My students need manipulative toys, like Fisher Price See& Say, Fisher Price Little People Wheelies,and Wheelies, Loops, Swoops to enhance social communication.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
My autistic students ages 5-7 struggle with communication. As their speech-language pathologist, I need to find ways to motivate them to use play skills and increase social interaction. They are nonverbal and need to acquire prerequisite skills that include playing to foster social communication.
My students are in a self-contained classroom for students with severe disabilities from Kindergarten through 3rd grade.
Most are nonverbal and use augmentative communication (picture symbols, voice output devices on an iPad) to express basic needs. They have limited interaction and social skills and need to develop communication skills. One of our classroom goals is to develop interactions among the children through play based activities. Our children cannot speak, so are in need of manipulatives to enhance play based interactions such as pushing a toy car back and forth with another peer, or taking turns feeding a baby doll. Our children do not know how to play and need to be taught.
My Project
My students will use these materials in therapy to work on developing basic concepts and vocabulary skills through object play. Through structured play and modeling actions with toys, we will teach skills to develop cognitive as well as linguistic concepts (up/down, on/off, in/out) etc. Many of our children are living in poverty with little stimulation at home. They rely on everything we can do at school do develop skills.
Donations will help the students in the classroom develop skills that are prerequisites for communication development and social interaction.
Our students barely have their basic needs met. They rely highly on donations for clothing, food , and community resources. You will be making a difference by bringing the opportunity for play and fun into children's lives that have severe disabilities.
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