Sharing Information to Improve Your Children's Learning Experiences at School: Strategies for Families from the Perspective of a Teacher

By Gloria Rodriguez-Gil, CDBS Educational Specialist

There are many important reasons for families to share basic information about their children with classroom staff and other service providers in school. These include to help children function at their best in order to facilitate learning, to lessen the time it takes service providers to get to know their students so they can get started working on educational goals, and to facilitate collaborative relationships with service providers from the very beginning with service providers.

To begin with, let me share a recent story from my travels around California.  Three weeks into this school year I visited a preschool classroom to observe a student I will call Sophie.  The day began with the students eating breakfast with the support of the teaching staff.  One of the breakfast choices on this day was bagel with cream cheese, and a classroom assistant cut the bagel into small pieces for Sophie.  The assistant picked up a piece of bagel with a fork and offered it to Sophie by placing it in front of Sophie’s face at a close enough distance for her to see it (Sophie has vision loss).  Sophie responded by refusing to open her mouth.  I asked the classroom assistant if Sophie liked bagels and she responded by saying that she didn’t know what Sophie liked to eat.  The classroom teacher explained to me later that Sophie had been in school for only three weeks.

As the classroom assistant cut the bagel into pieces, I remember wondering if this particular student could really eat something like a bagel even if it was cut into small pieces.  Sophie had significant motor challenges and walked with the aid of a walker.  In addition, she was hard of hearing and communicated mainly through behaviors and actions (although she was able to imitate a few words when she was highly motivated, as she demonstrated later during the observation.)  Since she didn’t communicate orally, I realized that some of her eating skills—particularly chewing—might be impacted by the development of oral-motor skills.  The possibility that Sophie could chew and swallow something as hard as a piece bagel seemed low.  In the end, the breakfast activity was not a very positive and constructive experience for Sophie.

Sophie’s breakfast experience might have been more positive if Sophie’s family and school staff had communicated beforehand about Sophie’s feeding preferences, habits, and needs.  With better information sharing, Sophie might not have been viewed as an uncooperative child or a child who could not understand and respond appropriately.  Although this situation is specific to Sophie and her program, it is an example of something that is much more common, and happens to students when basic information has not been communicated clearly and timely.

Professionals and paraprofessionals working with your child—especially when your child is new to a program—may not understand your child’s basic needs and other important information because their information is based only on brief observations in the classroom.  The knowledge you have of your child is based on so much personal experience that it may be obvious to you, but may not come as naturally to service providers in the school.  There may be written reports about your child but these reports do not provide a complete day-to-day “picture” of who your child really is.  And not all service providers have easy access to these reports.  Unfortunately, having provided information about your child once doesn’t mean that you may not have to provide it many more times.  This will be particularly true every time the child goes into a new program and/or starts working with new people.  And some information may have to be repeated several times to the same people for them to fully understand it in the way intended.

In many cases, it is difficult for children who have vision and hearing loss and additional multiple disabilities to tell others about themselves.  It is usually the responsibility of family members and/or the other adults who live with and care for these students to share this information so that educational teams can propose and design instructional activities based on the strengths and needs of the students.  You can insure this information is shared by considering a few simple strategies.  These strategies might be most applicable to a student who is new to a program.

Who is the Child? 

You want to start by giving a positive view of your child (e.g., who she is as a person, her personality, things she’s good at, and the things she likes and doesn’t like to do).  This information will help service providers design activities based on her preferences and strengths.  From this starting point, they will be able to build activity sets that are rewarding and gradually more challenging for the child.  Information about things that she doesn’t like will also give service providers important information about activities that challenge your child, so that strategies can be identified to overcome theses challenges or to work around them.  Sometimes dislikes are a result of lack of experiences or a result of physical or neurological issues the child has.

Considerations:

1. Helping service providers to know your child’s personality will help them to view her as the person she is, well beyond her disabilities.
2. When providing information about what she likes, try to share specific examples of things, people, activities and places.
3. The things that she is good at can be big or small, things she can do on her own or things that she needs assistance with.  They might even be activities she needs complete support for, but to which she responds positively or make her happy.

The Diagnosis

If you have a diagnosis for your child’s vision and hearing problems, share this information with your child’s service providers.  Many causes of deaf-blindness are relatively rare, and it is quite likely that not all service providers will know and understand the characteristics and implications of this diagnosis.  In addition, there are differences between children with the same diagnosis so it is important to provide information on how specific characteristics of this diagnosis are or are not present in your child.

Considerations:

1. Is there a website or print resource you particularly like, that you think captures information about your child’s diagnosis in a way that is easy for others to understand?  If so, share information with your child’s team on how to access this information.
2. You may hear generalizations made about your child—based on a diagnosis—that don’t sound like they apply to your child and her specific situation.  If this happens, speak up and explain the difference between your child and others with a similar diagnosis.  It will be helpful to others to better understand these distinctions.

Vision and Hearing Loss, and the Other Senses

We all gather information and access our world through our senses.  When the two primary senses (i.e., vision and hearing) for gathering information are reduced or distorted, you want your child to make the best use of these senses that she can.  Residual vision and hearing can be used in combination with the other senses such as touch and smell to provide as much information to the child as possible.

Considerations:

1. Provide any available medical information and test results of your child’s vision and hearing loss with members of her educational team.  But more important are your observations about how your child uses her vision and/or hearing in her daily life.  For example, can she see light, silhouettes, bright objects, or pictures?  Can she see you when you come into the room?  Can she hear the sound of a passing truck?  Does she calm to the sound of soothing music?  Does she respond to her name or to simple requests?  Remember, all information is important even if the child’s responses are very subtle or obvious to you.
2. Give the educational team information about any visual and/or hearing aids that your child uses to help maximize the use of residual vision and hearing.  What are these devices and how does the child use them?  How often does the child use them and in what situations?
3. Pay attention to the environments your child likes and dislikes.  Is the child sensitive to visual stimuli such as light, or to auditory input like loud noises?  What kind of auditory environment does she respond better to?  Does she like movement games like swinging?  Does she like to spend time swimming or bathing?  Does she like big hugs?
4. Which senses does she prefer to use when exploring the environment and learning new things? Is it vision, hearing, or touch or a combination of these?  Does she use the sense of smell to identify places, food and people? 
5. When she is restless, what activities do you do with her to calm her?  When she is withdrawn, what activities do you do to stimulate her?

Additional Disabilities

Many children who have combined vision and hearing problems also have additional disabilities.

Considerations:

1. Does your child have motor problems? What is the special equipment that she uses and how does she use it?  What kinds of support does she need in order to move or to sit up?  What is the best way to support her physically?
2. Does she have behavior related issues?  What are the strategies that have been used to respond to your child’s behavior patterns? 
3. Does your child have difficulty learning?  Under what situations does she learn best? What has helped her learn new things, such as activities, concepts, or signs? 

Does your child have medical/health related issues?  Is she taking any medications that could impact her level of engagement in the classroom?  If she doesn’t eat regular foods, what is her diet and your goals for eating?  Does she have problems napping or sleeping through the night?  Are there special provisions in the case of medical emergencies that the school staff should be aware of?

Communication

Most children who are deaf-blind have challenges with receptive and expressive communication.  Many have difficulty expressing their wants and needs, socializing with and understanding others, and learning new concepts in school.  Communication is involved in every activity throughout the day and with every person your child interacts with.  The ways in which your child communicates might be clear, or may need to be explained so that she can be understood by others.  Give service providers the clearest description you can about how your child communicates, especially communication strategies you use at home.

Considerations:

1. How does your child communicate through behavior?  How else does your child communicate?  Through gestures, signs, words, or a combination of these?
2. Be as specific as you can when sharing information about communication.  Your child’s communication system is very unique to her, so the more information the better.
3. Whenever possible, it is very helpful to provide information about your child in writing.  Written information about your child’s communication system can be shared more easily and accurately across team members at school.

Ideas for sharing information can vary depending on the particular child and specific needs.  What I’ve included here are just a few of the types of information you may want to share with your child’s service providers.  Channels of communication need to be open throughout the year so that school staff is aware of new information that may help your child in school.  The most important thing is to share this information so that you minimize time lost in order to move your child’s education forward.

Comments? Questions?
Email the author: gloria.gil@gte.net

CDBS reSources is published by California Deaf-Blind Services. CDBS is supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP Award H326C080009). Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the U. S. Department of Education. There are no copyright restrictions to this document. You are welcome to copy and share this information freely. Please credit California Deaf-Blind Services and OSEP when reprinting.