Can you SPEAK UP?
How to Build and Foster Self-Advocacy Skills
By Ashley Kachelmeyer and Brittany Dorn
akachelmeyer@clarkeschools.org and bdorn@clarkeschools.org
A “Category 5” Approach to Advocacy in the Mainstream
Advocacy:
1. Empowering your students
2. Understanding equipment
3. Communicating with teachers
4. Communicating with peers
5. High School and Beyond
1. Empowering your students
a. Rationale/Description:
Self-esteem and empowerment are built on good relationships, which are built on good communication.
Your social group is important; you identify yourself based on those around you.
To feel empowered, you must feel connected, unique, and powerful, as well as have good role models.
Lakeside Connect: “Self-Esteem for Teenagers”
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b. Objectives:
Student will be able to define and use words related to self-advocacy and self-awareness (self, advocacy,
responsibility, consequence, rights, access, equal) with 80% accuracy.
With supervision and support, student will identify three personal relative strengths, how she might use
these strengths to support her academic progress (or her daily responsibilities, etc.) and create an action
plan to implement them.
Student will identify challenging situations that may arise because of his hearing loss, and will brainstorm
actions to solve each situation appropriately in 80% of presented examples.
Student will set quarterly goals related to social skills (make new friends, join a team, etc.) and identify 3-5
steps needed to reach each goal.
c. Activities:
Fill out surveys to find out what type of learner you are (self-assessments), interview and record students
discussing their needs, host “game days,” meet and greet the administration, plan ahead for field trips (NY,
field day), journal about challenges, facilitate connections with other kids who have hearing loss, write a
letter to a famous deaf role model.
d. Strategies/Notes:
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2. Understanding equipment
a. Rationale:
Equipment allows our students to participate, so understanding proper care and use is essential. If
teachers don’t understand it, they won’t use it, and if it’s not well cared for, it won’t work well. The end goal
is for students to be managers of their equipment.
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b. Objectives:
With fading support, student will follow basic troubleshooting steps (e.g. changing a battery, checking the
charge of the battery, blowing moisture out of tubing, and removing wax from an earmold) when his
hearing aids are not functioning properly.
Student will manage the daily use of his FM system, including giving the transmitter to his teachers,
retrieving it, taking his receivers on/off at the beginning and the end of the school day, and recharging the
unit at night with fading support.
Student will describe/explain her hearing aids (identify the parts and tell what they do) when asked by
others with fading adult support.
c. Activities:
Make an equipment book, play “What would you do?” game, make equipment cards and play basic card
games, make reference posters for the classroom, or make a movie.
d. Strategies/Notes:
3. Communicating with teachers
a. Rationale:
A request from the student is more powerful than a request/explanation from you. Also, the student will
need to communicate his/her needs to adults throughout life (professors, bosses, employees, etc.).
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b. Objectives:
Student will consistently report problems with her auditory equipment (including muted or unmuted
microphones, improperly worn or placed microphones, and intermittent failure) in 4 out of 5
opportunities.
Student will show and explain to familiar and unfamiliar adults (e.g. substitutes, guest speakers, etc.) and
peers how and why to use her FM and transmitter, pass-around microphone and/or tower as appropriate
with fading support.
In age-appropriate terms, the student will explain the extra effort needed to attend due to his hearing loss,
and request auditory breaks or rest periods appropriately.
Student will meet with his teacher/s at least once per grading term to discuss his grades, strengths, and
areas that need improvement with fading supervision from his teacher of the deaf.
c. Activities:
Role-play explaining/handing off FM system, meet with teachers (using a guide/response sheet), “trick”
student by wearing system incorrectly, and create student-directed video tutorials for orientations.
d. Strategies/Notes:
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4. Communicating with peers
a. Rationale:
One of the goals of mainstreaming is for the student with hearing loss to be an included and integral
member of the classroom community.
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b. Objectives:
With teacher support, student will present information to her peers on her hearing loss and implants, her
needs as a listener with hearing loss, and on accommodations and communication styles that are helpful.
Student will ask follow-up questions that demonstrate that she heard and understood what a peer said in
80% of conversational exchanges.
Student will use a variety of strategies to repair communication breakdowns or get missed information
(including asking for repetition, stating what she thought she heard, and asking questions to clarify) with
fading prompts.
c. Activities:
Read-aloud to the class, question and answer session with student, find out what kids are curious about
and address this, model using the FM system for group discussion, use other students as resources for
equipment/accommodations, lunch bunch, extension activities (candy ear), treating the student with
hearing loss as the expert, students teaching peers (in-class presentations, unfair spelling test, hearing loss
simulations, “Ms. K says”), show and tell with equipment, and movie tutorials.
Ashley’s movie can be found at: http://youtu.be/_ZfTyBgdzBE
d. Strategies/Notes:
5. High School and Beyond
a. Rationale:
The end goal is to equip our students with the tools and strategies they will need to succeed after school.
Self-advocacy skills are crucial during high school for students to request needed adaptations and
modifications. Students who know from the beginning how to ask for the help they need & know the rights
that guarantee accommodations are better equipped to succeed in college and adult life.
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b. Objectives:
Student will explain the supports and accommodations she requires for communication access and school,
and state the laws and regulations under which this falls.
Student will explain the purpose of his annual IEP meeting, his IEP, and state at least one goal from his
current IEP.
Given a scenario, student will be able to identify the communication style used, determine whether or not it
was effective, and explain why in 80% of presented situations.
c. Activities:
Research disability supports offered at student’s chosen colleges, study laws and regulations that ensure
accommodations at school and in the workplace, assign essays that require student to synthesize
knowledge, practice difficult scenarios and situations where someone says “no,” provide real-life
opportunities to practice skills (such as ordering food).
d. Strategies/Notes:
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Resources:
Anderson, Karen L., and Kathleen A. Arnoldi. Building Skills for Success in the Fast-paced Classroom: Optimizing
Achievement for Students with Hearing Loss. Hillsboro, OR: Butte Publications, 2011. Print.
"Self-Esteem for Teenagers: Connectiveness." Lakeside Connect. Gerry Vassar, 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.
What will you try with your students next week?
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