I am a Speech Therapist for kindergarten students with Multiple Handicaps and complex communication needs, attending school with their typical peers. Most of my students are learning to talk but may be held back by their physical capabilities and ability to access language. They need extra support.
My students have some difficulty developing and producing speech to tell us what they want or need or engage with staff and friends.
However, they do have LIMITLESS desire and potential to do so with the correct supports. They do want to speak to the cafeteria staff and friends on the playground, they just lack the means to do so.
My Project
The materials requested will be used to make pictures that our students will use to learn new concepts and express their wants and needs. For example, most of our students can not yet tell us that they would prefer the pink ball instead of the blue, they will cry and the classroom staff will be left concerned and confused. We begin to teach them to tell the world what they need and develop communication skills by using pictures to represent the items they need. Beginning communicators often need direct photographs of objects to learn that a symbol can represent a concept. More advanced learners may work with a whole personal picture book depicting nouns, verbs and other parts of speech to show others what they need when they can not use their voices.
Communication is everything to a child with complex needs.
Being able to tell others what we want or need and engage with other people around us is what it means to be a participating member of a community. It also provides these children with the maximum ability to be independent, something we all value and need in life.
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