Kelly Moran

10-16-13
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The student I worked with for the Communication Assessment Project taught me
that there is more to communication than just verbal communication. The student I
worked with is 12 years old and a 7
th
grade female at Jefferson Middle School. RG is
following an adaptive curriculum in the functional life skills program with six other
students in her class. RG was diagnosed with an intellectual disability at birth, and she
rarely uses any spoken language. For this reason, the student uses the Proloquo2Go app
on her iPad. The student also has several games and story apps on her iPad that she keeps
at school. Although the student does not have many verbal communication skills, she is
usually able to communicate her needs and wants with gestures and directing someone
over to the thing she wants. Unfortunately, teachers and staff members cannot always
recognize what the student is pointing to or directing them towards. The student is also
skilled at communicating her nonpreferences. If RG is given something she does not like
or if she is told to do something she does not want to do, she will make a loud, deep
yelling noise and push away the items she does not want. According to the teacher
interview that was completed on September 13, 2013, RG is also able to choose some
food items on her device when she is asked if she wants anything to eat. At this point, this
is the only task that the student can do independently with her device. Currently the
student needs a staff member to use hand-over-hand to select different symbols on her
device. During my direct interaction with the student on October 7, 2013, I found that the
student is unable to make her own communication choices with her device. Since a staff
member has to help the student to use the device, she is never making the decisions on
what symbols to press; the staff is choosing the words and phrases and directing RGs
fingers to press them. RG needs to learn to be more independent with her device. To start,
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10-16-13
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RG needs to work on greeting people with her device, requesting breaks and help, and
indicating she needs to go to the bathroom to prevent accidents.
RGs expressive communication is quite limited, but she does find some ways to
communicate with others. For example, during my observation on October 1, 2013 of the
student participating in fine motor activities, the student communicated that she did not
want to do the activities any more by getting up and walking away. She cannot tell the
teacher or staff member she is working with that she does not want to work or that she
needs a break, so she simply gets up to signal she is not going to work. The student also
makes loud noises when she does not want to do something. On October 7, 2013 during
my direct interaction with the student, she yelled in a loud voice when she was directed
towards the table to play an Uno game. She did not want to participate in the game, and
making loud noises was the only way she could express these wants. According to the
answers from the teacher interview, RGs teacher says she can voice the word no, but I
have not heard this vocalization yet. RGs teacher also told us that she may know some
sign from using it in elementary school, but she has not attempted to use it at Jefferson.
Although RG does have very limited expressive communication, she uses different forms
of communication like gestures and guiding people to different areas to express her wants
and needs. The student needs support using her device to start to expressively
communicate. The student should be able to pick from a group of different choices. RG is
not able to make choices on her own when she is just looking at her device, but if she is
given a choice of answers she may be taught to choose which choice she wants.
Although RG expressive communication may be limited, her receptive
communication is a bit more developed. According to RGs teacher, she is very stubborn
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10-16-13
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and she will refuse different directions and requests to participate in different classroom
activities. RG chooses not to listen to the directions; she understands almost all directions
that are given to her. RG likes to be left alone, so when she is required to participate in
classroom activities she tries to avoid it as much as possible. For example, during my
direct interaction conducted on October 7, 2013, the student was told that she had to play
the game Uno with her classmates. I told the student to come to the front table to play
Uno and I had her press the symbol for Uno on her device. The student got up and
walked towards the table, but she refused to sit down. After the student sat down, she
pressed the symbol for Uno Out (the phrase that the students say once they put their
last card down) multiple times even before the game had started. RG knew exactly what
she was supposed to be doing, but she didnt want to so she tried to get out of the activity.
RGs teacher has said that one of RGs strengths is that she can follow very short and
simple directions like, RG sit in this seat or RG pick item up. During the preference
assessments that were given on October 3, 8, 10, 2013 the student was able to follow the
simple direction to choose one. There have also been instance, outside of this project,
where the student has followed simple directions from me or other teachers. Most
recently, RG was riding the bus to the grocery store and when asked to show her bus pass
to the driver she completed the task without much difficulty. RGs needs in receptive
communication would focus on her following more complex directions and having her
ask questions about the directions given. The student needs to learn how to use her device
to ask for the directions to be given again, or for them to be explained in a different way.
This skill could help her to become a better listener and would help to improve her
expressive communication skills and her social skills.
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10-16-13
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Social interaction is an area that RG needs a lot of supports in. RG rarely
socializes with any of her classmates in her functional life skills (FLS) classroom, and
she rarely has interactions with her typically developing peers. During my observation of
RGs art class on September 24, 2013 she did not interact with any of her typically
developing peers in the class. RG sat with two of her classmates from her FLS classroom
at a table away from the other students and they did not talk to anyone. RG prefers to
spend her free time alone so when her classmates play different games together, RG
usually sits by herself playing on her iPad or with toys from her bag. Students in her FLS
class try to talk with RG, but she does not answer their questions or acknowledge their
greetings. RG has shown tolerance for sitting with her classmates, playing different card
games, and laughing with her classmates. There are a lot of skills that RG needs support
with in order to become more social with her peers. At this time RG needs to learn how
to use her device to give greetings and salutations. RG needs support in finding the screen
with the greetings and salutations on it and selecting the appropriate phrase for a
situation. For example, RG needs support in learning that saying Hi when entering into
a room is an appropriate greeting. RG also needs to learn how to use her device to ask
questions that will start conversations with her peers. Support in these skill areas will
help RG become more independent with her device, but in order to interact with her peers
more opportunities need to be provided for her. RG and the other students in her FLS
class do not have enough opportunities to interact with their typically developing peers.
More opportunities need to be created so they can use the social skills they are getting
supports in each day.
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10-16-13
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The communication skills that RG needs to learn are dependent on her efficiency
level with her communication assistive technology device. As it was stated above, RG
uses the Proloquo2Go app on her first generation iPad. RG has been using this device
since she was in elementary school. According to RGs teacher, RG did use some
symbols when she was in early elementary school, but she has been using the iPad since
she was in third grade. RGs parents purchased the iPad and the $219 app for their
daughter when she was in elementary school. Currently, the student cannot use the device
independently. RGs teacher says that she can select some food items when they are
presented to her, but she has not performed this skill in school since I have been in her
classroom this semester. During classroom activities, a staff member or teacher uses
hand-over-hand guidance to direct RGs finger to select a word, phrase, or question from
the device. RG is unable to select items on her own, so an adult is making the choices for
her. As a result, RG is not communicating her own choices she is communicating what an
adult thinks she is going to choose. RG is physically able to press the symbol buttons on
her device and she has enough fine motor control to exit out of the app every chance she
gets. It has been stated several times in this report, but RG needs to become more
independent with her device. According to the data collected in my direct interaction with
RG on October 10 & 11, 2013 the student is unable to use phrases or words in the a
conversational setting. RG is also unable to find different words and phrases after being
directly asked to do so. For example, I asked, RG find the symbol for brownie, and
after about 30 seconds she made no move to find the symbol. I tried this with several
other symbols, but the student did not identify any of the words and phrases. RG needs a
lot of support to become more independent with her device; to start the support should
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10-16-13
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concentrate on her making requests and giving greetings. RG also needs to work on
staying on the Proloquo2Go app rather than pressing the home button and exiting the app.
RG is a very unique student because she does not have a lot of material preference
like many other students. She likes to be left alone to do her own thing and this is very
reinforcing for her. Although there are very few items that RG prefers, I was able to find
seven items that RG enjoys playing with. Unfortunately, some of these items are not age
appropriate for RG, but according to her teacher they are the only items she will work for.
RGs teacher has tried to introduce new items to replace the age inappropriate items, but
RG has shown no interests in any of these items. The items used in the preference
assessment trials that were conducted on October 3, 8, and 10, 2013 were (listed most
preferred to least preferred): apple letter tiles, a Barney doll, floating dots app for iPad,
dish mat, small doll, Wobbles, and a big red ball. The interview with RGs teacher also
told us that RG does not like it when her shoes are off, she does not like being forced to
stay on her Proloquo2Go app, and there are specific areas that she does not like to sit in.
The specific seating area that RG does not prefer changes every day.
The preference assessment assisted me in concluding that the apple letter tiles, the
Barney doll, and the floating dots app are preferences to use in teaching the student to
press different words and phrases on her device. These preferences can also be used to
teach RG to answer questions when a variety of answers are on one screen for her. I also
concluded that taking off RGs shoe is a nonpreference that can be used in having the
student stay in a specific area when communication instruction is occurring. Currently, if
RG gets up from a work area the adult working with her slips off her shoe and brings it
back to the work area. RG will come back to the table as soon as her shoe is off. RGs
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10-16-13
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preferences and nonpreferences can assist in keeping her in the instructional setting and
to increase her knowledge of the words and phrases available on her device.
Finally, the assessments and the interview that was conducted have brought to my
attention several communication skills that the student needs support in. There are many
skills that the student needs to master to become more independent with her
communication device. RGs teacher has expressed that she would like RG to concentrate
on greeting people when she enters into a room. The observation I conducted in RGs art
class shows that she does need support because she does not interact with her peers at all.
The teacher interview also revealed that RG has been able to select different food items
from her device. RG needs to work on requesting food items in the lunchroom when she
is given a choice of two to three food items. Once these skills are mastered the student
can then work on requesting help on her work, requesting a break, and even indicating
she needs to use the bathroom before she is scheduled to do so.