The special education field has embraced the unenlightened theme of heroism. As professionals we are often called “heroes” and praised for our patience and big hearts. We pride ourselves in “transforming lives” and “shaping futures.” Our skills and education are praised as “superpowers.” I am uncomfortable with these terms describing myself as a professional but […]
Read more "Don’t be a hero"Bridgeway Academy’s summer camp program kicked off this week and so did our Immersive AAC class. Our theme this week was LIGHT! Some of the favorite activities this week were: Putting finger lights in balloons to make them illuminate in the dark. We used this opportunity to work on single words “on,” “in,” “more,” and “big” […]
Read more "Immersive AAC Class Week One: Light!"“You’re not going to believe this!” “Did that just happen?!” “That’s unbelievable!” Seemingly innocuous, these common expressions are close cousins to some much more dangerous phrases that also run rampant in the special education community: “He can’t do that,” “She’ll never be able to crawl, let alone walk,” “We won’t be able to teach her […]
Read more "Stop being incredulous; start presuming competence"Last summer some colleagues from Bridgeway Academy and I, along with researchers from The Ohio State University, piloted what we called an “immersive AAC classroom” in which all of the students used speech-generating devices and aided input was provided on an interactive white board. We collected data on the students’ vocabulary and their frequency of […]
Read more "Immersive AAC Classroom"This is the excerpt for your very first post.
Read more "My first blog post: there are many like it but this one is mine."