Progression of Tactile Learning: A Developmental Checklist October 19, 2020 Transcript start >> Kaycee: Hello. Welcome, everybody. We'll wait just a few minutes as everybody comes in. Check the chat. Kate Borg is putting the link for today's hand out in the chat. Make sure if you post in the chat that you set your dropdown menu to all panelists and attendees so that everyone can see what you are writing. Jill's joining us from Weatherford. Hi, Jill. North Dakota. El Paso is here. Oregon, Nebraska, Virginia, Sonoma County. Let's hang out with Joy. That sounds like a nice place to be. Most of you have your chat set to all panelists and attendees. Make sure that everyone has done that so that everyone can see what you're writing. If it just says all panelists then people can't see it. Angela is here. Hi, Angela. Kate just put in the chat again, the handout for today. All right. I'm going to go over just a few announcements before I turn it over to our presenters today. We're so glad that you're here to spend this time with us. If you have a question or a comment during the time the presenters are talking, please post that in the chat box and make sure that your chat box is set to "all panelists and attendees." Your microphones and cameras are automatically muted, so you don't need to worry about that. The handout for today's session will be shared in the chat for immediate viewing and will also be available for later viewing along with the recording of this and past Coffee Hour lessons through a link on our Coffee Hour page at tsbvi.edu/Coffee Hour. Once you are on the Coffee Hour page, scroll down to the list of sessions where it says visit the new TSBVI Coffee Hour archives. It will take you to recordings, transcripts, and chat information. To obtain your CEUs for today, you will respond to the evaluation that will be e-mailed to you from ESC works. You will enter the code given at the end of today's session and the CEU certificate will automatically generate upon completion of that evaluation. There is no opening code, only a closing code and it will be given at the end of today's presentation. We will stop the presentation at 3:55 to give you your code and announcements. I am happy to introduce today's presenters, Sara Kitchen and Scott Baltisberger. >> Sara: Hi, everyone. I'm Sara Kitchen. >> Scott: I guess that makes me Scott Baltisberger. [ Dog barking ] >> Who has a dog. Today we wanted to go over with you this thing that we have been working on called the progression of tactile learning. It rose from -- well, we do technical assistance and, you know, people will have issues with a student who should seem like they should be learning, be able to learn Braille and then some other students, you know, there's some other issue that there's a push for the person to learn Braille. So these are kind of like the questions that we start asking people when we're like, okay, where is the student right now? So out of that kind of natural thing that happens when we're doing technical assistance, we decided maybe we should develop something that asks those questions for people and then give some guidance on how to make sure you know the answers to those questions. And so what we're going to do today is we're going to go over that tactile learning profile. And as Scott and I get done presenting some background information, we're going to review the document -- we wanted to do small groups but there are so many people in this, so we will probably have to do everybody does this for themselves. And I want to encourage you to click on the link in the chat. It will link you to the handout. And the thing that we are going to be making sure that you get a chance to look at and comment on later on is the draft of the tactile learning profile. So if you can make sure and download that so you can have it ready when we are ready to ask you to look at it yourself. That would be really great. >> Scott: Yeah, we're really hoping -- we put in quite a bit of work on this tactile learning profile, but what we really, really need, practitioners in the field to have a look at it and try it out with some of their students and see, you know, give it a test run and see if it's doing what we hope it does. And if it does it in a way that's manageable and easy to understand. >> Sara: Yes. So, yeah, we're excited about your feedback and telling us some things. So one of the questions pra we were asking ourselves when looking at this is where is a non-reader versus a pre-reader? When does the person morph into a pre-reader from non-reader status. And we kind of decided that we would just really not -- just kind of erase that whole question and erase these designations of reader versus non-reader. Because there's this kind of limit that we sometimes end up putting on kids when we classify them as a non-reader. And not really thinking of somebody as a non-reader, that means that they are not pigeon holed as somebody who is a non-reader and therefore strategies are different. If we can think about them more as somebody who is not reading yet. It allows for a lot more possibility in our thinking. So what this really does is we want people to focus on what the student can do right now, and literacy really happens at all levels. All of those things that you do in the sensory motor phase are necessary and they are literacy skills. All the things you do, all the interactions you have as a baby with your caregivers are pre-literacy, those are pre-reader skills. Every, you know, fine motor and gross motor skill, pretend play, all of this is working up to being a reader. So if we think about all those skills on a continuum and involve -- think of all those things as literacy, then somebody is participating in literacy no matter what level they are at. >> Scott: Well put, Sara. >> Sara: Thanks. >> Scott: So, yeah, just to go into it in a little bit more detail. The premise of the tactile learning is every learner is literate on a continuum of skills that go from birth and early developmental skills and early sensory motor skills into reading and writing, whether it be Braille or print. So it's looking at very early developmental stages, say zero to 2, zero to 3, students are learning concepts and they're learning basic motor skills without which they won't be able to read. So let's look at where are they at along that continuum of motor, tactile, conceptual, and emotional skills. It's also when we talk about how all these skills, whether they be whatever they're in, whether they are motor skills, conceptual skills, cognitive skills, they always occur in a sequential manner. You learn to roll over, then you learn to crawl, you learn to stand, and then you learn to walk. They follow a sequential pattern. Also these skills are contingent, which means you typically don't learn to walk until you have learned to stand. And, finally, they are interdependent, which is the interesting concept that developing skills in, say, your social level will have impact on how your motor skills develop. And vice versa. And then also looking at -- thinking about the way that a visual impairment impacts all of that. >> Sara: Right. And we looked at a lot of evaluation tools but most of the evaluation tools that we have weren't really working for this, you know, as far as just one tool. You know, they're not necessarily really looking closely at tactile skills only. And we really wanted to take tactile skills and think about what are all the things that you must, you know, develop before you can use your, you know, fingers to understand the finer bits of information that are presented to you. And so those things can be kind of in a big old chunk in a lot of our assessment tools and it doesn't really give us enough information or it doesn't give us all the questions to ask broken down into small enough bits so that we can really determine where the issue is. And a lot of times our kids aren't doing these things, so it's not an observable skill. It doesn't even put the child on the map in certain areas. So it appears to really focus on what kids cannot do. So sometimes the way that Scott was talking about how everything is interdependent is a really big deal when we're talking about tactile skills. They don't just magically happen. You have to figure out all of these things along the way while you're developing those skills. So and sometimes we, as teachers, forget that there are all these pieces that are working their way up. So this is a reminder. Make sure you look at all these things and, you know, in all these areas. >> Scott: Yeah, I think it's the idea of pre-Braille skills, and there are a lot of good instruments out there that look at different skills, developmental skills for children. We wanted something that was really honed in on hand development, on tactile skills in and of itself. And to look at them at really small increments, to really kind of break down how hand movement develops over time, how it develops sequentially so that TDIs, when they're assessing students and trying to see are they ready to start what we typically think of as pre-Braille skills. Are they really ready for that or do we need to go back and build some foundational skills in order to make that happen. >> Sara: Yep. >> Scott: So this is our purpose. This is the purpose of the checklist. We would like for people to be able to take this checklist and make a tactile profile for students who have visual impairments, and especially for those who are not -- who are having difficulty learning Braille or not making the progress you would expect. And, Sara, I always think about those kids -- and it's sort of like those kids that you think they should be learning Braille but they're not. I've gotten a lot of input from teachers who say we don't really understand why they're not progressing. We don't understand why they're not learning Braille yet. And a lot of times it seems to go back to this sort of pre-Braille area. The other part of this is that it's not just an assessment of tactile skills, we also have a section that talks about here's some instructional resources for targeting that specific skill that you identified your student as having. And I think we're going to talk about that in a little bit more depth, so I won't go into too much. Those are the two main ideas. You get a tactile profile and have resources to address that skill. >> Sara: Right. Tactile skills don't always occur at the same time or in the same sequence. There may be gaps and those gaps may be where the issue is. Sometimes the student has skills that kind of plateau because there are gaps in their underlying knowledge that create an impasse. It's hard for them to get past this because there are some things that they don't understand that's a basic skill that they don't have. So, yes, the checklist is developmental, roughly, but we really encourage you to do the whole thing because it may help from finding those little bits that are missing. And so one of the things that there may be some questions in there that don't seem relevant but we really feel like these are, cognitive, emotional, physical, medical factors. They definitely have an impact on tactile skill development. So one of the things that is also really interesting is that cognitive skills, just like, you know, any skill, they're dynamic. They don't stay the same over time. So if a child hasn't had access to information, the right kind of information for what their brain needs at the time, then they may not have put some certain things together. But, you know, it's really interesting how that interdependence of skill areas, how tactile skills are impacted by every area. Because you know how you see kids developing a skill like they are starting to move through space, however they do that. And then all of a sudden all these other things start to make sense to them. They start talking more. You know, they start understanding spatial relations. They start realizing that their world is bigger than just right within arm's reach. And all these things can fall into place at once. So gross motor skills affect tactile skills, finding their course. And one of the really big ones is emotional development. That's one that we've come across a number of times for kids who are, you know, they're not doing this. Like their teachers are like they're perfectly capable, they just don't want to do it. And then so we have to go back and look at the emotional development piece. Do they have this, understanding the written material being a communication thing that's important to them that would be something that they would be interested in, you know, both giving and getting information from. You know, or do we need to go back into connections with other humans. We know how the lack of vision can really impact a person's ability to connect with somebody, because that's the first thing we do is connect through eye contact. And that lack of eye contact can be really interruptive to social learning and the emotional learning, which is also a foundational concept for literacy. >> Scott: Yeah, I think about the -- in regards to emotional development, we asked -- there are a couple of questions in the profile which talk about the student having opportunities for positive interactions involving touch. And, you know, so it's a very social, very emotional question. But if you think about that, if you're hoping to do instruction, actually teaching of tactile skills with the student and they don't have trust in others. You know, if they are tactilely defensive because they haven't had positive experiences, it's going to be very difficult for a teacher to do effective instruction. So it's a real important thing to go back and look at and if they don't have that to see if there's ways you can build that in. >> Sara: Right. Right. It's not necessarily true tactile defensiveness in the OT sense of that. It's a learned response of I don't like to have my hands touched that way, and I'm starting to expect it. So I'm going to not let you touch my hands and I'm not going to touch your hands. I'm not going to touch any of your stuff. We've all known kids who have stuff like that going on. And, you know, it's a response to experiences that they have had. So there are tons of strategies that can help rebuild that trust that may have been broken due to, you know, a little bit too much hand over hand, I think. >> Scott: Yeah. And the other thing, I just wanted to comment on. You were talking about how skills impact development, how development in one area impacts skills in the other. And you gave the example of motor skills and like when the student develops orientation ability. When they have motor skills and go out and explore the world independently, a lot of times you see this explosion in cognitive and conceptual development because they are able to go out and independently interact with the world and test out, do some experimentation, do some exploration. And I think if you're looking at just like tactile skills, you know, before if a student is not reaching out and actively exploring with their hands and not actively exploring effectively with their hands, that is going to have profound impact on how well they're going to be able to use their hands to learn. So, again, looking at how those kind of things in the earlier levels will have significant impact further down the road. >> Sara: I haven't been monitoring the chat all this time but I do see something about a question about older students who can learn Braille visually but just never seem to be able to develop the tactile skills. She has a partially sighted middle and high school student that's learning Braille as an elective because they have very low vision or a progressive disease. So what about older students who can learn Braille visually but never seem to be able to develop the tactile. Huh. That's a really interesting question. >> Scott: I would think about -- so the student is -- I assume the student is learning Braille because he has a progressive condition that we are thinking he's going to need to know Braille in the future. But at this point, because you made the comment they can learn it visually. So they can look at the Braille dots and read them that way but tactilely they have difficulty discriminating between the dots. And I think that student is still a visual learner, even though we are projecting he will be a contact learner. It's hard to learn to tactilely read Braille if you're primarily a visual learner. It's just difficult to do. I typically read Braille visually. It's just a lot easier for me to do. I just do not rely on our tactile sense to the degree that your typical tactile learner does. But, that being said, I think if that student is learning about, you know, they're learning the dot count and they're learning about the Braille code that when that child actually does need to learn -- actually has to learn Braille, in that moment has a significant need to learn Braille, that will make it easier for them. Kind of having that information in place. >> Sara: I'men going to remind everybody again to go into the chat and find the link from Kate. She might post it again, just as a favor. To get to the handout and in a few minutes we will be going over the -- one of those handouts and asking you to look at it and comment on it. So we just want to make sure that you have access to that and -- oh, there's somebody who is asking so do you keep pushing for them to learn the Braille tactilely? >> Scott: Well, so I would look at where that student is at emotionally. Is that student ready to learn, is that student interested, motivated? Do they want to? Is it fun for them to do that? Because if currently there's no real -- this student doesn't see any real motivation or perhaps the student is emotionally distraught at the idea of learning it tactilely, I think those are important considerations. >> Sara: Yeah, there's a big transition time when you're losing the main sense that you use to learn. And Deborah says older students still need to develop their tactile skills if they're going to be proficient Braille readers. It just looks a little different. Yeah. >> Scott: Good point, Deborah. Okay. So let's look at development of the checklist. So here's what we did. Sara and I had a lot of help. We had help from Deborah Sewell, who just answered that last question on the chat. She works in our curriculum department here at TSBVI. We also had a lot of help from Ann Adkins, one of our fellow outreach consultants. Between the two of them they've got a lot of experience. So the four of us, what we've been doing for the past -- I don't know, Sara, how long has it been? >> Sara: Oh, gosh. I don't want to even count. [Laughter] >> Scott: We've been doing this for a while. What we did was we looked at the existing evaluations and instructional materials and we tried to pick out the parts of them that had what we felt was the relevant tactile information, we tried to pick that out and put it into what was more or less a developmental and sequential organization of that, of those tactile skills. So that's all. It sounds really simple. >> Sara: There are so many evaluations, though, and we know that you're going to think of more, and we're okay with that. >> Scott: Yeah. And so why don't you tell us about the format, Sara? >> Sara: Sure thing. So it will be a little table and on the first column there are questions. There's a short description of the skill and we try to make it chronological, but of course there are different aspects of the whole tactile learning. Sometimes they jump around a little bit but mostly they should be chronological. And then there's an answer column where you can record your observations and you can, you know, it's a yes, no, don't know situation. And then in the next -- if you have a no or a don't know, you can gather more information about that particular skill through one of the tools suggested will break it down further and help you figure out where exactly they are. If they're near that skill or the instructional resources is the last column, and that will give you ideas of how to build that skill. So we're hoping that this, if you can follow this flowchart and you don't know the answer to the questions, then you can find out by using one of these things. There are many tools and we did list as many of the most common ones as we could think of because we wanted you to not have to go buy a bunch of stuff. Or if it's something you might be able to access. And there are many tools that run throughout, you know, almost the entire checklist and those are also really great for doing a comprehensive sort of -- they may address almost all the questions if you use those. So there are four columns and I believe there are about 30 questions only that try to move us up through -- until somebody is ready to be considered a Braille student. And then there are all sorts of tools that can guide instruction at that level as well. >> Scott: Yeah, we tried to keep it -- we tried to make the checklist long enough and inclusive enough where it was actually -- we could kind of hone in on skills but also not make it too extensive where it just becomes, you know, kind of a -- more of a chore, an extra chore to do. So it's really trying to balance that out. But, yeah, I really like -- I think the evaluation information is really nice and the instruction resource because you can go in and if you see your child is at that point -- this goes back to the skills being interdependent. So if you find an evaluation that addresses those tactile skills, most of these evaluations also are addressing other areas at that developmental age. For example, I know we have the functional scheme in there for several things. And in the functional scheme it will address a motor skill at an age level but it will also address object permanence, communication, social, all these different areas. So it can be kind of a good way to approach your student globally based on tactile skills. >> Sara: We have a question that is the goal to answer yes to all the questions? I think the goal is to find where there are noes and don't knows and start building those skills so that the yeses will come. But if you -- yeah, if you find that -- this is for times when Braille just isn't working. And so if you have a yes to all those questions then the student is probably ready for Braille instruction, or pre-Braille instruction. So also somebody wanted to know the handout link in the chat again. So go ahead and click on that and get your handout. Kerry asked if this could replace the functional scheme because the haptic tactile section because the functional scheme is expensive. I do not believe it would replace the functional scheme. If that's the appropriate assessment for the student you want to get your hands on a copy of that. That breaks down the skills into so many small pieces and can be so, so helpful. There is a great resource on active learning called active learning space. If you haven't heard of it. That can really help any team that's working on functional scheme for a student. Many, many resources for how to assess and teach a variety of skills. >> Scott: Yeah. Yeah. The checklist is not meant to replace any existing assessments. It's really taking information -- because the information you get from this is really, really specific to hand development. And so the functional scheme covers 20 different areas of development. And I'm a big -- I'm also a real big fan of the functional scheme. I think if you're working with children that are having developmental needs at those very early age 4 down, they're having needs, the functional schemes are a really good investment to make if you're a TVI. It is costly but it's a good investment. >> Sara: And this checklist helps you hone in on what is missing and where to work now. Leave that all yeses for the future. If you're not there yet, you know, work where you're at with the student. >> Scott: Yeah. Okay. So a couple of important considerations about doing this checklist. It can really be helpful to have multiple evaluators look at a child. You'll often see children show different levels of skill according to where they're at. Whether they're at home, whether at school, even different people that they're with and different specialties. So an OT and a PT and an orientation & mobility instructor and TVI and a mom or a dad, all these people may see different skills depending on how they approach the child or even on what is made available for the child by the activities that they're doing. It would be nice to have several evaluators come in and look at it. Also, I know when I'm looking at a question I'll say, okay, well, I don't think they do this. But then maybe if I go over to Sara and I ask her, well, I'm kind of looking at it this way. Sometimes that can give you a little bit more deep, richer interpretation of what's going on with the child. And the same thing, a variety of environments. Try not to do a one-off on this. Try to spend some time going in and watching the child over time in different environments doing different things and seeing what you can find. And, finally, we recommend you do the entire checklist. Even if you have -- so it's not like you start at question number one and then you go up to three and they're not doing three and you stop. We're saying just go ahead and barrel on through and do the whole checklist because of splinter skills, because of gaps. So you might have a child that has developed certain skills in higher areas but you'll see some gaps there. And I think I've seen a lot, and Sara I think you will agree, who have seen kids that have these skills. Oh, they can do this but when you go back and assess it they're missing a crucial piece that is going to keep them from developing that skill further. >> Sara: Right. Right. I think one of the important things to consider when you're doing a functional scheme is if you're thinking about whether a child has a skill, generally it's an unprompted skill. That's a big piece of the emotional development. If somebody will only do something when they're prompted, is that actually doing the skill or is that just kind of putting on a show? For someone. It's part of that relationship with that person who is prompting them. >> Scott: Yeah. And, you know, Sara, that probably would have been a good bullet to include right here. >> Sara: Yeah, probably so. >> Scott: It's in the instructions but I'm glad you brought that up because I think that is very, very important. Does the child do this independently, truly independently and consistently. If it's something you can sort of prompt him to do or walk them through and they only will do it when you're prompting them and supporting them, then it's really not an independent skill. >> Sara: Chrissy has a question about what is the youngest child you would use the checklist with. >> Scott: The youngest child? Well, I think birth. Birth. You could start at birth. >> Sara: There are very -- I mean, questions about a person's very early experiences. And so, yeah, I think that would be definitely you could start pretty early. You know, give them some time to adjust to being in the world, maybe. >> Scott: Well, yeah, I don't mean like go up to the hospital and pull them out of mom's arms and start assessing. But very early on. I mean, it would work for children -- if you're not -- again, we're talking about literacy as being a continuum that begins at birth and that everything a child is learning is a prerequisite to becoming literate. So you could take a child who is a few months of age and go back and look at what are they doing with their hands and how does that compare to what they should be doing with their hands. What kind of experiences are they having right now that promote tactile development and are they having those experiences and can we provide them some of those experiences to ensure more typical development, or a more even progression for the child. But, do you know what? Maybe we should look at the list. >> Sara: Yeah, it's getting to be a little late, so let's go ahead and start looking at that. >> Scott: Okay. So we are going to put it out there. Give me a chance here. Okay. You guys, I'm going to share this on the screen but you all should have it -- be able to download it from the chat. I think Kaycee and Kate have put it in there about 15 times. They put it in there a lot. But so if you download and look at it you'll be able to sort of go through it yourself, because what we really like to do in the time remaining for us is you guys look at it and, in the chat, give us your impressions. If there's something that stands out that seems like really like, wow, I don't know why y'all are asking this. Or this is misleading or this is confusing. Or, you could even say, wow, this is really awesome. Y'all should keep doing this. Any of those would be acceptable. Any of those would be helpful to us, so let's look at -- I'll share my screen but you guys should have access to it as well. A draft version. So this is still very much in development. So here it is. We have kind of an intro and we have the directions. And here is the actual profile. So starting with question one, and you'll see there's a question column. There's an answer column. Yes, no, don't know. There is the evaluation and informational gathering. So that is where did you get this information from or how could you get more information. And instructional resources. So the first question of course is medical considerations. Is there anything that might impact their senses? Diabetes, seizure, cerebral palsy. >> Sara: There's a question about would you want number one and number four to be no. I don't think so. I think it's just something that you consider. If yes is an answer to these very basic questions, then you have to consider that with all of your strategies that you use and also your understanding of how to give information to the child, what kind of information will be meaningful. And so, no, they don't have to be a no. That's just more information for you, you know, if I'm considering where this child is coming from when they're learning. >> Scott: Yeah. Number two would be the same way. There's not really anything as a teacher, you can't really change that but it would be a consideration when you're working with that child. So the question, do they take any medications. And we talk about the child experiencing aversive touch, prematurity, hospitalizations, abuse, neglect, use of hand over hand technique. Talking about developmental trauma, environmental trauma. So real important factor there, many of these children will end up doing extended periods in the neonatal intensive care unit and may not be getting the types of touch and bonding experiences that we like for children to have. So, again, it's an important consideration. It's something to think about that might be helpful for you to address with this child. >> Sara: Scott, I think we probably need to give the folks some time to look over it, maybe about five minutes, and then we can come back. As you go and look over this, if you can type in any questions you have or observations you have or if you see a, you know, something that you're like, oh, this would be a really great assessment to pair with question number blank or a resource, you know, anything that pops into your mind. Just type that into the chat as you go. And, of course, we are still here if it doesn't get covered during this Coffee Hour. We would love to hear from you. But as you go, just if you could start looking at it and we'll give you until just about five minutes so we can get to all of the comments that y'all have in our last few minutes of the webinar. Does that sound good, Scott? >> Scott: Yeah, I think that will work. You guys look over it, look over your downloaded copy and just write in the chat in the feedback you have. We would be much appreciative. >> Kaycee: This is Kaycee. I just want to remind everybody as you get ready to write your feedback in the chat, to make sure you have your chat set to all panelists and attendees so everyone can see your question or comment. Thank you. >> Sara: Also your directions say type it into the question and answer. Ignore that. Type it into the chat. >> Scott: I'll be slowly scrolling through this, so anyone who didn't get the downloaded copy can follow along. We're getting some comments that the links aren't working. >> Sara: Thank you for that. We haven't checked some of those links for a couple of months, so they definitely could change over time. >> Scott: You know, Sara, I'm wondering if maybe in our -- while we were mucking around with it trying to come up with the draft version if maybe we -- >> Sara: Messed them up? >> Scott: Broke some of the links inadvertently. >> Sara: We may have. >> Scott: We'll check that out and we'll make sure there's a copy available that has working links. >> Kaycee: Sara and Scott, it was shared that it was mainly the one from the Alberta education. So they may have redone -- >> Sara: At the very top -- the very earliest questions, maybe? I'm not sure which. When you do type in, if you have something, definitely refer to the question if you have a specific comment about a link that's not working. That will help us find it when we go to fix it. Ready bodies doesn't work either. Thank you. It worked last time we tried it. I bet a lot of people are taking this time to fix up their websites. >> Scott: If the child falls off -- that was our idea, Brenda. Christy wants to know if there's a smaller version that doesn't have the last two columns. Not yet, Christy, but that's a good idea. She thinks it could be -- I guess it could be more easily stored in the student's folder. >> Sara: Oh, yeah. >> Christy says she loves the assessment and how they fit together. That's good to hear, Christy. Some people are talking about they're taking the links off the page and pasting them in themselves, which seems to indicate to me that Sara and I screwed it up somehow. [Laughter] >> Sara: Yeah. It's been through many iterations. Google Docs to a Word document to a PDF. So who knows what happened in the meantime, but we'll have to make sure we get all those things worked out. >> Scott: Christy said, wow, you guys did a lot of research. She pictures it being used for families with young blind children [Indiscernible]. Well, if you go to the assessments, a lot of these are, you know, are more global assessments. We just took out the tactile. So if you were to go into one of these other keys to success or ready bodies or the SLK guidebook, these would address other areas of development for the child. Not necessarily milestones, I think, but it would be -- it does address it. >> Sara: Heather likes question 15 and 16 because they remind us to follow the child's interests. >> Scott: Yeah. Yeah, I think all of us are working on it for very young children or children at early developmental stages of development, really following their lead and identifying their interests is very important. >> Sara: There's a comment about being able to mark something as an emerging skill. I think that is a really -- that reminds me of, you know, when I was in the classroom I enjoyed the evaluation or a checklist where I could find the emerging. That's where I would generally target, you know, write an IEP that had to do with following the child. That's where they're going as an emerging skill. We might consider that, Scott, having something to say this is emerging. >> Scott: Yeah. Yeah. That would be good. Missy says she wishes she had answers to some of these questions when she started doing Braille with a student that was very tactilely defensive. He finally came around as doing well. >> Sara: Glad to hear that. >> Scott: Mary said I tend to look a lot on formatting. I think this is nice when the sections break nicely on the page. Yep. Yeah, I heard that. Gotcha. Yeah, it's easier to kind of process when they follow nice page breaks. We will be doing that in the final version, Mary Noel. Tina said she likes it. To organize -- it would be great if there would be a way to organize results and a way to assemble to communication matrix. Hmm. Yeah. Hadn't really thought about that. >> Sara: You know, the communication matrix may align nicely with the way that the skill levels are broken down to see whether somebody is pre-intentional. I think we do maybe refer to the communication matrix, and we may need to add that into more of a question. But I do really like the way the communication matrix is organized and the way -- but it's really targeted toward the communication skills, which is so nice. Maybe we can think about that, Scott. >> Scott: Yeah. >> Sara: Like levels of tactile. That may kind of -- there's a presentation that we did that kind of talks about those various levels and we may be able to -- yeah. >> Scott: Mary T. says -- I guess Mary is giving us some ideas for more things to address, components for hand function, hand development, muscles of the hand, extrinsic, intrinsic, grasp patterns, release, separation of the two sides of the hand, arches of the hand, finger isolation, thumb opposition, open web space, end hand manipulation. >> Sara: I'm going to guess Mary's an occupational therapist. >> Scott: I think some of these we did address within the questions but those are all good things. >> Sara: And I think there's a reference to also something on active learning space that is more of a hand development -- you know, and maybe we only -- we probably need to put that on as a reference, Scott, that hand development. I don't know if we actually stuck a link to that in there. >> Scott: I don't think we did. >> Sara: We definitely need to do that. >> Scott: We referenced it. Heather says I'm wondering if the ability to follow someone else's hand should be considered. I believe we do have a question about coactive exploration of objects. >> Sara: Or at least we tried to. >> Scott: Maybe we didn't make that clear enough. But, yeah, Heather, we agree that is a very important part of tactile development, being able to follow someone else's hands. >> Sara: I can't wait to go over this chat with everybody in our group. >> Scott: Yeah. >> Sara: With our group that's making it. >> Scott: Brandy comments on the need to talk about -- pointing out that these should be independent skills that we need to really stress that. Happy face. What is the opening code? No opening code. Will a final version be a fillable form? Yeah, I think we are hoping to have this free and online and it would be really nice for it to be a fillable form. >> Sara: Yeah, and I think it's supposed to be -- there may be a packet of things that are harder to find on the Internet. You know, if we get any resources we can get permission to put in a packet that may be really helpful for somebody to have that as an additional resource that's just right there. >> Scott: So, you guys, we're getting close to the end here and I'm really digging all this information that you're sending us. It's really awesome. Charlotte has a checklist from active learning space. That's a really good one. But, you know, if you guys -- you know, this little chat we're having doesn't have to end here, Sara. >> Sara: That's right. Our e-mail addresses are at the very beginning of our handout, the other handout, the other one you're not looking at right now. And so you can find us, e-mail us. We would love to hear from you. You know, try it with one of your students. See how that works out for you and see if it helps you figure out what might be missing. Lisa asks how are people accessing this? I can't get into it. There was a link posted in the chat. And sometimes it depends on your version of Zoom. Most of the time you can click on the links in the chat. But, if you can't, it might be the version of Zoom you have. >> Scott: So here's an interesting question from Christy. If I have a third-grader student in a regular classroom setting who is having great difficulties learning Braille, do you suggest I use this checklist, suspend the Braille reading program I'm using, and put my energy to work on the tactile skills noted in the checklist? Possibly. Possibly. I would have to know a lot more about that student but I would think if that student is having a lot of problems, I would use this checklist and see if -- I don't know if you would have to suspend the Braille program completely, but you might supplement the Braille reading program with some of these activities. >> Sara: I think one of the most important things is you're working on something that the student can do and not just things the student cannot do. So, you know, it's going to be a positive experience for the student, which encourages learning and builds that student's self-esteem. And I think that that is such an important piece that, that, you know, if we're hammering away at something that's not working out, it's not going to make the student feel any better about themselves either. When they are experiencing success and learning is a happy, positive thing, then the thirst for learning, which everyone has, it's just that we're not always following the right path to give somebody the information that makes sense to them. So the thirst for learning will grow and they will be connecting with more people and more environments. >> Scott: Yeah. It's a basic tenet of teaching is students need to experience success in order to be motivated. So if a student is having a lot of problems learning Braille, they're not being successful and the motivation might go down. They might go do some of these skills, more activities around these fundamental tactile skills, they might experience success with that and be able to use that towards building their more finer motor skills to do Braille. Brandy says I think it could be used Braille. I have a student who struggles with tactile skills. This may bring to light why there are struggles. Brandy, we would love for you to try that out and get back to us. That would be awesome, Brandy. >> Sara: Yes, definitely. So if you all -- I think we need to hand it over to Kaycee now, Scott, so she can give people the outro code and other information on resources that they may need. And I'm really enjoying seeing all these things in the chat and different resources. And so if we have your information, we may be e-mailing you if we see something and we go, hey, what do you think they're talking about? Maybe we should find out more. So thank you all for helping us with this and for looking at it with us together and I hope it helps you and that the final version -- we can work out some of these kinks and make sure it's more. >> Kaycee: Thank you, Sara and Scott. And thank you to everyone who worked on this project. This is such an awesome tool. I want to remind you of different times for Thursday's session and Monday's session. Mondays are at 3:00 p.m. central daylight time and Thursdays are at 12:00 noon, central daylight time. Check tsbvi.edu/coffeehour for updates and registration information for upcoming sessions. Join us for what's happening in TSBVI's short-term program with Sara on Thursday, which is 10-22 and taking the angst out of literacy on 10-26. And then we've got TVI, an approach to learning media assessments with Dr. Christine Roman on 10-29. I do want to remind you all that Dr. Roman's sessions are our sessions that are not recorded, so if this is a topic you are interested in, make sure you block your calendar so you can attend live with us on the 29th of this month. Also the handout and recording will be available at tsbvi.live/coffeehour. Once you're on the Coffee Hour page you'll scroll down to under the list of sessions where it says visit the new TSBVI Outreach Coffee Hour archives. That's a link and it will take you to the recording, handouts, transcript, and chat information. On the evaluation you will receive from ESC works, there are two boxes, 10 and 11, make the additional comments you would like to share with the presenters and the event planning committee. Please let us know in those boxes if the date and times offered for Coffee Hour are working for your schedule or if you have other suggestions. And we always love to hear your ideas on topics for future coffee hours. Thank you all so much for coming today. >> Scott: Thanks, everybody. >> Sara: Thank you so much for being here. >> Scott: Thanks for all your comments and your suggestions. And we look forward to hearing more from you.