Former autism teacher Jen shows how to use low-tech AAC boards and fine-motor adaptations like fat-grip markers and scribing so students with communication and motor challenges can show what they know. She stresses documenting each accommodation in the IEP.
If you are a special education teacher, chances are you've got students who have either fine motor difficulties or who have communication difficulties that are impacting their ability to share knowledge in the classroom. Let's talk about it. I am Jen and I am a former K-12 self-contained autism teacher. Oftentimes my students came to me and they were not yet able to use a pencil or a writing utensil to show what they know. Oftentimes my students came to me and they were pre-verbal or they were non-verbal for medical reasons, and they were learning to use AAC to communicate. The fact is, is that they knew a lot more than what they could communicate, and I wanted to bridge that gap. Now, if you've been around for a long time, you know that I love the Autism Helper Level Daily curriculum. I'm going to show you ways that I adapted that curriculum to help those students with fine motor and communication difficulties. However, these strategies can be used for any curriculum. Core language boards are a great example of a low-tech and cost-effective way to help students be able to share what they know. This core language board is very simple. It is what we call a 3x4 board, so there are just 12 options overall, and there are nice big pictures to help students be able to identify what they're trying to say. These core language boards get much more complex, and the Autism Helper has a wide variety for you to choose from to help your learner their level. What I love exclusively for Curriculum Access are these fringe language boards. These are meant to go across the top of a core language board and they provide all of the core vocabulary or fringe language that a child might need while using the Autism Helper curriculum. When I was in the classroom, I partnered with my SLP to be able to use this in my classroom. She helped determine which level of Core Language Board I should be using, and then we talked about the fringe language so we could have a cohesive approach together. Next up, we have fine motor difficulties. We know that fine motor skills can impact students being able to communicate what they know, especially if it's a paper-pencil task. So let's talk about ways that we can adapt regular curriculum or regular schoolwork to help students with fine motor. First of all, if we are just identifying something and students have to just identify it by circling or coloring, have students use a dauber marker if they're not able to use a pencil grip. Dauber markers are great. Those Bingo Daubers, you can hold them with a fist grip or you can work because they're nice and fat to work towards that tripod grip. Another idea for you outside of using a Bingo Dauber is if the student can isolate their finger, have them point and then you circle or you color. Just write on the top that the student used a scribe and make sure that that accommodation is noted in their IEP. A simple highlighter also becomes a great tool. One thing about a highlighter is that it is easy to track and easy to follow. So for example, if I've got the student identifying and matching number to the number of object, I can use a highlighter after the student has pointed and still have the student practice fine motor skills. I myself will draw a line between 2 and the objects that are 2 and they match, and then I will have the student trace over the top. The student has still showed me that they know where— what the number 2 is and they've counted the quantity of 2. All I am doing is adjusting the fine motor expectation. The task itself and what I'm asking the student to do remains the same. Finally, I use this trick all the time in the classroom. I cut out sections of my worksheets. This itself is not overwhelming to you and me, but it very well might be for your student. And so one trick that I have is to cut these apart and make them nice individualized sections for students to do, especially students who are on level 0.5 who are building up that work endurance. They are learning how to attend to task and they are honestly learning to spend time at a table and do a paper-pencil worksheet, or any sort of task really. And so what I can do is I can cut these apart and then give the student the worksheet piece by piece. The trick with any sort of accommodation like this is to make sure that it's listed in the child's IEP, because what we want to do is make sure that we are sharing how that student is best able to share their knowledge and show success. We don't want fine motor deficits or communication deficits to get in the way of student progress, and the fact is, is that some skills are jagged. Just because a child cannot communicate verbally today doesn't mean that they won't down the road, and so we want to constantly be reassessing and growing. But in the meantime, we want to provide appropriate accommodations that allow the child to share their knowledge so we can challenge them appropriately. Do you have a fine motor hack or a communication hack that you use to help your students better share information? If so, drop it in the comments below. I love learning from you all. You always have the best ideas, and I love sharing with you. Can't wait to hear from you.
