Upon hearing the saying, “Hey, what’s the big idea?”, old episodes of “The Three Stooges” come to mind. We can relate to this phrase when trying to determine the main idea of an event or story, minus the physical interactions of the show’s characters, of course!
When reading a story, how do you know what the author is trying to tell you? What’s the big idea of the story? Does everyone see the big idea from the same perspective?
Learners with combined vision and hearing loss may not have life experiences on which to build when participating in literacy activities. How can we help them to understand the big idea/concept in the story? How can we help build those concepts to assist these learners?
Let’s take Mary for example. Each day she participates in literacy activities that consist of having a paraprofessional use hand-over-hand assistance with her to press a button on an adapted voice output device to say “Yes” when the teacher asks Mary a question about the story. Does Mary understand the purpose of this activity? It is doubtful. When the paraprofessional picks up her hand to press the switch, chances are Mary doesn’t understand the purpose of pressing the switch. There is not a connection that relates to the purpose or concept of the story. The staff wonder why Mary tends to sleep a lot in class. As a classroom observer, we can see why.
Mary is a passive participant through her daily schedule…just going with the flow. Maybe she has just gotten accustomed to life happening TO her and not life happening WITH her as a part of it. Could this be why she sleeps so much? Mary needs to be able to participate in meaningful activities that help her understand either the sequence of activities, where things come from, how the physical environment is arranged, and/or how the world works. We all learn by doing. Mary has not been able to do so, which is greatly limiting her potential to grow into an active participant in her life.
Developing concepts helps the learner know what is happening and how it can be generalized into new situations. When basic concepts are experienced, these skills are stored in long term memory to use in future life experiences. Concept development is important in helping students to learn to generalize. When Mary is only participating through hand-over-hand assistance to press a voice output device, she is only learning the cause/effect of pressing the switch, not the life skill or concepts addressed within the lesson or story.
So if we are to determine the best way to guide Mary, what would it look like?
First we would discover Mary’s most effective communication, access, and learning styles through appropriate assessments that address her combined hearing and vision loss as well as other areas of need. With deaf-blindness, Mary has limited experiences with interacting with things in her environment and understanding their meaning and purpose. It is the instructor’s job to help her relate to her environment. More opportunities for exploring the concepts and purposes of objects and textures in her space will make it easier to generalize these objects and experiences to increase her knowledge. She will begin to understand the “Big Idea” of communication, active participation, sequence of events, and the meaning/purpose of things and events.
Once the activities are adapted to ensure Mary actively participates and understands the big idea or concept, Mary doesn’t sleep so much. She is suddenly quite busy!
Like Mary, many students with combined hearing and vision loss have limited life experiences that help them to generalize their knowledge into new areas.
How can we help a learner with deaf-blindness develop concepts? Check out these ideas on the link below. (based on information from Barbara Miles, M.Ed. and Barbara McLetchie, Ph.D. from NCDB).
https://www.nationaldb.org/info-center/developing-concepts-factsheet/
Learners with deaf-blindness need support in experiencing “What’s the big idea?”. Through using these ideas, you can help learners actively participate in their daily routines and academic activities that will lead to generalization of skills and concepts.
What activities have you included in your classroom or home to help learners with deaf-blindness develop concepts in their world? Please share examples and pictures of activities you have created!
Julie Brickhouse, MAEd, NBCT
ECU TSP Technical Assistance Consultant