Texas Focus 2007
The World on a String:
Connecting through the
Expanded Core Curriculum
The Business at Hand
Dr. Chris Ann Strickling
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Jan van Dijk
An Educational Approach that Appreciates Movement as
an Essential Basis of Learning
Living Along With a Child
 Focus on dialogue between “teacher” and “student”
 “Experiencing with” a child versus “teaching”
 The “educational” program IS a “motor” program
Van Dijk’s Learning Theory for Learners who are
Deaf/Blind (From “Overview of the van Dijk
Curricular Approach,” available through DB Link at
http://www.dblink.org/lib/topics/VANDIJK12.htm)
1. Developing attachment and security with each
other
Using “resonance” activities in which the
“teacher” joins in the activity of the child – these
are movement activities
2. Establishing Near and Distant senses in relation
to the world
• “near” = touch, smell, taste
• “distant”= hearing and vision
Using: Co-Active movement strategies that
foster Turn-Taking and introduce Signaling
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
1
3.
Learning to Structure the World
 Through an introduction of objects that
come to represent activities (usually motor
activities)
 Through “characterizing” activity by
associating a natural gesture, a smell, a
taste, a texture, word, symbol, etc. with it
 Through learning to sequence things and
remember the sequence
Developing “Natural Communication”
Anticipation
Symbolic systems – pictures, words, sign, etc.
Radical Assertions
“The development of attachment and security through
intimate human contact is essential for object formation
and subsequent symbol formation.”
“The development of the child’s initial concepts of the
environment is based upon motor patterns that are
involved in the handling of things-of-action: most thingsof-action hold certain attributes that promote specific
motor functions and therefore lead to concept formation.”
“ Not only do I have a body, at the same time I am a
body. The existentialist philosophy would express it that
through developing relationship towards the world, one
becomes oneself.”
(From “The Motor Development of Deaf-Blind Children”)
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
2
Assessment Styles
CLINICAL
 Focuses on placing child’s skills within a developmental
timeline
 In terms of the body - Necessarily includes an assessment of
muscle tone, strength, range of motion, coordination and
functional ability as clinical issues that need to be addressed
 Similarities - Includes observations of child in various settings
 Results rely on … Relies on comparison of child’s skills with a
“normed” population of similar peers to determine a strategy for
where to begin teaching or otherwise working with the student
 Assessment Goals - Identifying “deficiencies” with the goal of
bringing the child’s skills “up” to those of her peers - or
“normalizing”
Van Dijk
 Focuses on finding what sensory channel is the most
consistently available for interacting
 In terms of the body - Muscle tone, strength, range of motion,
coordination, etc. are informally assessed as important factors
for determining how best to relate to the child
 Similarities - Includes observations of child in various
settings
 Results rely on . . . Emphasizes the unique learning
style and capacity of each child and suggests ways of
forming relationship with the child based on the child’s
interests
 Assessment Goals - Identify ways to engage the child
and help her form attachments & feel secure, as a
basis for learning
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
3
Lillie Nielsen’s Theory of ACTIVE LEARNING
Active Learning
“Created for children whose developmental age is threeand-a-half years or younger, the Active Learning
approach enables the child with multiple disabilities to
learn in the same way that very young children without
disabilities learn--by doing, rather than being trained or
taught. In this approach the child is provided with
opportunities to learn through active exploration and
examination of the environment. Teachers (and parents)
set up developmentally appropriate environments that
encourage the child to touch, move, and explore. They
then respond to the child’s actions and sounds and
interact with the child at his/her level of interest and
development….Active Learning works with even the most
significantly delayed and disabled children, enabling them
to learn that they can act upon the world and initiate
interaction with others.”
Active Learning Equipment and Materials:
The Little Room: The Little Room consists of a metal
frame supporting three side panels with various textures,
a Plexiglas ceiling, and two play bars from which a
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
4
variety of objects (everyday objects or toys) are
suspended. This gives the child the opportunity to
experience the properties of objects, to compare different
objects, and try out different things to do with the object
on his own without adults interpreting that experience for
him. Since the objects are stable, it allows the child to
repeat his actions with an object as many times as he
needs to, at one to two-second intervals, without
dropping and losing it. The immediate repetition enables
the child to store the information gained from the
experiences in his memory.
Resonance Board: The resonance board is a thin plywood
panel carefully designed to vibrate to every movement a
child makes while lying on it. It enhances the
effectiveness of the Little Room, but can also be used
alone to encourage play and movement.
Use the Resonance board for:
- helping a child get feedback for even insignificant
movements
- intensifying the auditory properties of objects
- defining a safe area for play and exploration
- establishing or extending sitting tolerance
- focusing staff and student attention on meaningful
movement
For information about ordering equipment designed by
Lillie Nielsen, contact:
LilliWorks Foundation
1815 Encinal Avenue
Alameda, California 94501
www.lilliworks.org
(510) 814-9111; fax: (510) 814-3941.
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
5
Books and Curriculum: The full line of Dr. Nielsen’s books
is available from:
Vision Associates, 2109 US Hwy 90 West Ste. 170 #312,
Lake City, Florida 32055
Phone: (407) 352-1200; Fax: (386) 752-7839
www.visionkits.com
Goals of Using Neilsen’s Little Room
 Develop a spatial memory – know where things are
 Encourage body awareness – by giving feedback to
most movements
 Develop specific muscle group function – the feedback
makes the movement worth it, so you move more
 Use and/or refine hand grasp
 Expand hand function
 Develop and recognize sequences of motion,
which leads to… Concept Development and
Encourages Literacy: “literacy” is viewed as based on
object manipulation, which seems to be the case for
many DB / MIVI students
Bottom Line
These are all consistent with OT and PT goals, so:
If a Little Room is in use, you and the rest of the team
are probably on the same page. You just may need to
interject your own thinking and knowledge into that
experience:
Thinking like a therapist . . .
• Positioning for maximum movement
• Teaching safe and comfortable wheelchair transfers
getting into and out of the Little Room
• Using vestibular or proprioceptive, tactile etc. input as
preparation for active exploration inside the Little Room
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
6
. . . and a team member
• Interpreting physical movements and other bodily
expressions in order to know when a child needs to get
out of a little room
• Choosing and changing objects in the Little Room to
best suit the physical capacities of the child
USING THE RESONANCE BOARD
 Helping a child get feedback for even insignificant
movements
 Intensifying the auditory properties of objects
 Defining a safe area for play and exploration
 Establishing or extending sitting tolerance
 Focusing staff and student attention on meaningful
movement
Training vs. Self Generated Learning
Teaching vs. Learning Together
 Setting up a rich environment
 Reinforcing what child does (which basically
requires) dropping your priorities and recognizing the
child’s
TOP PRIORITIES:
 Curiosity
 Experimentation
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
7
Barbara Miles
Talking the Language Of the Hands To the Hands
Revised October 2003
http://www.dblink.org/lib/hands.htm
Thinking about hands
•
As “useful and intelligent sense organs”
•
Developing Tactile “intelligence”
•
As essential to the sense of self
•
“Reading” and “speaking” the hand
•
Bonding, object permanence, mobility, all “hand”
functions for the DB child
Thirteen Suggestions for working with a child to
develop hands that “speak” and also do all those other
less dramatic, daily functions, too:
1. Watch and/or touch the child’s or adult’s hands and
learn to “read” them
2. Think of hands as initiators of topics in conversational
interactions, particularly with young children who do
not yet use words.
3. Use hand-under-hand touch to respond to exploration,
initiation of topics and expressions of feeling.
a. This hand-under-hand touch (or finger-alongsidefinger touch) is non-controlling.
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
8
b. allows the child to know that you share the
experience of touching the same object or of
making the same kind of movements.
c. does not obstruct the most important parts of the
child’s own experience of any object she may be
touching.
4. Make your hands available for the child to use as he or
she wishes.
5. Imitate the child’s own hand actions, your hands under
the child’s.
6. Play interactive hand games frequently.
7. Make environmental provisions to encourage hand
activity, appropriate to the developmental level of the
child.
8. Encourage energetic throwing in appropriate settings
and at appropriate developmental times.
9. Invite access to your own hands while they are
engaged in a wide variety of activities.
10. Invite the person who is deafblind to have frequent
tactual access to the environment.
11. Model whatever hand skills you wish the child or
adult to acquire and allow her tactual access to that
modeling.
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
9
12. Make language accessible to the hands of the person
who is deafblind.
13. Become aware of your own hands as carriers of
feelings and pragmatic functions.
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
10
References
Adamson, Bakeman, & Smith, (1994) Gestures, words,
and early object sharing. V. Volterra, and C.J. Erting,
(Eds.), From gesture to language in hearing and deaf
children. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
Fraiberg, S. (1977). Insights from the blind; comparative
studies of blind and sighted infants. New York: Basic
Books.
Miles, B., Riggio, M. (Eds.) (1999). Remarkable
conversations: A guide to developing meaningful
communication with children and young adults who are
deafblind. Watertown, MA: Perkins School for the Blind.
Lane, H. (1997, June). Modality-appropriate stimulation
and deaf-blind children and adults. Address to the HiltonPerkins Conference on Deafblindness, Washington, DC.
Quigley, S.P., & Paul, P.V.(1984). Language and
deafness. San Diego, CA: College-Hill Press.
Smith, T. (1994) Guidelines: Practical tips for working
and socializing with deaf-blind people. Burtonsville, MD:
Sign Media, Inc.
Love it or hate it . . . please let me know!
Casphd@texas.net
2007 Texas Focus - Strickling
11