.  It is important to understand the child’s needs and how we can help the child to success with extra help. 

            When planning classroom activities it is important to think of the individual needs of each child and make sure you have addressed them with classroom activities and daily plan.  Allowing the child to work on goals during classroom activities instead of being pulled to the side will give them better opportunities to learn from their peers and mainstream into the general education setting. 

            Motivation is the one of the keys to help children have the drive to learn, but they may have mental blockages so we have to use IEP method to break through to their minds.  That way they can open their minds like we open the flood gate to learning.      

Reference:

Cook, R.E., Klein, M.D. & Tessier, A. (2008). Adapting early childhood curricula for children with Special Needs (7^th Ed).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Prentice Hall.

Importance collection progress on IEP Goals

           I strongly believe that using progress monitoring gives strong support for IEP goals.  It gives observers an idea of what level the child is and how much he has accomplished and the observers will be aware of what to develop the next goals in the IEP.  Monitoring Progress is meant to track down what the individual is doing during the ongoing time frame.

            As  professionals know that the IEP documents are only good for one year and they will need to be recreate the goals or expand if the majority of the goals have not been accomplished. The monitoring of progress is meant to collect data to show evidence for parents and other professionals of the ongoing progress to be shared. 

It is important to use progress monitoring because the child may be constantly changing goals if he or she reaches the goal much quicker than a year.  So if that happens, then the IEP team must develop new goals and objectives to make further progress in order to close the gap with typical students’ levels.    

            Progress Monitoring helps keep instruction on track for the individual child and it has abundant amount information to use for writing the IEP document.  It also would make sure that teachers will know where the weakness are and helps guide the next step of instruction to meet the ongoing goals of the IEP.

The Importance of the individual education plan and how it is used to implement services.

            It is important to have the Individual Education Plan or IEP because it is mandate by public law 101-476P:  The Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1990 and it is developed for preschoolers thru age 21 who are eligible for services.  IEP is crucial because it is for the family members and professionals to work together to help the children with disabilities.  The professionals use IEP to help themselves break down the process of meeting the goals by creating smaller and simpler steps to meet the goal. 

            The professionals and family members must focus on each child’s social and emotion, language, cognitive, and physical skills to analyze and determine areas of need.  When the professionals and family members work on the children’s goals through positive collaborative attitudes, then the children will successful meet their goals specially designed for their needs.

            The professionals’ duties are to get to know the child and find out the child’s general strength and sum up the assessment records.  Also they will need to communicate and listen to the parents’ concerns and desires for their children’s needs.  Then the professionals will do some research on the child’s academic and behavior performance.  That is when the professional will generate annual goals and short term objectives to meet the child’s needs.  After analyzing and see how the goals has been met, they will discuss with the other professionals and parents to decided what types of service the child will need as long as they have an official IEP.  Then they can execute their decision about who, when, how, and where to help the child to promote success.     

            Finally, for special education teacher, regular teacher, and other professionals such as Occupational Therapist and Physical Therapist work together to meet the child’s needs, they must communicate, communicate and communicate to stay on the same page and be aware of what the child’s needs.  They need to look over their materials, information, and understand what the child’s needs and implement them.   

                 

The Reference:

Cook,R.E., Klein, M.D. &Tessier, A. (2008).  Adapting early childhood curricula for children with Special Needs (7^th Ed).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Prentice Hall.

The important of family involvement in the individualized plan

            I really believe that family involvement is crucial for both parents and children.  The professionals should be more than willing to find every way to make their students with special needs become successful independent people.  In order to do that they must teach the children with Individualized Educational Plan to reach the goals set for that child.  Creating these goals is something that both the professionals and parents should work closely on together.  Professionals must meet the parents and discuss the progress of the child and discuss the next steps.  Professionals are aware that what the parents and professionals discussed must be remain confidential because the parents need to feel safe about the information they share will not be discussed with other people without parents’ permission (Cook, 58). 

                 When the parents are aware that professionals will communicate progress about their children and remain confidential it allows the parents’ trust in professionals more.  It takes two-way communication to support the child with special needs to become successful and meet his/her potential.  The parents know more about the children than anyone else, but they may not be sure of how to help the child educationally succeed so the professionals’ role is to facilitate them by guiding them, giving advice, testing, and doing follow up on individual progress. 

            Professionals must be open-minded, concise of what to discuss, be honest, and remain positive at any situation.  Parents may feel insecure, a failure, and in denial because they did not know how to help their child with special needs overcome their obstacles.  Professionals will listen to parents’ comments and be responsive to ensure the parents know they professionals actually care about their concerns. 

            Professionals also inform the parents that their children are important.  The parents must interact with their children as much as possible so the children will feel safe and be in an environment that promotes growth.  The professionals also would mention that joining a support network it will help tremendously because there are other parents that have children with similar disabilities and deal with them in positive ways.  The “veteran” parents could give input and advice to help their children.  The professional also would say talk, talk, and talk with their child.  Conversations help the children learn cognitively as well as socially and emotionally connect with those around them allowing for great potential growth.

            In sum of all, it is important the parents and professionals have a strong sense of collaboration to help the children with special needs meet their potential in life.  The professionals are to listen, be open-minded, be honest, and be willing to find every way to support the parents and their child.  Parents and professionals will have a good relationship and it will help develop a positive environment for their child. 

The Reference:

Cook,R.E., Klein, M.D. &Tessier, A. (2008).  Adapting early childhood curricula for children with Special Needs (7^th Ed).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Prentice Hall.

Court case

Allen Walker: Summary of Handicapped Children's Protection Act o...: "The Handicapped Children’s Protection Act of 1986 had been passed in 1986 which was an amendment to the Education of Handicapped Act. ..."

Reflective Journal 1

            Today was my first day of observation at Ms. Jen’s Pre-Kindergarten classroom.  I was specifically observing Jack (that would be his pseudo-name).  Ms. Jen told me that he has at least three different disabilities and they are Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Attention Deficient Hyper Disorder, and asperger.  The last terminology caught my attention because I had worked with a child with asperger in the past and it was an interesting disability. 

            While I was observing him I saw his behavior that he has high sensor issue because he liked to touch everything that is clean.  He did not like to get dirty because he when he got dirty, he immediately rushed toward the sink to wash his hands.  He did that multiple times.  He was a solitary player and interacted briefly with another child.  He seemed calm while dealing with a social conflict.  For example, a young girl took Jack’s measure tape.  He told her “That is mine!”  A young girl refused to return it to him.  Jack walked toward to Ms. Jen and told her that he had it first. 

            He repeatedly pulled and let go the tape measure.  He rolled it back and listened to the flapping sound while the tape was retracting into its base.  He laughed about it.  He had been playing with the tape measure for over 20 minutes. 

            It was interesting to watch Jack because he had all off those disabilities and he still function fine.  I could tell by looking his self-portrait paper.  All he did was scribbling on the paper.  It may look meaningless to other people but it meant something to him.  I am looking forward to go back and observe him so I can see how well he can manage in Ms. Jen’s classroom.  All of other students are typical students so far.         

Summary of Handicapped Children's Protection Act of 1986, P.L. 94-142

The Handicapped Children’s Protection Act of 1986 had been passed in 1986 which was an amendment to the Education of Handicapped Act.  This act supported by providing services for children ages birth through five.  The act extended the guarantee to a Free and Appropriate Public Education or FAPE to children with disabilities for age three to five.  The act also provides Early Intervention Programs for infants and toddlers with disabilities for ages from birth to two.  Also it was designed to create an Individualized Family Service Plan or IFSP for each family with an infant/toddler with disabilities (Special Education Law).  The act has multitude of services to support the children with special needs.  Also the act is telling people that the service is for all of the handicapped children and this allows parents and professional workers to be aware that the children have every right to get the service they need.        

The Handicapped Children’s Protection Act of 1986 also makes sure that staff of public education will keep the parents up to date about the school decisions.  The staff allow the parents to stay involved and have the right to confront these decisions regarding the requirements of special education services for their children (HighBeam Research).   This Act helps to allow parents and professionals to collaborate to give the highest support for the children with disabilities.  It also gives the parents the power to make the decision to make for their children and learn to be open-minded about what professional workers’ opinions.   

The Reference:

(2005).  Special Education Law. 

The Education for the Handicapped Act (EHA) (P.L. 94-142).  Retrieved from

http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/ATBasics/Foundation/Laws/specialed.php

(2011).  HighBeam Research.  The Handicapped Children's Protection Act of 1986: time to pay the piper?, Retrieved from  http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-8849975.html

Allen Walker

Hey!

I graduated from ECU in 2004 with a degree in Family and Community Services.  This is my last class to complete my BK add on!  I am the Pre-K Teacher at Children’s World Learning Center.  Before that I used to be EC Pre-K Teacher Assistant for Pitt County School for three and a half year until I decided to take another job to pursue BK license.   

I am devoted to my job and serving our children.  I am also more than a Pre-K teacher.  I have a wife and two wonderful girls who are five and two.  My wife and I are going to have another child who is due in March.  My family and I are very excited to have an additional member in our family.