Deaf-Blind InTouch Newsletter-December 2019

In this issue:

NDBEN
Calendars
Upcoming Events

Wishing you and your loved ones peace and joy during this holiday season!

Rose and Brandy

National Deaf-Blind Educator Network

Are you looking for ways to improve your practice as you work with students who are deaf-blind?

Do you want to connect with other educators who share an understanding of the unique experience of working with students with deaf-blindness?

The National Deaf-Blind Educator Network is for you!

NDBEN’s goal is to create an online community where professionals exchange ideas and best practices, problem solve, and support one another. We are tackling topics such as literacy, communication, interveners, and effective educational practices, all within a community of practice framework.

There will be quarterly informational webinars. This is an example of the most recent FANTASTIC WEBINAR on Early Emergent Literacy Instruction.

You can join this community as a participant, a presenter (because we know you are doing amazing things in the classroom), or join a committee to help plan future webinar topic s. In order to have continued access to these great trainings, please complete this Interest Survey

*We would love to have 3-4 more educators representing South Dakota in this supportive online network.

If you have questions, please contact Kristi Probst from the National Center on Deaf-Blindness .

Strategy of the Month:

Calendars

Time

We all use many kinds of "time pieces" (eg. clocks and calendars) to keep us on track and oriented in the world. Time pieces are extremely important for students who are deaf-blind or have complex disabilities as well. Their time pieces will look a little differently than you may be used to. Keep reading to understand why and how to implement calendars with your students!

Time related concepts and words to represent those concepts help us to make sense of the world.

... and they are absolutely essential to how we communicate about our lives with others:

Our memories of the past
what we did yesterday
our plans for today
our hopes for the future

The sense of time that so many of us take for granted does not come naturally to children who are deaf-blind. Their ability to learn incidentally about time (and many other skills) is impacted and needs to be taught directly.

Consider this Pyramid of Learning for students who are deaf-blind from www.intervener.org

When students don't have a way to organize time, they:

experience anxiety because they don't know what will happen next
become frustrated with unexpected changes
lack opportunities to make decisions about their own schedules
miss the joy of looking forward to upcoming events and the pleasure of reminiscing about the past

Robbie Blaha explains how students are able to learn abstract concepts about time such as past, present and future!

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Each Calendar System for a student with Deaf-Blindness or multiple disabilities is highly individualized so that it makes sense to a particular student.

There are 3 Kinds of Calendars

Time Piece Calendar

Sequencing Calendar

Choice Calendar

1) Time Piece Calendars include the following Time Frames: Anticipation, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly

Anticipation Calendars

This is the beginning calendar system. It consists of 2 containers that represent two chunks of time: The past- what you just did and the future- what you are about to do.

A student who is ready for an anticipation calendar will already have several established routines with labels that are meaningful. For example, Routine: Snack Time is represented by the object symbol label: spoon. Washing hands is represented by a hand-soap bottle.

Daily Calendars

When a child has become familiar with an anticipation calendar, they can move on to discussing several events/routines with in a day.

Weekly & Monthly Calendars

Not sure where your student should start?

Use this Calendar Readiness Indicators guide!

2) Sequencing Calendars can be used within our routines as a way to break up the steps of a routine into separate, smaller chunks.

3) Choice Calendars are very much like their name states, an opportunity for a child to learn the concept of making choices

*Information in this strategies section is from the NCDB Open Hands Open Access Learning Modules and Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired: tsbvi.edu

Additional Resources:

I Can Hardly Wait

Robbie Blaha and Beth Kennedy

"Learning how to wait is an essential skill that we acquire incidentally as we grow up... Many students with deaf-blindness have not learned this basic concept because of an ongoing lack of incidental information. To them, waiting feels like “no” and they become upset. They may be unable to hear or see the cues that typical learners use to be patient and to feel reassured."

Calendars for Students with Multiple Impairments Including Deafblindness: Robbie Blaha