Imagine sitting peacefully in a really dark room while wearing noise-cancelling headphones feeling relaxed and comfortable. You’re feeling at-ease in the quiet, dark room with your arms resting on the table in front of you when all-of-a-sudden, something grabs your hand and presses it onto a strange-feeling, unrecognizable object. You startle, panic, and scream out because you don’t know what is happening and you don’t have a clue what you are touching. Your hand keeps getting pushed and pulled back and forth on a strange surface. You are scared and unsure of what is happening and what may happen next. Is this a scene from a horror movie? No, it’s what a learner with combined hearing and vision loss may feel when someone is trying to get them to “participate” in the skill of wiping a table when they don’t understand the purpose of the activity. We can go through the motions of teaching skills but if the learner doesn’t understand what they are learning, making necessary connections will be difficult.
So what is the difference between a skill and a concept? A skill is the ability to do something well. A concept is an understanding of the skill. We can go through the motions of completing skills without understanding the concept or purpose. It’s important that we provide learners with the answers to the ‘why’ of their world.
Mary the teacher is planning to develop a cooking activity for a learner who has deafblindness. She must organize a step-by-step plan to ensure the student is able to learn the concept of the activity. Mary has to consider the details:
- How is the learner going to understand the concepts of the activity?
- Does the learner understand the meaning of stir?
- Does the learner understand the meaning of pour?
- Does the learner understand the meaning of add?
- Does the learner understand why the cake has to be put in the oven?
- Does the learner understand how to identify when the cake is done?
- Has he/she learned/experienced enough to be able to participate in future cooking activities and understand the purpose?
This teacher needs to ask herself “Why?” in order to provide the background knowledge to the learner:
- Why is the student stirring?
- Why is the student pouring?
- Why is the student putting the cake inside the oven?
- Why is the student pulling the cake out of the oven at a certain time?
Learners with combined hearing and vision loss must be taught concepts by building experiences into their environment. They don’t have the access to constant opportunities to receive visual and auditory information needed for concept development. As educators, it’s our job to provide that background knowledge.
Learners with deafblindness need to understand certain components of interacting with their environment, including:
- Understanding that objects exist even though they may not be able to see or hear them.
- Understanding that objects exist beyond their direct space.
- Understanding that objects are different from one another.
- Understanding that objects have labels or names.
- Understanding that objects have different characteristics.
- Understanding that objects serve a purpose.
Certain components that can be used to help make concepts more meaningful:
- Develop and use activities that are meaningful and enjoyable to the learner.
- Pair language with all activities and experiences.
- Build on prior language experiences of the learner.
- Remove variables that may cause confusion for the learner.
- Generalize use of the activity or experience to other situations and/or environments.
Teaching concepts can be challenging to plan, develop and carry-out. We must ensure that we do so based on the students’ background knowledge. Have you dealt with teaching concept development? If so, please share your thoughts and experiences on this topic in the comment section below.
Julie Brickhouse, M.Ed., NBCT, East Carolina University DeafBlind Project Teacher Support Program, Technical Assistance Consultant
Based on information from Sparkle Training at SKI-HI at Utah State University. http://www.sparkle.usu.edu/Topics/concept_development/index.php