Intent to communicate

A good friend of mine shared this phrase with me the other day – I had never heard it…. 

It’s pretty simple and very logical – it is part of generalization but even more basic. 

We teach our children skills according to their assessments but we continually seem to skip the meaning behind those skills. 

The most important and basic skill a child needs is communication.  He needs to understand the effect that communication will bring him.  Teaching communication skills as a standalone skill is insufficient.  The child needs to learn what those skills can do for him – (other than alleviate frustration)

So before we try to move on to more advanced skills, we need to teach the effect of communication and why a child would want or intend to communicate.  When he learns why he should communicate, he then should expand his communication skills (sign language, speech, device, etc…).  When he has learned WHY he should communicate, you have just given him the intent to communicate.  When has learned how to communicate, you have just enabled him to communicate and take part in real life with true intent and desire to communicate.

Communication is the most basic skill necessary for all – and the intent to communicate is one of the first skills that should be taught to any child. Infants communicate naturally through crying.  They cry when they are wet or hungry to let you know that they need you – therefore they have communicated with you.  Older children with limited verbal skills will do the same thing – they will throw a tantrum or scream to get attention – so they already have the innate knowledge that their crying will bring an effect.

As they age, we need to utilize this knowledge by teaching them a form of proper communication (HOW) that will enable them to communicate their need or desire and then provide a desired response..
Once a child realizes that his communication will get him attention and meet his needs (WHY), he will begin to use it more and more.  Communication skills will naturally grow as the child will want to or need to provide more information to get desired outcome.  This is the intent….

i.e.  We teach children to request – “can I have cup” – it needs to go steps further and the child needs to go to a person, get their attention and then request.  Once this is learned and practiced, then the child should learn to ask for juice or desired drink, then drink it, then ask for a snack and so on…  Then you can expand the communication by asking questions like “is it good?”, “do you want another cookie?”, etc….  You can see the natural progression and how intent will naturally grow.  Of course each child may have different needs to be taught but if the desire is there, you can teach it….

Once you have intent – then you will also naturally build social skills – communicating requires socializing….  They go together….  So teach INTENT 1^st!

SIDENOTE:  IDEA law list 3 basic skills that every child is entitled to as part of FAPE – and communication is at the top of the small list!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!!!!

If any of you are in the NY area – this is one of my favorites….  they have a special needs program called REACH … one that I don’t think you can beat…. My personal opinion of the staff is rather high – and for anyone who knows me – they know that is no easy achievement!http://hofstra.edu/Academics/CCEPA/SC/spec/spec_reach.html

Camp fun!

Call them at 516-463-CAMP – honestly you will love them

This is purely for your enjoyment and laughs!   I really don’t look quite like this….  but it is truly one of my favorites!  Brett learned how to draw from a home video…  I drew a house, tree and sun…. and 7 year old Grace filmed it!  That drawing became the logo for my company 

www.watchmelearn.com

 … I still have the original footage.  I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do….  and please feel free

to send yours in for others to enjoy too…

and this one is a coloring picture that Summer colored for me at a conference!

Thank you Summer!  its beautiful….

05-somebody-to-loveI continue to work on lesson plans and new ideas for this blog…  but I thought for today I would write something a bit less serious…  As a parent with a special needs child, my life is always so serious and I am rarely able to let my mind relax as it is so filled with “to do’s” for obtaining all medical and educational treatments that my son needs…. not to mention social skills activities…. 

It all gets to be so overwhelming so I decided that I would share with you what Brett is doing today….

Many of you know Brett’s background and how multiple professionals in different fields told me pretty much that he was hopeless…. along with many other negative opinions and advice.

Brett

But today, Brett is at diving camp…..  yes – springboard diving.  Brett is a nationally ranked diver – he placed 5th in the nationals last year at age 10.  He went to diving camp last week on Wed – today is his 5th day – he has learned 4 new dives – he is training with ex-olympic coach Dick Kimball.  Last night he called me and told me about his new dives….

He began diving at around age 5 – during a time in his life when he was immersed in watching video – and he was watching the diving olympics – an old tape we had when Greg Louganis was in the olympics.  This was the beginning of his diving – yes… he learned to dive from video.  For information on Video modeling seehttp://www.watchmelearn.com/video-based-teaching.shtml

Anyways – Brett is having a phenomenal time at camp – and he is excelling – something I was told he would NEVER do…

If you want to view some clips of his diving, the link below shows some of his diving from almost 2 years ago.  I will be sure to post new video very soon! 

I just want you all to know that there is hope…. and don’t let anyone tell you there isn’t.  It is summer now, try to relax a bit, enjoy your child for who he or she is, and put the serious business of caring for a special needs child in the back of your mind for a bit ….  it will be there tomorrow or in August or September waiting for you.

I need to do the same thing!  Enjoy my children!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0nBatn5vUo

Teaching ideas and activities – Gaining Attention

As the founder of Watch Me Learn, I am constantly asked for information on how to teach skills or to provide ideas on how to reinforce the video teaching.

While our new products have a curriculum available, when I made the first 4 videos, there were no requests for this.  Times have changed so I have decided to provide activity ideas on this Blog that will help generalize the lessons taught/modeled in the video.

The First topic is “Gaining Attention”

Yes – many books provide information, programming ideas on how to teach this skill, but I have found that many of them lack the friendly, every-day tactics that worked so well for my son.  In these activities, I will include as much of that silly stuff that I know works!

These lesson plans were written as a TOOL to accompany video.  Whether you use WML video or another video, that is entirely up to you – but if you have a visual learner, showing a demonstration of a skill is strongly suggested.  Children on the autism spectrum seem to be very strong visual learners and from what I have seen over the last 9 years, it is a tool that works VERY quickly.

1.       Gain Attention from Child.

Show video portion to child

 Call child by name or say “Mary, look…”   If child does not look, call again and if necessary, gently turn their fact to look at you.  Immediately reward them with something appropriate that he or she WANTS!

       TIP:  ALWAYS make the activity FUN! And to do at an appropriate time (e.g. when you want the child to look at you or have something of interest for them to attend to, you know the child needs something or needs your attention)

       When beginning to teach this skill, as the reward, use the MOST motivating reward you know of and most importantly make it FUN for the child.

   Reward:  be prepared to reward the child with one of their favorite items such as food, toy, stuffed animal, etc…)  Have that item in sight of child before attempting to gain their attention.

o   Be eating a favorite food of the child’s and have some available for child as a reward

o   Be playing with a child’s favorite toy and prepare to share or give toy to child as reward

o   Be prepared to go out to a place of interest to the child like the park, pool or playground

FUN:  Children love fun….  And fun is EASY…  ideas to make it fun and appealing – before attempting to gain child’s attention:

·         put on a funny hate, wear the wrong clothing (child’s hat or clothing item)

·         Get in the bathtub with your clothes on

·         Prepare to go outside in winter with a bathing suit on

·         Prepare to wash your hands with toothpaste

·         Comb your hair with a spoon

·         In general, do things that are obviously wrong and silly

On Wednesday, Look for the next steps to this program – and for regular additions to this series.