Let's Talk!
Communicating!
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A major part of life is communication. We have multiple ways of sharing information and more appear all the time. Dr. Z. struggled to communicate while growing up. He was unable to form words audibly until 4th grade. Share your experiences, trials, and breakthroughs, trying to communicate with your participants. What are some ways we can try to become more effective at communication? Keep in mind your learners and where they are developmentally compared to you!
Hint: most of us use verbal communication only when sharing thoughts, directions, feelings, etc broadcast to others. What are some other ways we could communicate (and maybe more successful at getting our messages across?) What about those who do not use verbal means for communication, what are some ways people communicate nonverbally? How can you begin to read those nonverbal cues?
The child that I work with is non-verbal so this is very relevant to my CAPES experience. T does not use words and only has made sounds in terms of squeals of joy so far in the time we have worked with him. This has been a challenge for me because I am so accustomed to communicating mostly verbally with another person. While I think that T understands most of what we are saying to him and just does not respond back verbally it is still important that I work on using non-verbal techniques myself and learning his non-verbal ques. In the past I have tried to work on using short and direct sentences so that communication between us is clear. This is a challenge for me, but I know it is something I need to work on when communicating with everyone. I also have found myself doing demonstrations when working with T. My partner and I have found demonstrating a behavior we would like to see in our child to be an effective way of communicating with T. We have noticed that he seems to learn best by watching both adults and his peers.
ReplyDeleteI think non-verbal communication is just as important as verbal communication. While swimming K kept telling us that she didn't want to leave the side of the pool but she kept watching the other children around her and would jump off the stair and attempt to swim, every time we asked her to go in deeper she said no. finally after establishing some trust and pushing her to do it, she went deeper. I think sometimes people will answer no to something scary even though they kinda wanna try it. She also communicated to us with her body language that she wasn't ready to leave. While playing with sand K started throwing it, we showed her with our facial expressions as well as our words that didn't approve and to change the behavior. When K does accomplishes something difficult she communicates to us by jumping up and down as well as high fives she also gives us cues when she being pushed to hard.
ReplyDeleteThe student I work with did not have a lot of communication skill. It took a lot of work just to get home to say his name. If there was something wrong or did not want to do he would make noises or walk away. We were stacking cups as were there was not enough cups to complete the tower. I could tell by the noises he was making and his body movement that something was wrong. He then pointed and the tower so I would know what was wrong. Then we moved to the swimming pool. I could tell he was getting tired because he would just on and hold onto the side. When he was done he just went to the side and climbed out and put his stuff away. I knew just by him getting out he was done. When working with M it was important to point and even lead him to where we were going.
ReplyDeleteJanessa Frandsen
My student is non-verbal and so does not communicate with us through words. He does however, seem to understand very well what it is we are saying and trying to communicate to him. I believe that non-verbal communication is extremely important, possibly even more so than verbal communication. Facial expressions are very telling and a good way to understand how people are feeling or even if they are understanding something. My student may not communicate through words, but he is very good at communicating through body and facial expressions.
ReplyDeleteCarley Jones
Communication is one of the things M's mother wanted us to work on with her. M has a really hard time initiating eye contact, and I think that feeds into a lot of the hardships she has with focus and social interactions. M is very polite as I've previously mentioned, but she gets set in her ways and doesn't like to cooperate when switching activities or leaving at the end of the night. One thing my partner did that I really think could help the two of us communicate with M better is she got down to eye level and held M's hands until she looked her in the eyes. Making that connection made M stop and think for a second about what we were asking and she seemed to be more willing to do what we had planned once she did look into someone's eyes. One other thing I think we can work on with M is to give her options rather than ask her what she wants to do. We are trying so hard to stay away from basketball, so that we can do other activities to see what she needs, but the past two weeks we have basically gone with the flow and whatever she wants to do. M's mom gave us this tip because she probably saw that we were struggling in the pool; she said that M is generally pretty cooperative, she might say no or resist some in the beginning because change is hard, but she will go along once you show firm conviction in what you are wanting or if she can decide between one or two more tasks.
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ReplyDeleteThis week was a difficult, but fun week. Communication is one of our weaker points, so this past week we tried our best to gain a stronger trust relationship so J. and S. would feel more comfortable talking to each other, and they would feel more comfortable talking to me and my partner. Our experience this week was interesting. In the pool, J. and S. were able to play with the pool rings together and enjoy spending time together. J. even asked where silly S. was multiple times when S. had to go to the bathroom. Even though they were not necessarily communicating, they both would take turns throwing the pool ring to eachother. There was a difference though when it came to the gym. This week we were going to do both a more of a puzzle/game activity, along with a sport type of activity. J. and I were changed first from the pool, so we went to the gym and he was so excited to play with a game that you build your own caterpillar. He was so excited. S., on the other hand, had no interest in that and he started playing basketball with my partner. We had a trail here, because we didn’t know how to handle this situation. I tried to bring J. over to play basketball but he did not want to do that. The same was for S. when it came to doing the game. I don’t think we handled it as good as we could’ve. We ended up just being in separate areas the whole time because we didn’t want to force them to do something they didn’t want to do. In the future we are going to try and solve this issue we had on Tuesday. As far as breakthroughs, I feel that J. really started building his trust relationship with me. He was so much more outgoing with me this week and he actually started talking to me more than he did the first time. He was even telling me how his school day went and how he made cheese pizza, along with several other cool, basic conversations. I will try and be more effective with communication by continuing to build his trust relationship with me and continue making him feel comfortable talking to me. I feel like besides communication there is body language you can look at. Body language is a big way of communicating without talking. S. actually uses sign sometimes to explain what he wants, and so I’m learning those cues more frequently now that I understand them this week. J. uses his hands a lot and I’m working on understanding them by seeing what his emotional reaction is to things. One cool thing I did learn this week was J. starts almost making a humming noise and scrunches up a little bit when he is excited about something. I’m looking forward to next week and spending time with J. and S.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is a little difficult to understand what T wants. He is mostly nonverbal. T understands what I want I tell him and is very good at listening to directions. I have noticed that when he wants my attention, he will pat me on the arm or make a noise with his mouth. I need to learn his non verbal cues and i think that will help me understand what he wants. I think that I can help him by trying to minimize distractions and looking him in the eyes when I talk. also using simp!e short sentances. As i spend more time with him, i think I will be able to be better at communicating with him. I also think demonstrating what he needs to do before he does it will help him. I think especially when the child is nonverbal, those nonvdrbal communication is critical.
ReplyDeleteG is not super verbal although she does say a few things. I decided this week that I would try to focus a lot on verbal skills and I was very happy with how things turned out. I had her repeat some words in the pool, like “splash” “kick” “pour” “wet”. She seemed pretty receptive and repeated a lot of what I asked her to. Then when we went up the stairs to the classroom I had her repeat numbers as we walked up the steps and she did and also would say the next number sometimes. Then when we were in the room playing a matching game I would have her repeat what the pictures were and say the colors. I learned that she knows her numbers and her colors through our activities and so I feel really good about taking bigger steps in our activities and doing more learning that will challenge her. G also pressed her forehead against mine while we were in the pool which I felt was a positive step and I felt like she was communicating to me that she felt save with me and was comfortable with what was going on. G tends to listen to my instructions most of the time and she is very good at taking my hand and putting it on something that she wants me to pick up, communicating to me that she wants it. I feel that I could be more affective by taking time to look her in the eyes and watch for physical communication to more fully determine her wants and needs.
ReplyDeleteUsing facial expressions is a good way to communicate our feelings. Gesturing with our hands is another good way to communicate, especially with someone who is non verbal. I can use these non verbal cues by looking for patterns in her reactions, for example how does she usually act when she’s happy or nervous. Body language is another non verbal cue. I noticed with G when I would try to get her to do something that she was nervous about she would pull away and that when she was comfortable she would come closer to me.
It was so nice to finally meet DJ this week. DJ is non-verbal, but he seems to communicate with his sweet smile and happy personality. I feel like observation is a huge thing for this class. I observed different ways he responds and the different things he responds to. DJ is not a student who participates greatly in the sports and swimming, but Paul and I are working with him to get him to be more social. We want to place him around people and teach him how to act. He often runs away from us, but that is something we are working on. He loves to skip and had paul and I breathing hard by the end of our 2 hours. He is a very happy boy and I am excited to see what this semester brings. A couple of things I observed about communicating this week is the importance of eye contact. Being non-verbal, it is very hard to describe to DJ what we want him to do but it is even harder to know what he wants to do. Paul taught me how to just be patient and let him show us where he wants to go. Sometimes we get too uptight with the students and I think that breaks off the communication.
ReplyDeleteMy CAPES participant is non verbal and cognitively delayed so I am not sure how much of what I say she understands. She looks when I say her name. In the pool we were counting saying 1, 2, 3 i could tell she was trying to count 1, 2, 3 with me. We mostly communicate through facial expression. I can tell when she likes something because she smiles and giggles. I can tell when she doesn't like something simply because she will just walk away. I am still trying to figure out a way to communicate more with her. I would love to be able to know what she wants to do. She does not really respond to verbal directions so I tried a modeling approach this seemed to work well the first night but the second night it did not. I think next week I want to try and see if she will point out colors with me. I have noticed however that she does say bye before she goes home which is a step toward verbal communication.
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ReplyDeleteCommunicating is a tricky area with my participant. To begin with, he doesn't respond to most of what I'm saying, verbally or otherwise. If he does respond it's in the form of following a direction. When he does speak, it's only one or two words. Usually he makes sounds.
ReplyDeleteNonverbal cues, short and concise directions, and modeling are how I communicate with my participant. I watch very closely looking for slight changes in his manner which cues me into whether or not he has heard me. Small cues like his head slightly turning or cocking to one side. His ears perking up. Or even a slight change in direction. Usually my participant doesn't make eye contact but, when he does its a good indicator that he's listening.
I do need to work on talking less, at least when it comes to giving directions in an activity. More than a few words and I think my participant gets lost. He understands much better when I model an activity.
Our CAPES participate is non-verbal and it can be a challenge at times. But what I have learned is that we can still communicate with him! Being non-verbal is not something negative to look down upon. Non-verbal can be just as a effective as verbal if not better at times. We have learned that when he is really happy or excited he screams, laughs and has the biggest smile on his face. When he is really focused he has a blank look on his face and T is concentrating. For example picking up domino's and putting them in a cup he is very focused. I also can tell that he is very smart! He learns by seeing other kids examples or we show by example the activity we want him to try. It doesn't have to be verbal to communicate! I think non-verbal can be just as effective and useful!
ReplyDeleteSavanah Border
The first week communication was really hard. B isn't a verbal communicator. To announce displeasure B would just sit and stay down. I often forgot that talking in longer sentences wasn't really good and also asking without giving choices. B responds best to choices. It worked best if I pointed to the object and motioned what it was. That was super hard to remember. When B really liked an activity, it was often repeated in a short word. This happened every time I'd ask B what would happen next. B has a shorter attention span so I just let myself be lead to where B wants to go next. I think giving B the choice of what is done next gives independence. I did tell him a tentative plan, but with kids things never go according to plan! Definitely I need to look more into nonverbal communication and using shorter sentences as well as no using yes and no questions.
ReplyDeleteI am sure that A can communicate, however, he is about a 10-11-year-old boy so he talks very little. His lack of communication has less to do with a disability, but more his age and attitude. He was such a good sport because we went to rock climb and I had to be trained on how to belay (which is surprisingly hard). He was so fast up the rock wall!
ReplyDeleteDr. Z gave me some good insights, as well as A’s mom. He is mature and is ready and can make decisions. I need to give him choices of what he wants to do, then he can feel like he has more independence. Does he want to swim? Soccer or basketball? Would he like to try exercise equipment?
I think is there are clear choices we will be able to do more fun things.
-Amber Seidel
This week I had the opportunity to work with another participant, H was really fun to work with, H has a hard time communicating, but he was willing to work with us and repeat what he wanted to tell us. He did really well when we worked with the sand, spelling his name and counting. H is a smart kid, and has progressed much. At ti e I felt that he got a little frustrated with us when we could not understand right away what he was telling us, but he was patient giving us time to figure what was said.
ReplyDeleteB is a great communicator. I've had conversation with him about many things and there doesn't seem to be a huge barrier. B responds to all of my questions and to my discussion when I speak to him slowly. Sometimes, especially in the beginning of the CAPES program, I spoke too fast for B. B has had trouble in the past with language, but that didn't seem like a big problem too me. Like I mentioned some language flies by him but I think that's because I speak too fast for B. I believe I could B increase communication by working on his vocabulary. Some messages must be lost if B isn't understanding a key word. By teaching him frequently used words that he isn't comfortable with slowly, I believe B will be able to respond to prompts that he may not have otherwise.
ReplyDeleteA was sick this week, so I was paired with a sister of a CAPES! participant. A2 was a very energetic 5 or 6 year old girl who loved shooting the ball through hula hoop (which we did the whole time). A2 communicated very well verbally, probably better than I did when I was her age. There are always more ways to communicate, as A2 was very effective in the verbal communication I didn't really notice anything else. Of course there are other ways we can and could have communicated. People who are deaf use sign language as there first source of communications. Last week I noticed A verbally communicated more with me than I thought she would, however there was still a lot of head nodding yes or no to answer many of my questions. When it came to verbally communicating with others she refused to talk to almost anyone. This is something we plan to work on in the coming weeks.
ReplyDeleteMcKay Barker
My participant has a hard time saying all that she wants to say and you can see that she gets frustrated with that sometimes. I think having the patience to sit and let them try to form their words is helpful rather than rushing them for the answer. I think sometimes what I have to say can be a lot of information for my participant to take in sometimes so I have found that using visuals to communicate is super effective! The minute I put her schedule into picture form, she knew exactly what we were doing and it actually helped with her anxious behavior a little bit. I've noticed that when I show her by example she picks up a little easier than if I just verbally tell her something. I think that's important to keep in mind when watcher her struggle with forming what she wants to say is just watching her actions because that will actually tell you a lot about what she may be thinking.
ReplyDeleteMy experience with my kid with trying to communicate and do all that type of stuff is that it can be sometimes hard but then again my kid basically understands mostly everything that i say which helps a lot. some ways we can become more effcetive at communication is just taking time to teach them and doing things slower so they can understand then when they do then you can speed things up a little but i feel like at the beginning its gonna be a little difficult but afterwards you should see improvement with your participant.
ReplyDelete- Jeremy Maxwell
My usual participant was not there this week. I had a different participant and he had more of a hard time communicating with me than my usual participant. He did not talk as much and kept saying the same things over and over again and would almost get frustrated when we weren't doing what he was saying. This showed me that I needed to be more patient with him and tell him and respond to him even though he kept repeating the same things. It also showed me that I need to pay more attention to my participant, he was telling me with other forms of communication what he wanted to do. He would point and even through his body language I could tell if he liked what he was doing or did not. I feel like a communication with the participant this week is more of a weaker thing.. He need to spend some time working on communication. I think working with pictures, practicing listening, and following directions, and also showing him what to do and showing him visuals. It will help him communicate better.
ReplyDelete-Makell Hull
Communication is really hard sometimes. Sometimes I have to repeat myself a lot of times for him to understand what I am trying to say. We tried rock climbing this last week and it was extremely hard to get him to understand how to rock climb. I think that one thing that I could have done better is that I could have showed him pictures of a video. He just couldn't understand that you needed to keep moving your hands and feet to get up the wall. I think next time for sure I need to show him a lot more things instead of just trying to tell him.
ReplyDeleteKellee Page
The experience that I share with my CAPES! Participants are that of fun mixed with attempting to understand each other. S in not the strongest verbal communicator, but there are times where I can understand him. It is worth mentioning that S is a great listener and understands what I am trying to say if the directions are clear and within context. When we communicated the first time, I struggled with trying to understand what he was trying to say. This lead to me having 4-6 words that I believed to be what he was trying to tell me, which in turn, lead to frustration from him. After spending a little more time between the first session and this last session, I started to understand what he was trying to say most times.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest factor in communicating with my participant is actively listening and having patience instead of trying to repeat words to them to see if that is what they said. This has helped me in trying to understand S.
-Rohan Vajupeyayajula
My participant communicates verbally although not normally in complete sentences. When working with K, it helps to demonstrate what we want while we explain it. When she can see exactly what we are looking for then she can understand better and the goal is to make it look fun so that we can accomplish new tasks. On Tuesday we were able to accomplish a task that we wanted to work on throughout the entire CAPES! experience, but I believe that making K feel comfortable when we asked her questions about what she liked to do and then demonstrating what would push her a little bit was really effective. K responds well to positive reinforcement whether it is a smile, high five, or saying good job. If K was nonverbal I would make picture cards and use labels to strengthen our communication along with demonstration. I would also learn sign language if that was the best form of communication.
ReplyDeleteCommunication is something that is difficult for my participant and I. However, by picking up on his cues and following his lead, i'm able to understand what he wants to do and what he is capable of doing. We found a way to encourage this child through music. It was amazing how different forms of positive communication is able to enhance, excite, and encourage this child to want to work harder.
ReplyDeleteMy participate had a hard time communicating with me at first. I had to gain some trust and then he would talk to me a little bit. He is still not expressing his emotions verbally just through motions. As we get further into the program, I hope I can get him to talk more.
ReplyDeleteAustin Barron
Communication is essential in how we interact with each other. It is important for us to try to understand each other. People have different ways of communicating. Sometimes people use verbal, artistic, body language, and other methods of communication. Sometimes we need someone to help us what someone else is trying to communication. Interpretation can sometimes be a barrier to effective communication
ReplyDeleteThere is so much I wish I could express to my participants that they simply cannot understand in this point. Actions will always speak louder than words however, and creating an environment such as the one at CAPES! where love is expressed through time spent and the affection that is showed. Communication comes in all shapes and sizes, we just have to figure out the communication that works the best with each person.
ReplyDeleteMy participant was not able to speak so communication was an issue for my partner and I from the very beginning. We were both worried about how we were going to talk to her but eventually we figured out what meant that she was happy or sad or wanted something in her own language. She also loves to sing and hum music so we would do that along with her and she loved it. She was able to show us how she felt in her own way and her mom also helped us out and let us know what her language meant.
ReplyDeleteToday was really fun i was really exhausted afterwords but this is what did and what i learned. again we were in the pool. s was very happy to see us on arrival he gave us a big hug and said i love you. we played int he pool and had a really fun time shooting hoops throwing the ball together. we dove under some of the stands and after words went into the gym and there was a lot of stations available that we got to use. s was really interested in a jinga tower. they had these huge blocks they they would stack up until the stack of blocks would fall. s kept knocking down all the blocks.
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