From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)
Emotional Glue—Making Meaning Stick
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the HEART.
HELEN KELLER
Teaching is both an art and a science. The ideas and strategies in this book focus on the
technology, or the “science” of teaching as described by the developmental psychologist
and researcher Piaget, who gives many cognitive and rational reasons for the need to
connect meaning with experience. Helen Keller’s quote, however, reminds us that
intuition and feeling , as well as thinking and concrete experience, are essential
components of education.
Recent research in the area of social cognition shows that what every grandmother knows
may be true: Emotional connection is an important foundation for learning. Children
who have high “emotional IQs” are more likely to grow into adults who have the
cognitive flexibility and perspective-taking skills which are important for academic and
vocational success (Gibbs, 1995, Goleman, 1995, Hobson, 2004). Without important
visual cues, the blind or visually impaired child is at a real disadvantage in the area of
social and emotional development (Sandler and Hobson, 2002). The visually impaired
child may not receive information such as facial expression the use of body positioning in
communication, or the give and take nature of nonverbal turntaking routines. She may
miss incidental learning about relationships which sighted children obtain through their
eyes—
 the way a smile looks,
 how a mom kisses dad versus how mom kisses a baby,
 what does a game of hide and seek look like, and how can you tell who is”it”? .
Even the more accessible auditory and tactile modes of input can be confusing if they are
not paired with visual information—blind children are often uncertain and awkward
about how to interpret and use tone of voice, volume, and touch to convey feeling.
Children learn these social-emotional skills, as well as many other important symbolic
and cognitive skills, best when they are emotionally engaged with their partners. Most
of us learned our ABCs, our “times tables” and how to read our first words within
engaging social contexts—by singing a song together, reciting for a supportive partner, or
looking at a book as our parent reads to us under the covers at night. Through the
“emotional glue” generated by our interactions with our partners, these skills were
“stuck” in our minds. The emotional glue is so strong that the information is permanently
imbedded. Compare this to information which we learn in isolation—the dates of
important Civil War battles, the procedure for solving quadratic equations, the capitals of
all of the states. (Most of us would have a difficult time recalling these facts, which we
learned while studying alone or saying them back to ourselves. )
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)
How can I tell if we’re connecting?
This seems easy enough, until you start to interact with students who have hard-to-read
faces and bodies, and insufficient language to give you clues. A good starting place for
reading the child’s responses to you is the conventional one--“Find the Smile.” When
getting to know a child, or beginning a relationship, the initial goal might be to “find the
smile,” rather than to achieve compliance or performance of specific behaviors. This
can be tricky though. The smile is not always a reliable cue to the child’s mood or
feelings about the interactions. Many kids, especially those with “quirky” nervous
systems smile (or even laugh) when they are anxious or upset. Some children smile
unintentionally, while others never smile, even when they are quite content and engaged
with another person. So it is important to be a careful observer of your student, and to
observe how he is communicating his feelings about being with you or the activities you
have brought to him.
For some students , body orientation is a good cue—the student who turns toward you
rather than away from you may be saying, “OK, I like to play with you better than being
alone.” The student who reaches toward you or the object which you offer may be
conveying a message of acceptance.
Participation is another important way that students can tell you they understand the
activity and are willing and interested in connecting to you. Don’t expect immediate
participation, however. For many students, all new activities signal challenge and trigger
avoidance. A student who has built a trusting relationship with his teacher or parent may
be more willing to watch a new activity passively at first than to flee the area; however,
true active participation may only occur after repeated passive exposure to a new game or
activity. If you are using hand-under-hand support to introduce the child to the activity or
the materials, does the child willingly follow your hand, or do you have to “re-connect”
with her frequently to maintain the physical support?
Some students have highly idiosyncratic signals for connection and avoidance—one
student communicated pleasure and enjoyment by wiggling her feet. This was not
apparent to the teacher until the student’s sister commented on it.
Last, but not least, remember that YOU are 50% of the connection! Pay attention to your
own “emotional barometer” and notice how you are feeling during your time together.
Do you laugh and smile during the activity? Do you wish the activity was longer, or do
you keep looking at your watch and wondering when you can stop? Do you feel it was
worthwhile to have spent the time playing with the student? Sometimes, do you feel
amazed that you are actually paid to do this job because it is so much fun?!
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)
Deaf-blind educator and researcher Jan VanDijk calls this ability to read and engage with
students “It.” (personal communication, 2007). He feels that some parents and teachers
quite naturally “have It,” while others need to practice in order to “get It.” Spend some
time learning about your student and how to read her heart and the “it” you share.
OK—now I understand “It”—how can I use “It”?
Now that you know how to recognize and measure the connections you have with
students, you probably want to find ways to use this information.
1. Teach social-emotional skills as a separate subject area. Spend time every day
doing some activities in which the primary goal is to teach relationship-building
skills.
Use a standard framework for selecting goals and objectives in the area of social
and emotional skills. It is important to have a developmental hierarchy of skills
and a philosophical framework to profile a student’s social strengths and needs,
rather than using a deficit model to select specific skills to teach. With a
curriculum based model, progress can be planned and monitored more rationally.
One framework that may be helpful for students with skills below the seven year
level developmentally is presented in the book Better Together: Building
Relationships for students with Visual Impairment and Autism (Hagood, in
press). This curriculum uses four domains for evaluating and selecting socialemotional skills development:
Social Interaction
Communication
Social Cognition
Emotional Development
Another good framework for students at the early linguistic level is the SCERTS
Curriculum for children with autism (Prizant, 2006)

Reframe and rename activities—In this book, Ms. Smith has done an outstanding
job of reframing the focus in many activities in this book. By calling them
“games” instead of “tasks” and by reframing the interactions, both the teacher and
the student approach the activity in a more social and interactive way. An activity
labeled as a “task” or “work” suggests a focus on independence, with the adult
directing, evaluating and prompting the student, and the primary goal being
completion of a task. On the other hand, when an activity is labeled a “game” or
“play,” it suggests that it will be fun, and that it will be cooperative with more
equity, with the primary goals involving connection and joint attention. In their
presentations on Relationship Development Intervention, Gutstein shows
excellent examples of parents reframing everyday activities such as “going to get
the mail,” or “sweeping the floor” to reflect their focus on building relationships.
In the parents’ minds (and those of their children), the activity is “special time
with mom” rather than daily chores (Gutstein, presentation 2006).
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)

Build connection rituals into your day. These are brief interactions in which the
primary message is unconditional acceptance. In Becky Bailey’s book, I Love
You Rituals (2000), many examples of these types of connection activities are
described. The rituals can be as simple as “pat-a-cake” or as complex as writing a
story together. However, they must be activities that both you and the student
enjoy doing together and which make you look forward to being together. When
building these rituals, it may be important at first to incorporate the child’s
obsessive interests or repetitive play or language. A child who repeatedly flaps
her hands in front of her face might be a good candidate for a manicure ritual that
occurs every day after lunch. A student who removes his shoes might enjoy a
“This little piggy game” or a game with finding a surprise in the sock, or a foot
rub before putting his shoes back on. A child who enjoys making up silly words
may enjoy a “guess the definition” game in which you take turns making up
words and using them in sentences. Whatever connection rituals you decide to
make, give them a name, schedule them into your daily routine. The more
detached and isolated the child is, the more connection rituals he will need to keep
him engaged and build a relationship.

Teach social skills classes or schedule time for social games. In these activities,
higher functioning students may practice specific social skills using role play, or
may provide support or suggestions for peers facing emotional challenges.
Students with more limited language skills may perform more active or concrete
social activities to help them appreciate and understand the importance of being
together and sharing joint attention, such as
“Freeze Dance.” One student plays the keyboard and the other(s) dance
until the piano player stops the music, when they must all freeze.
Additional movements can be added, including falling down to a
glissando, jumping up and down to rapid staccato notes.
“Passing energy,” Clasp hands in a circle, and ask one person to make a
simple sound (e.g. “mmmm”), squeeze his partner’s hand to “pass it to
him”, then the partner makes the sound and squeezes the hand of the next
person in the line.
“Show and Tell,” A student brings an item to show and describe. Others
in the group ask questions or produce comments about the object.
2. Use social-emotional connections as a foundation for learning in other areas.
Often, the primary goal of a lesson is in another area such as mobility, fine motor
skills, or self-care. Social-emotional skills can be used to “make meaning stick”
when the primary goal of instruction is in another area. Students will learn new
skills best when they are emotionally engaged with an adult or peer partner. If
you have recently taught a student to engage with you playing a “pick a hand—
my voice has a surprise for you!” game (Hagood, in press), you might try teaching
matching or object association skills using this game as a foundation. The
dialogue could go like this:
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)
Teacher: Joey, my voice has a surprise for you—teacher holds up 2 fists,
close to her face,
Joey: (smiles, remembering the game) reaches for teacher’s left hand.
Teacher: Opens hand and makes a loud “whoop- whoop” sound1
Joey: laughs.
Teacher: Now, Joey, my HANDS have a surprise for you. Can you find
something in my hand that goes with this? (shows Joey soap). My hands
have a surprise for you—pick a hand (teacher puts button in one hand, and
washcloth in other hand
Joey: Picks teachers left hand (button)
Teacher: No, not a button, try again Soap and____?
Joey: Picks other hand (washcloth)
Teacher: Opens hand with washcloth) Whoop whoop—you found the
washcloth—goes with the soap
(This activity could also be used to teach tactile symbols and their
association with specific objects)
Another example, for a teacher trying to teach concepts of high and low, fast and
slow, left and right. Use the finger play “Two Little Blackbirds” as a foundation
for learning directional concepts.
Teacher helps child learn the following finger play sitting either behind, beside or
in front of child
Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill, one named Jack and one named Jill
(help child put fists out, with thumbs up)
Fly away Jack, Fly away Jill, (Help child fly hands behind back) come
back Jack come back Jill (Help child return hands to front).
Teacher laughs and gives the “birds” a little kiss.
After the child has learned this fingerplay and begins to anticipate or imitate the
movements, the teacher can change it to a context for learning directional and
movement concepts, naming the birds, “fast and slow”, “high and low” “left and
right.”
For the child whose connection with you has involved word play, in which you make up
crazy words together and assign them meaning, try building some rules into the game to
teach him phonological awareness. For example, “pig latin” involves moving the first
letter to the end of the word and adding an “-ay” (“cup” becomes “up-cay”). Other
variations might include “frog latin”, in which an “ibet” is added at the end of the word
(“table” becomes “able-tibet”). Or you might try “spoonerisms,” in which the initial
sounds in two words are reversed (“hot coffee” becomes “cot hoffee.”)
Tickle games can be expanded to include instruction in naming body parts, sequencing,
pronoun use (“I tickle your ____” “You tickle my ____”)
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)

Highlight the affective information which naturally occurs in the game or routine.
The feelings which incidentally or purposefully occur in natural contexts deserve
your teaching time and energy. Remember that the student who has visual and
multiple impairments may not incidentally learn social skills such as reading
partner responses. Use consistent affective vocal tone to model specific feelings.
Avoid sarcasm or flat tone. Allow the child to check your face or body tactually
during designated times, so that she will have a chance to see what a smile “looks
like,” how your body is oriented when you are ready to interact.

Plan to imbed affective instruction which has been taught directly during “social
skills lessons” in other activities during the week. For example, if the lesson for
the week is on “using body position to stay connected,” look for opportunities to
teach, reinforce, and assess this skill throughout the week—
o during music, give the student praise for orienting toward the teacher
during instruction,
o in the cafeteria, help the student go from table to table to try to determine
which students are connected and which are eating alone, based on their
body position.
o Remind the student before an activity begins that one of his goals is to stay
connected with his body. Practice this before going into the art room, and
tell the art teacher that he is working on this.
3. Teach the language of feelings and relationships. It is important to help the student
learn to read and express feelings using conventional, easy-to-interpret forms which
others will be able to interpret without having a “translator.” Remember how long it took
you to learn to read your student’s heart? Others may not be so patient or committed in
the future. Often, it is suggested that the language of emotions is “too abstract” or “too
high level” for the child who is just beginning to learn language. However, research
shows that feeling and connection words are often included in the language of the
preschool child, and that those children who have the most feeling words in their
vocabulary are least likely to demonstrate aggressive behaviors in kindergarten (cite this).
The following strategies may be helpful:

Affective vocabulary can best be taught using “hands on” active-learning
approaches that are described in this book for other concepts. Pair the words for
important feelings and relationship concepts with real-life activities as they occur.

Model language rather than asking questions about the child’s possible feelings.
For example, say “I bet you felt excited about going to the birthday party!”
instead of “How did you feel about going to the party?”

Talk about how YOU feel in specific situations and give the reason for your
feelings in simple language that helps the child connect causes with feelings, e.g.
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)
“I felt frustrated because I couldn’t find my keys.” “I felt proud when you sang
on the stage.” (Although there are 2000 words to describe feelings in the English
language, most adults rely primarily on 3 pairs of polar opposites to describe their
own feelings—happy/sad

Teach language that describes relationships and cooperation, not just individual
feeling words, e.g. “together,” “group,” “partners” “connected/ disconnected”
“friends,” “game” “team..”

Use pretend play and sensorimotor play activities to demonstrate emotional
intensity, and to practice calming techniques in non-stressful periods. The
“emotion meter” shown on the following page, is a helpful tool for some students
for teaching identification of one’s own emotional level. It can be taught using a
pretend play activity in which the child goes on a row boat ride with the teacher,
encountering exciting and sometimes scary animals and an out-of-control
thunderstorm along the way, with each rated a slightly higher number on the
emotion meter scale. Once the child has learned the scale in this pretend play
scenario, it can be applied to other activities as well, including physical activity
(slow jogging is a #30, walking #10, and wild running #100), loudness of a piano
keyboard, relaxation during yoga.

Use tactile symbols to represent feelings. In the tactile symbol system used at
TSBVI, feeling vocabulary is distinguished from other symbols by mounting the
symbols on a heart shaped background. The feeling words can be used to help
describe a student’s feelings when they are engaged in an activity, then the
student can read a “sentence” or “experience story” in which the feeling symbol is
paired with specific activity and/ or person symbols (e.g. “Jake scared dentist on
Tuesday,” “Joey excited hamburger lunch”). Another tactile symbol activity
might involve organizing a storage book of symbols based on the student’s
feelings about specific people or activities (all of the people that make the student
feel “happy” on one page, and all of the people or activities that make a student
feel “frustrated” on another page.)
4. Use strategies to remind yourself, your student, parents and other staff members of
your commitment to understanding and growing the relationship with the student.
Be supportive—make your presence signal reward not demand. You want students to be
happy when they hear you coming, rather than dreading the interaction or engaging in
avoidance behaviors. True, some kids have had bad experiences with teachers in the past
that they will bring to their interactions with you, but overall, your goal is for them to be
happy to see you each morning. If you continue to see avoidance behaviors, rethink the
way you are interacting with your students
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)
Use the“Yes-and” approach to interactions and ideas, which is often utilized by
improvisational comedy groups (McGehee). This approach involves accepting whatever
idea the child offers, even if the child did not intentionally offer the idea butg simply
performed a distinctive behavior. For example, when planning a shopping list, the student
may belch and laugh, and you may say, “You are so smart Jimmy, we need to remind
everyone to belch in the van before we go into the store!”
.
Work towards building a balanced relationship (things you like, thinks I like, things we
both like). Realize that relationships, like people, grow developmentally. At first, you
may put in much more emotional energy than you get back from your students. Look for
the small things that the student does that make you feel good about being with her, and
try to reinforce those and shape them into prosocial behaviors or language. As you
become familiar with a student, you should begin to expect him to participate in activities
that YOU enjoy, instead of only doing the things they like to do. As the student’s
teacher, you are teaching him more than just how to read, talk, or feed and dress himself.
You are also helping him learn how to have relationships with friends, family, and
caregivers which will be essential in future job, home and social situations.
REFERENCES
Bailey, Becky A. (2000) I Love You Rituals (New York: Harper Collins)
Sandler AM and Hobson RP (2002) On engaging with people in early childhood: The
case of congenital blindness. Clinical Child Psychology & Psychiatry.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
Gibbs, Nancy (1995, October 2). The EQ Factor. Time magazine. Web reference at
http://www.time.com/time/classroom/psych/unit5_article1.html
Greenspan, Stanley I. and Wieder, Serena (2006) Engaging autism: Helping children
relate, communicate and think with the DIR floortime approach. Cambridge, MA. Da
Capo Press
Gutstein, S. and Sheely, R. (2002) Relationship development interventions with young
children. London: Jessical Kingley Publishers
Gutstein, S. and Sheely, R. (2002) Relationship development intervention with children,
adolescents, and adults.
Hagood, Linda (2008) Better Together: Building Relationships with People who have
Autism and Visual Impairment . Austin: TSBVI.
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)
Hobson, R. P. (2002) The Cradle of thought: Exploring the Origins of thinking. London:
Macmillan
Hobson, Peter (2005) Why connect? On the relation between autism and blindness. In
Linda Pring (Ed.) Autism and Blindness. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons Publishing
McGeHee, Les (2006) Plays well with Others. Austin, Tx: Dalton Publishing
Prizant, B., Wetherby, A. Rubin, E., Laurent, A.., Rydell, P. (2005). SCERTS model: A
comprehensive educational approach for children with autism spectrum disorders. Vol I:
Assessment, Vol. II: Program planning and intervention. Baltimore: Brookes Publishing
Company.
Sonders, S. (2003) Giggle time: Establishing the social connection. London: Jessica
Kingsley
Wolfberg, P. (2003) Peer play and the autism spectrum: The art of guiding children’s
socialization and imagination (Integrated Play Groups field manual) Shawnee Mission,
KS: Autism Asperger Publishing Co.
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)
Emotion Meter
Number
Emotion
Feels like a
100
Out of Control
thunderstorm
90
Mad
shark
80
70
Upset
or Getting Silly
dragon
Worried
or Excited
alligator
Relaxed
or Happy
( fish
60
50
40
30
20
10
Sleepy
)
From: Smith, M., (2010) Symbols and Meaning, APH. (appendix)