SENSORY CONNECTIONS
Spring Edition, 2007
SENSORY CONNECTIONS
Spring Edition, 2007
Message from the Editor - Doug McJannet
The focus of this edition of “Sensory Connections” is transition. Whether it is a question of a student transitioning from another state, or an elementary student making the big move to middle school, transition is a constant concern for our parents and educators. GSAP is frequently invited to assist in an IEP meeting directed at a student’s future plans. The project offers a transition guide to parents as the child prepares to transition from home to the school environment. In addition GSAP has developed a guide for parents and teachers who are facing the difficult challenge of preparing for the adult years. This past week a draft second edition of the Transition Guide for Parents and Teachers with updates from the department education was shared with parents at a teen workshop. The completed edition should be made available for distribution in the coming weeks. In addition to the support GSAP offers at traditional meetings the project sometimes recommends an alternative or supplementary approach to planning. Person Centered Planning is a useful instrument to help plan for the future if it is employed in the appropriate manner. An article from the editor provides a brief history and overview of Person Centered Planning as well as a description of two planning models known as MAPS and PATH.
Debbie Hofmeister, a regional advisor for GSAP, is a certified orientation and mobility instructor and teacher of the visually impaired. She provides us with some insight into the world of cochlear implants with her article entitled “Learning to Listen, Strategies for Teaching Children with Sensory Impairments.
News and Events features a description of a Teen Leadership workshop held at the Georgia Academy for the Blind and honors the retirement of Kay McGill form the Department of Labor and Vocational Rehabilitation and Mary Phagan Kean from the Department of Education. Both individual are long time members of the GSAP stakeholders and advisory board and will be missed. Photos taken from the celebration of their careers are found on the second page of the newsletter.
We also want to take advantage of this newsletter to welcome and introduce the latest member to the staff of GSAP. Lynn McFarland comes to us after serving for 11 years as the INSITE/VIISA Coordinator of the Georgia PINES Program. Lynn will be taking on the position of coordinator of early intervention services for the project and will be responsible for serving children up to nine years of age.
GEORGIA-FLORIDA TEEN AND PARENT EVENT 2007
Teens from Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina gathered at the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon for the first part of a Leadership Academy. Parents and students arrived on Friday evening joined in a fun filled evening of games and good eating. A local pizza shop donated 17 pizzas to help with the evenings festivities. On Saturday, April 28, the workshop kicked off with introduction of the key note speaker, Cody Colchado. Cody presentation entitled “Damaged Goods” immediately grabbed the attention of the students who gathered in the library. They listened intently as he shared his some stories about his frustration growing up as a teen and discussed his upward climb to becoming a multi national deafblind champion. He described how he learned to overcome his own fears on route to becoming a winner in five different Olympic events. He used his extensive skills as a Tae Kwon Doe martial artist to showcase the ability to overcome adversity. Cody employed a very effective approach to reach out to the teens and have them expose their greatest fears and concerns in life. He then used his mastery of various karate techniques to destroy blocks of woods that had the students sentiments emblazoned across the surface. There seemed to be a gentle hush over the room and a sense of astonishment as this giant of a man tore thru the layers of plywood. Many of the students were in awe of Mr. Colchado but the presenter strived to establish a closer relationship with each one of them. He took the time to sign autographs individually and encouraged individuals to join in discussions about their experience with athletics in school.
The afternoon program featured an exciting team building activity for the teens plus a special presentation on Person Centered Planning for the parents. A longtime friend of GSAP and consultant for the National Coalition on Deafblindness, Mike Fabhemi, developed a wonderful script which involving the plight of an architectural firm as its planning team is facing deadlines and mishaps in their efforts to build a structure. A selection of the teens volunteered to participate in a role playing scenario where they were each asked to use their leadership skills to resolve the problems they face as a planning team. Each participant is given particular traits and skills and presents the opportunity for advancement or further delays.
While this wonderful play acting event was taking place in the GAB library the parents gathered in a conference room to gain some valuable information from representatives from the Department of Labor and Vocational Rehabilitation. Becky Sills and Bob Green teamed up to provide an overview of services they provide to students. Becky is the Director of services for the deaf and deafblind for the state and Bob serves as a counselor for the deaf and deafblind specialist. Becky explained the criteria to qualify for services and discussed the types of support that is available for individuals with sensory impairments. Bob provided a personal perspective of what it is like for him to serve a student who is deafblind. Both speakers emphasized how important it is to get VR services involved as early as possible and suggested that a first step for a parent might be to encourage the school system to contact the appropriate representative. Another initial recommendation that was mentioned was the idea of sharing vision and hearing reports or any other pertinent information about the student.
A short question and answer period was then immediately followed by the second part of the workshop focusing on Person Centered Planning by Doug McJannet, the GSAP Educational Coordinator. This presentation provided some background history about Person Centered Planning and featured two separate case studies involving the use of MAPS and PATH planning strategies. The graphics used for this presentation helped give the audience a perspective of the step to step procedure involved in this type of event. Both the parents and guest teachers appreciated this alternative approach to planning for the future.
News & Events & People In the Field
Kay McGill prepares to cut the cake as we celebrate her retirement and her many contributions and fabulous career with Vocational Rehabilitation. Kay served on the Stakeholders and Advisory Board for GSAP for close to ten years and was always a major influence in our decision making at these meetings!
Mary Phagan Kean receives the special edition Helen Keller plaque as we celebrate her retirement from the Department of Education. Mary is best known for her contributions in the field of vision services and is responsible for the development of statewide training known as GVEST. She is now serving as a part time consultant for the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon.
Learning to Listen
Strategies for Teaching Children with Sensory Impairments
Have you ever thought about how you learned to listen to and understand all the sounds that are going on around you? Most of us take it for granted – auditory development is something that just happened when we were infants. For a child who has a hearing loss, learning to listen and understand sounds can be a long and challenging process.
When my 9 year old son who is deaf first received his cochlear implant at 2 years of age, I spent a lot of time learning about how children learn to listen. I learned a lot from David Sindrey’s book Listening Games for Littles. There is a whole page in the book that lists certain objects and toys that represent different sounds. For example, a baby sleeping is associated with the sound ‘shhhhhh”. There seemed to be a very structured and organized way to teach a child to listen with a cochlear implant or a hearing aid.
How do you teach these sounds to a child who cannot see the objects and pictures? As a teacher of children who are visually impaired, I started working with a young child through an early intervention program who was visually impaired and had just received a cochlear implant. This child could not see the objects and pictures that are used to represent sounds therefore they would have little or no meaning to her. Although David’s Sindrey’s book does not specifically address how to teach the learning to listen sounds to a child who has a visual impairment, I used what I learned from the book to come up with some ideas to try. Listed below are some of the things I learned.
1. Do your homework. It is essential that anyone working with a child with a dual sensory impairment understand the cause of the visual and hearing impairment. It is also important to understand how much residual or usable vision and hearing the child has. If a child has low vision, he or she may be able to see objects and pictures if they are close enough or have enough contrast. If a child does not have residual vision, it is important that the team work together to find meaningful, motivating ways to help the child learn to listen. If the child is wearing hearing aids or a cochlear implant, team members need to know how the devices work.
2. Consider the environment. It is also important to understand how environmental factors can affect a child’s ability to use residual vision and hearing. Background noise can make it very difficult for a child with a cochlear implant to hear. When presenting listening activities and games, turn off the television, the stereo and the washing machine. Some children with visual impairments require additional lighting and contrast to see a visual target. Keep in mind that some children get overwhelmed from too much stimulation at one time.
3. Functional activities and phrases will work best. For many children with combined vision and hearing loss, the learning to listen toys and their associated sounds will have little to no meaning. For example, a small toy slide would be used to teach a child the sounds “up up up weeee”. A young child that is blind or visually impaired may not have experience with a slide. Depending on the child, a real slide could be used to teach the same sounds. If the child is too young or not able to slide, it may be more appropriate to have the child lifted “up, up, up” and then quickly brought down for the “weee” sound.
Some objects (especially favorite objects) may be used on different parts of the body to teach the learning to listen sounds. For example, stuffed bunny will “hop, hop, hop” always on the child’s right arm instead of in front of him on the table. They may work best with a child who has low vision and can see the bunny when it is closer. This would not be a good idea for a child who has little or no residual vision and does not know what the stuffed bunny is.
4. Start small. Choose 2 or 3 sounds to work on and present them one at a time. It is essential that the parents and professionals work together to use objects and phrases that fit into the child’s daily routine. Everyone on the team needs to reinforce the sounds many times throughout the day.
5. Keep it simple. We may think that constantly talking about everything that is happening is beneficial to the child with hearing loss and especially vision loss. Rather than constant chatter, clear and simple statements about what has or is about to happen may be more helpful to the child. This is especially true if the child has multiple disabilities. Too much information makes it even more difficult to sort out what needs to be attended to auditorily. (Kate Moss)
6. Have Fun! Using your creativity and resources, teaching a young child to learn to listen can be a rewarding and exciting time. Enjoy!
A Brief History of Person Centered Planning and
How We Use Maps and PATH to Assist our Families
One of the primary influences on the development of what is known as person centered planning was the body of work generated by Wolf Wolfensburger. In 1969 he examined the intellectual history of mental retardation and identified practical differences it takes to understanding people with disabilities. Wolfensburger adopted a new perspective by looking at this population as citizens and developing individuals, rather than the stereotypic representatives of a disability group. His detailed analysis of services and normalization known as Program Analysis of Service Systems (PASS) led to a movement that criticized the institutionalization of individuals with mental retardation and resulted in the growth of community services. Many individuals contributed to this community of practice and concept of normalization. A number of noteworthy events occurred marking a period that featured a growing interest in the legal rights of individuals with disabilities. In 1973, physically disabled activists in California managed to veto the Rehabilitation Act and have a statement added to rightfully address the issue of discrimination based on disability. Regional community service systems became more widely distributed and Universities such as Syracuse University’s Center on Human Policy became a major source of criticism for institutionalization in the US.
In Canada, the National Institute on Mental Retardation and the Canadian Association for the Mentally Retarded followed the example of US regional efforts to promote community service centers in place of institutionalization. The national initiative entitled “COMSERVE” helped to serve the efforts of Wolfensburger because it gave him a forum from which to launch further studies and conduct further analysis of human services. This marked the very first training and consultation events that brought together a community of practice around the concept of normalization. From 1973 thru 1986 this same community of practice group participated in Wolfenburger’s PASS workshops. Over time there were however some inherent problems with PASS training. The outcomes of this long and intensive training did not often justify the time and money that went into them. Representatives from this closely-knit group of teachers recognized the difficult challenges they faced as they met resistance from individuals holding power in key positions who did not see any value in the evaluation of services. They also realized that despite their efforts, most people working with people with disabilities continued to focus on the limitations of the individual based on familiar labeling and diagnostic terms. Though PASS was considered to be a quantitative system of evaluation for programs for human services, many people learned to use their experience with this training to instead assess service delivery systems from the perspective of the relationship between people with disabilities and service systems. It is not surprising then that some members of this community of practice started to look at alternative approaches. It is probably worth noting that around the same time the concept of a using graphic design to supplement the work of the facilitator came into being.
Person Centered Planning as we know it today began with four different models based on community of practice and normalization. In 1979 Karen Green-McGee and Mary Kovaks drew on the success of successful system change in Canada and initiated a series of training sessions known as Twenty-Four-Hour Planning. These meetings were specifically designed to identify the settings and supports needed to meet the needs of the individual with disabilities. This careful planning strategy gave the person with disabilities a voice and a support team that was more concerned with the individual. Another influential planning system to surface was simply known as “Getting To Know You”. It was developed to define how services could best meet the needs of an individual with disabilities. What stood out here was the fact that individuals with disabilities and family members were called upon to serve as consultants in the evaluation of service systems and program development. The third planning program to be noted is the work of Jack Yates and the planning system called “Individual Service Design”. This planning model saw to it that people took into account the individual’s personal history as part of the planning process. This later became a critical part of the McGill Action Plan. In 1980, Beth Mount was training people in Georgia on “Personal Futures Planning”. Here the focus was on helping individuals move out of a work center and into employment in southern Georgia as well as getting individuals out of institutions and into communities in Northeast Georgia. They all shared common language from their experience with PASS and were the pioneers of Person Centered Planning.
By 1998 the interest in person centered planning had increased to a point regional and State administrators were considering making person centered planning something that was available for broader use. A key event that occurred in the development of person centered planning was a conference in 1992 that was hosted by the Pennsylvania office of Mental Retardation. It was at this event that professionals gathered to share their experience in person centered planning as part of an effort to assist with the States strategic planning for PCP. Here the participants discussed the costs and other concerns associated with mandating Person Centered Planning as a matter of state policy. Many of the original founders seem to consider this event as the end of the formative years for Person Centered Planning.
Today, some of the original models continue to thrive such as Essential Lifestyle Planning and Individual Design Sessions, but others like “Getting to Know You “are rarely heard about. By 1985 the term Person Centered Planning was widely used and there existed some common values for each of the models that existed. These characteristic values included the following: seeing people first as people rather than their diagnostic description, using ordinary language rather than professional jargon, actively searching for a person’s gifts and capacities in the context of community living, and strengthening the voice of the person and those who know the person best for accounting their history, evaluating their present conditions in terms of valued experiences, and defining valuable changes in their life. (Mount 1992)
Here is the sequence of individual MAPS included in the process:
What is a MAPS?
History Map
What is the Dream?
What is the Nightmare?
Who is the Person?
What are the Person’s gifts, strengths and talents?
What does the person need now?
Plan of Action!
The transition process from school to adult life is a major challenge for parents and educators. As the educational coordinator for GSAP I have been involved with many transition meetings over the years.
PATH, a model that requires creative planning and sustained action is the handiwork of Jack Pearpoint, John O’Brien and Marsha Forest. Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope (PATH) was certainly not meant to be another type of school based transition meeting. It is designed to stand apart and should not feature membership exclusive to the educational team. Like a MAP event, a PATH session is best carried out in an environment that is neutral for everyone concerned. One significant feature of a PATH is that the targeted individual and support team must think in terms of events or accomplishments that have already taken place or reached closure in advance of their happening. Here you list the events that you envision for the near and distant future. There is a place in the sequence of the PATH session to explore distant dreams called the “North Star”, as well as a time to discuss the individuals impression of life in the present or the “Now”. The individual and support cast decide how distant they want to travel in terms of sensing a particular goal. Specific dates and timelines are then designated for each activity. For one student you may be looking ahead one or two years until they reach graduation day. Another individual’s PATH session might look beyond graduation and capture all of the events leading up to the first day they enter a technical institute or College. Again it is important to note that that as a part of this process participants must dawn their imaginary travel wear and assume a mindset that they are in fact at the point of graduation or entrance to the school and have already achieved the required pre-requisite goals or objectives for getting there. Once the completed tests or other activities have been identified and timelines established then specific members of the team are delegated the responsibility and held accountable for following thru on the stated objectives. Part of the planning event requires their agreeing to “sign” on the line indicating their commitment to the effort.
PATH Content and Sequence:
The North Star…The Purpose We Serve
Our Sense of the Goal
Describing the NOW
Identifying Who to Enroll
How To Grow Stronger
Strategies
Next Steps, 6-9 months and one month out….
O’Brien, J. & O’Brien, C.L., eds. (1998) A Little book about Person Centered Planning
Pearpoint, J., O’Brien J., Forest M. (1995) PATH (Second Edition) Toronto, Inclusion Press.
Resources
John O’Brien & Marsha Forest. (1989), Action for Inclusion. Toronto, Inclusion Press
Falvey, M. Forest, M., Pearpoint,J.& Rosenburg, R (Second Edition) (1998). All my life’s a circle: Using the tools- Circles, MAPS and PATH, Toronto Inclusion Press.
The Person Centered Planning Education Site, Cornell University, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/edi/pcp/