Idaho Video Fact Sheets

The Idaho Training Clearinghouse has a set of video fact sheets which explore Pre-Symbolic Communication. The video fact sheets cover assessing communication skills, asking for more, making choices and getting attention. Some of the benefits of the fact sheets are how they speak to teaching students as they work from reacting to an interaction or termination of an interaction to intentionally communicating "more" to making choice through movements, eye gaze and other forms of communication.

While the video fact sheets feature very young children with disabilities the lessons taught in them apply to working with all learners, of all ages, who are pre-symbolic or emerging symbolic communicators.

The Staff Bulletin Board

Each year I think carefully about the materials I hang on the bulletin board, wall or door I designate for staff.

• The Prompt Hierarchy (link is to Adapted Learning - log in first) is an essential tool for all of those who work with learners with any kind of special need, but especially those with multiple disabilities, in my previous position I trained all new paraprofessionals agency-wide in positive behavior supports and interventions and spent quite a bit of time on the prompt hierarchy, in my new job all classroom have a weekly one hour classroom and I hope to spend one of the first meetings reviewing this
• "All Behavior is Communication" - this is a banner that hangs across the top of the bulletin board
  
• Positive Behavior Support Reminders (another Adapted Learning link) is a little sign to remind adults when to praise, ignore, redirect and to always teach appropriate behavior
• Instruct, Model, Practice, Praise - this is my mantra (well, one of many), it is how all great teaching from the littlest newborn learning to babble to a six year old learning to tie his shoes to pre-algebra in seventh grade to a college level seminar in the disturbed child and adolescent (best class I ever took, by the way, props to Dr. Ellen Wright, way to use that Bloom's) is done; I hang this to remind adults that no matter what we are teaching, from cause and effect to using a spoon to row/column scanning we instruct, model, practice and praise over and over again
  
• The Beatitudes for Friends of the Exceptional Child this is a poster version (preview below) I made a few years ago, more recently I've seen a different version of this poem credited to the writer Andre Masse
  

Beatitude for Teachers of the Exceptional Child

Paraprofessional/Teacher Assistant Resources

• National Clearinghouse for Paraeducator Resources
• National Resource Center for Paraprofessionals
• NCLB Paraprofessional Database
• Para Connect
• The Access Center Teacher-Paraeducator Collaboration