Functional Literacy

So in today’s class, Lindsay Welsford was our guest lecturer talking about Literacy and Low Incidence Disabilities. She began by challenging us to think about how literacy shapes our everyday experiences and then how that differs for someone with low incidence disability. It really makes you think about how much you take for granted when you have good literacy skills and you can communicate in the “conventional” manner of reading, writing, and speaking. It makes you think about how easy it is for you to be understood. So often, a person’s literacy skills impact our perception of that person. We often presume incompetence because someone does not communicate, or is not perceived as literate in “our language”. If you have not already done so check out the video entitled, In My Language, on Jeannette's Blog. In my opinion, the video speaks to societies’ view of the importance of conventional literacy skills and communication, societies’ form of communication.  Limited literacy skills impacts peoples’ social, emotional, and educational experiences. How can a student with a language impairment feel confident and valued as a learner when they are constantly subjected to messages like this one?

Today, we were challenged to think about how we can support our students with low incidence disabilities in communicating their strengths and challenges to someone else, particularly around transitioning. We were also challenged to think about why it would be important for an individual with a low incidence disability to have basic functional literacy skills. To me, it all came down to having a VOICE and being a SELF-ADVOCATE!

Neuro-developmental skills…yikes! I’m going to be perfectly honest now. At first, this was heavy for me to wrap my head around. We started off with doing a TASK ANALYSIS (breaking down a task into all of its’ smaller parts) of writing down homework in an agenda. I have never done this activity and oh my goodness! I had never thought about all of the steps involved as well as the neuro-developmental skills needed to successfully complete the task. This activity really made me think about all of the things that I do in my day to day life with ease and lack of thought. Read more about Neurodevelopmental Frameworks for recognizing and applying skills in Craig Pohlman’s book.

We broke off into our groups and using the information provided on the student profile, wrote the strengths, challenges and completed a Neurodevelopmental Framework for our student. Writing strengths and challenges is something that I have done many times before, but I had never considered a student's neuro-developmental skills and the importance that this information plays when planning and creating learning opportunities for that student. These will be used to help us create appropriate structures and systems for our student to complete a resume or portfolio. It is clear to see the importance of doing these initial steps so as to provide structures and systems specific to and relevant for our student. 

I look forward to tomorrow’s class when we will be looking at some Apps to support our student in their portfolio writing.This is a HUGE learning curve for me!

More to come…