Evaluating and Enhancing Communication Skills in Four Adolescents with Profound and Multiple Disabilities

<p>Individuals with profound and multiple disability (PMD) experience more than one type of disability, typically severe to profound intellectual disability and significant motoric impairment. These complex impairments negatively affect many aspects of the person’s functioning, such as daily living, academic, and social skills. Persons with PMD will often experience fluctuating levels of awareness, and often have such severe communication deficits that they rely on the use prelinguistic behaviours (PLBs) to communicate. It is often difficult for those working with these individuals to identify preferences and behavioural states indicative of engagement and motivation. As a result, these individuals often experience social isolation and a lower quality of life. The purpose of this research project was to evaluate the overall level of functioning and communicative abilities of four adolescents with PMD and identify instructional procedures that might enhance their natural method of communication, such that they are more readily understood. This was achieved through assessment and intervention based methods. First, the repertoire of forms and functions of specific PLBs in four participants with PMD were identified. Then, circumstances under which behaviours indicative of alertness and engagement were assessed. Next, the author validated the function of specific PLBs used to request the continuation or access to preferred stimuli. Subsequently, three intervention case studies were implemented to strengthen and/or enhance the PLB requesting behaviours of three participants using microswitch technology and individualised instructional strategies. Results suggested that individuals with PMD can and do demonstrate consistent PLBs used to request access to preferred stimuli. Specific PLBs of three participants were strengthened and/or enhanced, with two of these participants able to use a microswitch to activate a speech generating device to produce a communicative request. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the overall outcomes for each participant and the challenges of implementing a whole communication assessment and intervention approach for this population of learners.</p>

Evaluating and Enhancing Communication Skills in Four Adolescents with Profound and Multiple Disabilities

<p>Individuals with profound and multiple disability (PMD) experience more than one type of disability, typically severe to profound intellectual disability and significant motoric impairment. These complex impairments negatively affect many aspects of the person’s functioning, such as daily living, academic, and social skills. Persons with PMD will often experience fluctuating levels of awareness, and often have such severe communication deficits that they rely on the use prelinguistic behaviours (PLBs) to communicate. It is often difficult for those working with these individuals to identify preferences and behavioural states indicative of engagement and motivation. As a result, these individuals often experience social isolation and a lower quality of life. The purpose of this research project was to evaluate the overall level of functioning and communicative abilities of four adolescents with PMD and identify instructional procedures that might enhance their natural method of communication, such that they are more readily understood. This was achieved through assessment and intervention based methods. First, the repertoire of forms and functions of specific PLBs in four participants with PMD were identified. Then, circumstances under which behaviours indicative of alertness and engagement were assessed. Next, the author validated the function of specific PLBs used to request the continuation or access to preferred stimuli. Subsequently, three intervention case studies were implemented to strengthen and/or enhance the PLB requesting behaviours of three participants using microswitch technology and individualised instructional strategies. Results suggested that individuals with PMD can and do demonstrate consistent PLBs used to request access to preferred stimuli. Specific PLBs of three participants were strengthened and/or enhanced, with two of these participants able to use a microswitch to activate a speech generating device to produce a communicative request. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the overall outcomes for each participant and the challenges of implementing a whole communication assessment and intervention approach for this population of learners.</p>

Instructional Plans: Grades 3–5

Chapter 6 presents three instructional plans that are geared toward grades 3–5. Instructional plans consist of planning necessities, standard alignment, alignment to philosophies approached in earlier chapters, as well as instructional procedures and assessments. Adaptations for other grade-level bands as well as potential extensions are available for each plan. This chapter includes the following instructional plans: Invent an Instrument Using Recycled Materials, Composing Using Light: Musical Automata, and Performing Music Using Light: Theremins and Oscillators. During Invent an Instrument Using Recycled Materials, students will design and build an instrument that they can use in performance. In Composing Using Light: Musical Automata, students will use the concepts of transferring energy and photosensitive circuits to compose a piece of music. In Performing Music Using Light: Theremins and Oscillators, students will use concepts such as voltage, resistance, and oscillation, to create their own electronic musical instruments that change pitch depending on exposure to light.

Instructional Plans: Grades K–2

Chapter 5 presents three instructional plans that are geared toward grades K–2. Instructional plans consist of planning necessities, standard alignment, alignment to philosophies approached in earlier chapters, as well as instructional procedures and assessments. Adaptations for other grade-level bands as well as potential extensions are available for each plan. This chapter includes the following instructional plans: Shapes of Electric Guitars, Sound Amplification and Speaker Building, and Measuring Length and Pitch. In Shapes of Electric Guitars, students will design guitar bodies and perform on them using available technology. In Sound Amplification, students will analyze and experiment with sound waves, eventually building their own small speaker. In Measuring Length and Pitch, students will measure pitched tubes to determine the mathematical relationship between pitches.

Instructional Plans: Grades 9–12

Instructional plans consist of planning necessities, standard alignment, alignment to philosophies approached in earlier chapters, as well as instructional procedures and assessments. Adaptations for other grade-level bands as well as potential extensions are available for each plan. This chapter includes the following instructional plans: Audio Engineering: Ratios in Recording, Designing a Chromatic PVC Instrument, Controlled Voltage: Composing, Performing, and Improvising with Subtractive Electronic Synthesis, and Sound Pollution and Its Effects on Local Bird Ecology. In Audio Engineering: Ratios in Recording, students will use a method of measuring and experimentation to maximize the sound quality of a given recording environment. In Designing a Chromatic PVC Instrument, students will design a one octave chromatic instrument using mathematical calculations and representations to create initial expressive statements and explain the relationships among the frequency, wavelength, and speed of waves traveling in the PVC pipes. In Controlled Voltage: Composing, Performing, and Improvising with Subtractive Electronic Synthesis, students will interface with the subtractive architecture of electronic instruments, the concept of controlled voltage, and the function of an electronic sequencer. In Sound Pollution and Its Effects on Local Bird Ecology, students will learn about modern sound pollution and the effect it has on many different forms of ecology. Students will determine at the end of their own study whether or not there were any observed correlations between these datas captured, and if other data could be used to claim causation.

Instructional Plans: Grades 6–8

Chapter 7 presents four instructional plans that are geared toward grades 6–8. Instructional plans consist of planning necessities, standard alignment, alignment to philosophies approached in earlier chapters, as well as instructional procedures and assessments. Adaptations for other grade-level bands as well as potential extensions are available for each plan. This chapter includes the following instructional plans: Building a Fretboard, Piezoelectricity Experiments, Composing Music Using Coding, and Performing Music Using Coding. In Building a Fretboard, students will calculate the location of each fret on a fretboard and build a scaled model. In Piezoelectricity Experiments, students will engage in found-sound exploration using crystals that convert kinetic energy into audible electric energy. In Composing Music Using Coding, students will make connections between coding and traditional music composition. In Performing Music Using Coding, students will make connections between coding and music performance.

The Effects of Computerized Sentence and Paragraph Strategy Instruction for Struggling Adolescent Writers

The purpose of this study was to determine whether struggling adolescent writers could learn sentence and paragraph writing skills from a software program. Nine junior-high and nine senior-high struggling writers participated in a multiple-probe across-students design that was replicated six times. Instructional procedures within the software program were based on methods previously found to be successful in teaching learning strategies to adolescents. Measures included scores on practice activities, time spent working through the program, quiz and knowledge test scores, a sentence-construction score, a complete sentences score, a paragraph-organization score, a planning score, satisfaction with the software program, and satisfaction with personal writing skills. All of the students met mastery on all of the activities and quizzes in the program. Significant differences representing large effect sizes (range of Cohen’s d = 1.42 to 2.39) were found between baseline and post-instruction scores in the multiple-probe design on the Complete Sentence and Paragraph-Organization measures. Students indicated that they were satisfied with the software program and their own writing.

Dual Credit Compliance Issues with COVID-19

High school leaders are facing new challenges regarding dual credit programs and the COVID-19 emergency. Conflicting with traditional instructional procedures, school reopening policies have many high schools implementing various remote learning modalities of instruction. High school leaders must adjust their dual credit university partnership procedures to reflect these new conditions, ensuring students and instructors have access to necessary technology resources.

What Is Malleable in Literacy Teaching and Learning Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Readers?

Many attempts have been made to determine what factors are most important in one’s potential for learning to read. These have been investigated for the purpose of determining effective instructional procedures. This chapter on literacy development aims to problematize instructional approaches that emphasize children’s deficits and, instead, make more visible approaches that build on children’s strengths, regardless of their individual differences. A fundamental belief must be that literacy is teachable and, for all children, learnable. This chapter will delineate those aspects of literacy that are malleable, evidenced by case studies and research review, and will suggest pathways (i.e., skills, strategies, and procedures) that are most effective for teachers and researchers to pursue. It describes connections to the broad field of deafness and literacy development and implications for teachers, administrators, service providers, and others concerned with the literacy success of deaf and hard-of-hearing children.

Effective Strategies for Integrating Project Based Learning into Woodwork Technology Education and Understanding at Tertiary Institutes in Nigeria

The purpose of this examination is to research viable methodologies for in-corporating Project-based Learning (PoBL) in instructing and learning Woodwork Technology Education (WTE) at tertiary foundations in Nige-ria. A mixed-method approach including both quantitative and subjective technique was utilized for the investigation. The example of the examination involved 50 in-administration postgraduate understudies from Nigerian tertiary foundations concentrating Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in University Teknologi Malaysia for the quantitative perspective and 9 in-administration postgraduate understudies for the subjective part. A 16-thing organized poll was utilized for quantitative information accumulation while semi-organized meeting convention was utilized for subjective information gathering. Quantitative information was investigated utilizing SPSS programming variant 24 to process the rate and intend to demonstrate the degree of understanding or difference on things of the survey. NVIVO 12 was utilized for subjective data examination. Mem-ber check and pear questioning were utilized to build up the reliability of the interview convention. The principal discoveries of the examination un-covered that PoBL has not been embraced in WTE educating and learning at tertiary establishments of Nigeria, and the conventional instructional methodology including lecture, demonstration and task have been the instructional methodologies received. It was additionally uncovered from the discoveries that rebuilding of WTE educational plan at tertiary organizations in Nigeria to concentrate on a student-focused methodology, just as sorting out courses and workshops for WTE speakers to be familiar with the utilization of PoBL in WTE instructing and learning as a component of the successful techniques for incorporating PoBL in instructing and learn-ing WTE at tertiary establishments in Nigeria. PoBL is appropriate in the instructional procedures of courses like WTE which include intellectual and psychomotor aptitude procurement. At long last, the deficiencies of studies identifying with PobL in Nigeria illuminates the need to attempt this examination in WTE at tertiary organizations.