SABAC 2010 Discussions

I agree wholeheartedly. It would be beneficial too, if play groups could focus on more naturalistic interventions. Perhaps focusing on developing skills that children will need to utilize in more naturalistic settings / contexts.

Absolutely. Also, particularly with children,intervention and tasks that will be able to hold their attention will be essential.

This is exactly the route we're working to take with the adult social skills group at the clinic. I would like to focus some attention on adapting the overall organization for other age groups or needs. If anyone has any suggestions or resources I would be interested in hearing about them.

Talking about the existing skills of individuals in play groups also reminds me of how we can use the interest areas of these same individuals to provide a focus for interaction and a way to let them play the lead role in activities. For example, if one of your is a little girl who is fascinated with jewelry, an excellent craft activity for a playgroup would be to make beaded necklaces for themselves or for friends/relatives. That particular child could be asked to be the main helper and pass out strings/beads, and help the other children tie their necklaces.

Another aspect of building on existing skills (or building on a child's strength) is using their existing skills to build new skills. For example, if a child likes jewelry and will be the main helper in the jewelry class, what are some skills that are still developing that this particular child could utilize? Maybe verbal skills, math skills? The child could count how many jewels he/she collects, write a story about the jewels and read it to the class, open a mock jewelry store and "buy and sell" merchandise. So many ideas!

Excellent ideas are provided here. I think that to create a well organized playgroups, facilitators should be well informed about their subjects interests and range of skills. To create and manage the subjects profile, information needs to be gathered for the individual background by utilizing checklists, inventories, and parents or caregivers interviews. After collecting the right information, facilitators can create a host of activities that are built to scaffold the existing skills and build new ones. Creativity is a key in crafting new activities and utilizing the existing environments. The internet is a great resource especially teachers websites and blogs. Many ideas can be used with some alterations to create the content and context for the range of skills in the group.

When I teaching I found that other teachers were great resources for what works and what doesn't. Although the tricky bit is that it may work perfectly with one group of students but not another. Perhaps letting the students have a say in the activities may be the most effective method to maintaining interest.

I always like activities where the students get to play the role of teacher! Its a great way to boost their confidence and take responsibility for the task. I've only ever used it in smaller groups though. I'm not sure how it would work with an entire classroom! I think it goes back to the previous idea of having each student pick an activity and play teacher for the day. In a large classroom possibly pick several students with similar interests and then its also a lesson in teamwork!

Yes..teamwork. I think as teachers we forget that teamwork is a crucial skills that we need to build and encourage in our students. It is essential not just in the classroom but beyond.

Yes, I would agree that teamwork and collaboration are important skills. More importantly, collaboration needs to be modeled for students as adults. How do collaborate within a school environment for children that require special education services? How do we collaborate within the community to ensure that living environments are safe and productive for all? As clinicians, how do we collaborate with our clients to ensure that they have a voice in how their sessions are designed for their benefit?

Getting involved in community functions, such as the disability fair at lincoln square mall, is a great way to create a presence within the community. This will broaden your connections with individuals in different professions, hopefully increasing opprotuniities for collaboration.

I agree that collaboration and teamwork are important to model. We have been talking a great deal in school age language class about the different service delivery models. I think embracing the idea of special educators, therapists, volunteers, etc. going into the classroom and working together with teachers and students could provide a powerful model for children. Also, saffolding kids while they work on cooperative group activities in the classroom will also give kids the real world experience of working with co-workers in future jobs.

I think it is easy to forget that we need to support these individuals works with children as well. Our discussion has mainly focused on supporting the children but it is just as important to support the teachers, SLPs, etc.

Great thought. We do often forget to support and mentor the instructors and professionals. It's also hard to find the time to work together and support eachother. Something this important should be encouraged.

I like the idea of scaffolding children in the classroom because it parallels nicely with what takes place in the real world. It's sort of like "on the job" training. Why can't classroom practices mirror what takes place in the "real world"? Shouldn't this be the purpose of schooling? Have we gotten away from this focus? Was it ever a focus?