TSBVI Coffee Hour
Using an Active Learning Approach with Infants and Toddlers (WREIC Session)
03/18/2021

>> Charlotte Cushman: My name is Charlotte Cushman and Kate Hurst is our other presenter. We've prerecorded, but we'll both be in the chat.  

>> I'm going to open the room. Just let me know when you want the video to start. And we'll start that and make sure when it goes on [INDISCERNIBLE]. minutes.  

>> Kate Borg: Good morning, everyone. We'll get started in a couple of minutes. Sorry we're opening the room a little late this morning.  

>> Kate Borg: if you want to let us know where you're coming from and joining from, that would be great. and again we'll get started in just about one minute. I will say, too, as we're waiting for folks to come in, it looks like there might have been a hiccup with our confirmation E-mails that typically go out 30 minutes before. So feel free if you have a colleague or co-worker that can't find the link for today, please feel free to share the link that you used to come in. It's the same link for everyone, except for our panelist. For those of you joining us, please feel free to go ahead and share that link. We've got people from all over, including from Sweden. That's cool. I was in Sweden a couple of years ago. It's beautiful.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: Just a quick reminder to people to select panelist and attendees when you're making a comment in the chat so that everybody can see what you write.  

>> Kate Borg: I'm going to go ahead with some announcements so we make sure we have time for our presentation today. One second we'll wait just a bit.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: and I'm seeing somebody from the UK and Canada ped in addition to our friend from Sweden and all over the United States. So welcome everybody.  

>> Kate Borg: As Charlotte set welcome everyone to coffee hour. We are excited for today. This is a session that is cosponsored by the western regional early intervention conference. So we're grateful to them, and I'm just going to give some announcements and then I will introduce what we're going to do today. So if you have a question or comment during the time the presenters are talking, please post that in the Chatbox. Make sure it says all panelist and attendees. That way everyone can see your comment or your question. We are going to be showing a video of the presentation, but Charlotte and Kate are here and they are going to be answering questions and engaging in discussion in the chat. So please make sure it says all panelist and attendees so everyone can see those conversations. Your microphones and cameras are automatically muted. You don't have to worry about that. The handout has been shared in the chat and so you can see that immediately and then it will also be available for later viewing I lorchg with the recording of today's segs. You can find that at -- you'll see where it says visit the new TSBVI coffee hour archive and that is a link that will take you to the recordings, the handouts, and chat information. to obtain your CEU's or professional development credit for today, you'll respond to the evaluation that will be E-mailed to you from our registration website. There is no opening code. I will give you one code at the end of the presentation. We'll end by about five minutes to 1 central time to go ahead and give that you code and some closing announcements. So I'm happy to introduce today's pre1E7B9er, Charlotte Cushman and Kate Hurst and I'm going to let them say hello and they can queue to start the video.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: Good morning, everyone. We just wanted to mention as Kate said we have prerecorded. We have some unstable Internets. So we want to be sure to get everything to you, but we did save about ten minutes for live questions at the end. So feel free to put your questions in the chat all throughout the presentation. Kate and I will be monitoring it and we'll see you after the recording.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: Good morning, everyone. We're so happy to have you join us here for the TSBVI coffee hour, which is part of the western region early intervention conference today. for our two-hour presentation. My name is Charlotte Cushman. I work with Perkins School for the Blind and also Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.  

>> Kate Hurst: and I am Kate Hurst. I am with Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and I'm going to start us out this morning and give us some background about active learning. First of all, I want to let you guys know that pretty much everything we're going to talk about, everything that you're going to see today can be found on the active learning space website at www.activelearningspace.org. This site is a collaborative site that has been built by the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Perkins School for the Blind and [INDISCERNIBLE] for blind children. We built this site in the hopes of creating one place that people can go to learn all of the basic principles of active learning, find resources for how to help others learn to use this approach and to deepen your own knowledge of it. Also just to share with people what active learning is. So what is active learning? Well, active learning is an approach that was developed by Dr. Lilly Nielson. She was a woman who grew up in Denmark. She had four blind siblings. She was the second in the family of seven children and she assumed a lot of responsibility for her younger brother from the time she was about the age of seven. So she started out with a background in visual impairments. She trained as a teacher and worked as a teacher and later went on to get her doctorate in developmental psychology. and during that time, she researched and developed her active learning approach, and for the remainder of her life, she continued to expand what she was working on, to write, to train, and to do research on active learning. She developed a lot of different pieces of equipment that you might have seen or heard about, like the little room and the Hopsa Dress during this time.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: So why are we advocates of this approach? Well, first of all, this approach targets learners who are developmentally between the ages of birth through 48 months. So for a lot of our children, no matter what their actual chronological age is, they are going to fall between that developmental range. Because of the significance of their disabilities. And we really got behind this approach -- one, because we've seen the results but also because more and more of the research that we're able to do now shows us that the earliest stages of learning come about as a child moves in and around their world. They learn by doing. They are little gobblers of sensory information and they take it in and they process it as they are going about being active in their day. if you want to know a little bit more about this, I came across a really nice little article from Michigan State University, describing some research they've done called movement can increase learning in children. So check that one out. Now I know a lot of you have quite a background neral I childhood develop, so this is nothing new to you. the work that Lilly did she based it on another work that describes early stages of learning. Looks at children developmentally from bishth to about the age of 2 and then around the age of 2, they move into what he calls the preoperational stage of learning. and I want to have you think about this for a minute. A child has to be two years old before they even begin to be able to represent the world through language. or mental imagery, to have things become symbolic, to be able to do problem solving and even at that stage, they still are doing things like assuming that nonliving objects have a life and feelings like a person. Before that, there is so much that is going on in terms of development of just foundational concepts and skills. That's what birth to two is all about. And it's also about developing the foundations for social and emotional skills that they are going to need to take them into the world as they get older. Here is another little resource I'm going to throw your way. One of my favorite websites is the zero to three website. There is a great little book and you may want to download it and take a look at it. But it talks about the same thing, that children and they are talking from zero to three, but in the earliest stages they are all about moving. Moving to grow their bodies, moving to communicate -- I mean, at that stage a lot of their communication is very movement-based. the way they connect and interact with other people is oftentimes based on movement, on touching, on patting, on hugging. and they gain their self-confidence and their self-concept by just doing things and taking joy and pride in their ability to actually do things with their body. Now, at those earliest stages, all of this movement and doing is serving a really important purpose for them. And that is, it's developing their brain. We're going to take a look at this wonderful little short video clip from the center on the developing child from Harvard University. and it talks about what is going on in a human brain at the earliest stages of development. (video)  

>> a child's experiences during the earliest years of life have a lasting impact on the architecture of the developing brain. Genes provide the basic blueprint, but experiences shape the process that determines whether a child's brain will provide a strong or weak foundation for all future learning, behavior and health. During this important period of brain development, billions of brain cells called neurons send electrical signals to communicate with each other. These connections form circuits that become the basic foundation of brain architecture. Circuits and connections proliferate at a rapid pace and are reinforced through repeated use. Our experiences and environment dictate which circuits and connections get more use. Connections that are used more grow stronger and more permanent. Meanwhile, connections that are used less fade away through a normal process called pruning. Well used circuits create lightning fast pathways for neural signals to travel across regions of the brain. Simple circuits form first providing a foundation for more complex circuits to build on later. Through this process, neurons form strong circuits and connections for emotion, motor skills, behavioral control, logic and memory during the early criteria Al period of development. with repeated use, these circuits become more efficient and connect to other areas of the brain more rapidly. While they originate in specific areas of the brain, the circuits are interconnected. You can't have one type of skill without the others to support it. Like building a house, everything is connected and what comes first forms a foundation for all that comes later.  

>> So children are very busy building their brains through their own activity, and so we have to keep that in mind and I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is what children need to be about. at those earliest stages. So now let's think about children with significant disabilities. Their life experience is very different than a typically developing child, you know, and we understand why. They often have extended stays in the hospital. They are born maybe with a lot of physical challenges already or health conditions. The primary children we're talking about typically have vision and/or hearing impairments. and that just simply reduces their access to the world around them, you know, vision and hearing are distant senses. and because they have that reduced access, these children, in addition to having medical and physical issues that can create a lot of stress, they have just stress from not knowing what's coming at them at any point in time. for a lot of these children, their physical conditions simply mean that they need more time to process information and to move their body. and if you're in a hospital or if you can't move around a lot, they have ache greater reduced opportunities for being able to repeat movement so that those movements become more automatic and require less energy from them to complete. Then the other thing that happens for these kids that typical children don't often experience is because of all of these different things that are going on, there may be delays in bonding with their caregivers. and that creates all sorts of problems when it comes to learning and development; but what one of the reasons that we really want to advocate for active learning is that we have a belief that children like this, no matter how great their challenges, can learn. We're going to start out by showing you an example of a little boy named Jack and how he learned through active learning. (video) the  

>> Jack lifts his head slightly and wiggles the fingers on his right hand. Jack lies on his stomach on a support bench with his hands in a tub of water with stones and his feet in a tub of dirt with pine cones. He moves the stones in the water. He brings his right hand to his mouth before turning it to the stones in the water. Jack lies on his back on a mat with chimes suspended above him. He moves the chimes with his right hand while wiggling his feet and toes. New video segment. Jack lies on his back in a little room with objects suspend over his upper body and feet. Using both hands he bats at objects and grasps a large wooden cast that net. He wiggles his toes and feet. New video segment. Jack is positioned upright in a Hopsa Dress beneath his bare feet is a large plastic pebs and attached to the dress are beads and a large piece of aluminum foil. Jack briefly touches rice and beads with his feet. He shakes a string of beads with his right hand. Jack pivots with his right foot in the tub of pegs. New video segment. Jack lies on his back on a carpeted floor at home. He wiggles and stomps his feet. He rolls on to his side and back to his back. He rolls on to his stomach and all the way over to his back again. New video segment. Jack sits upright on a large drum. A music therapist holds a guitar facing Jack. He strums the strings with his open right hand. (singing: Please don't take my sunshine away.) New video segment. Jack lies on his back on a carpeted floor at home. He bends his knees and draws his legs up towards his chest. He puts his feet on the floor pausing with his legs crossed. He lifts hads legs high and swings them forward rotating up into a sitting position.  

>> So we believe in active learning, and one of the important things about active learning is that you understand it's a total process. It's not just about a piece of equipment. and so what I'm going to do this morning is spend a good chunk of time talking about the principles of active learning. and even though we'll spend a lot of time on it, we're not even going to touch the tip of all that there is to know about the active learning approach. So I wanted to direct you again to the active learning space website and point out the principles tab at the top of the page. and there are quite a number of topics under that to help you better understand the principles. in this section you're going to be fortunate to be able to go in and listen to patty who is the director -- Assistant Director at the pen Rick ten center for blind children. Really go through and explain and talk about all of these different aspects of the active learning approach and I encourage you as you have time, go through and systematically look at each piece of this because the more you can understand the underlying principles, the better you're going to be able to implement a program and also to explain to other people why you are doing what you're doing related to active learning. We're going to start out by talking about what Lilly calls the five phases of active learning. One of the things that Lilly did is in developing these phases of active learning, they are actually guidance for the adult more than anything else. And they look at the child's social and emotional development as a way to direct the adult in how to interact with that child. So at first we're just going to talk a little bit about what we see in this video. For right now, I want you to be watching this video and thinking about what the adult, Cindy, is doing with this little boy, Jack. Maybe make some notes about specific skills that you see Jack demonstrating. Then also I want you to be really paying attention to his behavior and his emotional state. And think about -- do they change from the beginning of the video to the end of the video.  

>> Let's talk a little bit about what Cindy is doing. And you may want to put some of your thoughts about this or comments in the chat. Here are some of the things I think are important to point out. Did you notice how Cindy really didn't do a whole lot to Jack or for Jack? She simply held the objects that she was presenting to him in one place and she didn't stick it under his hand or put it up against his face of the she just held it out there near his body, but not directly touching his body and allowed him to decide how much or how little he wanted to interact with it. Also you didn't see Cindy do a lot of talking or making any demands of him whatsoever. And that's a really important thing in Phase I. Because what we see with Jack is that, you know, initially, he's not doing a whole lot. Jack has cortical visual impairments. At this point in time he's not able to sit up independently. He doesn't have a lot of vocalizations and not much in terms of language development at this point. So we see him as a fairly passive little boy, but as time goes by, and he becomes more interested in what she's offering him, he becomes quite active and moves his body and attempts to do a lot of things. His behavior changes throughout this video and if you want to see the whole video, we have the whole video up on our website and it's quite fascinating to watch a very long run of this. but he will play for a little bit with something and then he'll take a short break and kind of ponder it. And that's a real important thing that we want to do with all children when they are using active learning is to have time to process an experience that they have. You'll see this because they take a little break and during those little break times Cindy might make a very simple comment about what she sees him doing. But she doesn't interrupt him or distract him with a lot of chatter and that's another really important thing about active learning. So now lets e go on and get a little more information about Phase I. So there are multiple purposes in Phase I that we're trying to achieve with the child. the first thing is that we want to help that child begin to develop trust in us as an adult and just simply let us be with him and do things with him or her and not want to run away from us or not shut down. During this phase we are really expecting ourselves to be the best observers we can be. We want to observe the child's reaction to different things that we offer them. So that we can identify what he likes or dislikes, and also what they can do with their bodies, what draws their attention. We want to try to understand what their emotion Al level is. and we can get into that a little bit more I think later in the day. Charlotte is going to get into some reasonable forms we've developed that will help you understand a little bit more about sort of targeting different emotional levels. Also we're beginning to let the child know that they can make things happen. And that's why we're not doing a lot with that child. We're letting the child take the lead. So for the adult, we make no demands. If we have a child that is mobile and they decide to get up and go -- move away from you. As the adult you just stay where you are and keep playing and hope they'll come back. and if they don't after a little time, you pack things up and then you try again later. and the other thing is that anything that child does, any movement or any way of interacting with the object you accept. So if you have a child that's two or three and they put something in their mouth and that distresses you, you have to less that go because that's how they're taking in information is through putting things in their mouth and that's okay. Let's go to the next point. And this has to do with the dynamic learning circle. Again, there is a lot of information on the active learning space site about die animal I go learning circle and I really want to encourage you to go in and listen to that. This is something that is often overlooked at being as important as it is in understanding the active learning approach. This is something that Lilli came up with that describes how children typically learn. And it starts out in stage 1 with the child becoming aware and interested in something. and for our children who are visually impaired and who are Deaf-blind, that means we have to get something near enough to their body that they can encounter it. for a lot of children whose bodies are restricted in movement because of cerebral palsy or something else, we may have to get that object up very, very close to their body, almost touching their body. and what we often time see happens is they become aware of something through some involuntary reflexive kind of movement. and once they encounter that object, then their interest is peeked. Then you should see a child go on to stage two and that is where they want to know more about that object and they are going to start moving their body to see what they can learn about it. and that can be any number of things, some children at the very beginning stages who have maybe a lot of problems using their hands, it may be something as simple as just wiggling a finger to try to scratch on something or bumping a hand up against it if they can move their arm. So anything that child can do, any action they can take, that's great. And the child will typically repeat that movement again and again and again and I know you've seen this with typically developing children is whatever they can do with their body, they are going to do it with everything they encounter and they are going to do it a million times a day. Then at some point that child is going to learn everything they can from that movement and that object and you'll begin to see signs that they are cart of bored or what they are doing is a habitual response. They are not learning anything new. at that point you know the child is ready for a new challenge in stage 4 and so you want to adjust a little bit of novelty to whatever they're doing with that equipment or, you know, activity. So that it creates an awareness and interest in them again and the cycle can continue. Now I want to talk just a little bit about social and emotional development. Again, this is from the zero to three.org website. I just love this. It says research has shown that children's ability to effectively manage their full range of emotions, also known as self-regulation, is one of the most important factors for success in school, work, and relationships into the long-term. and I think that this is an area that for too long we've not paid enough attention to because we've been so focused on academic and physical skill development. but I think that it's very, very important for these children -- the ability to feel safe and manage your own emotional state is really crucial for learning. And this is true for children -- but the implication for children with significant disabilities, especially vision and hearing loss is that we have to help them gain good strategies to develop in these areas. in social and emotional areas. One of the 340ES important strategies is to meet the child where they ever they are and follow their lead and interests. For those of you who have been in the field of Deaf-blindness, we've heard this for years from Dr. Van Dyke and a million other people. You follow the child's lead and interests, and this means we can't ask them to attempt tasks that are way above their developmental level. and we do this too often with children with significant disabilities. We push them because they may have developed a certain amount of motor skills beyond what they are able too handle emotionally. They are not sure of themselves perhaps or they don't feel comfortable in front of other people or with us. And so we're not recognizing the need to address their social and emotional development as we're planning programming for them. One of the principles of active learning is to understand what is a developmentally appropriate activity. And I'll mention here -- and I know Charlotte will probably talk about it a little bit, too. Lilli developed the curriculum -- a collection of over 700 activities that are organized by developmental levels. It helps guide us with what the child might be able to do. We want to target where that child is developmentally, and give them lots of opportunities to practice so that they are feeling confident in their own abilities. Sometimes when we target something that is too high for them, we see a pretty negative response from the child, and this happens a lot with kids with significant disabilities. So we need to be better playmates and nurture both their minds and their bodies for social development. If we don't we're going to start seeing things with the kid where they begin the kick back. Oftentimes we begin to say this child is having behavior issues when it's really sort of our own fault because we're targeting things that are too high. So we want to take a look at this next video and I'm going to set this up a little bit. This video is -- again we see our friend Cindy and this time she is playing with her two-year-old niece Adriana, who is not developmentally delayed. and what Cindy is doing purposefully, just to demonstrate, is she's trying to get Adriana to do something that is developmentally too high for her. I want you to watch for a couple of things: One, I want you to think about Adriana and ask yourself do you see children who are significantly developmentally delayed displaying similar types of behavior? the other thing is what do you think will happen as this child gets older and they keep being challenged to do things above their level? Do you think that these behaviors might change over time if the adult persists? So let's take a look at this. (video)  

>> Cindy releases her hand. Adriana scribbles on the paper. They both repeat the same actions repeatedly. Adriana smiles at Cindy. Adriana looks at Cindy while she scribbles.  

>> When I looked at this the first time I thought, oh my gosh, that child, Adriana, is so patient with Cindy. She does everything she can to try to distract Cindy and say, you know, we really should be doing something else. This isn't a lot of fun or I don't know how to do this. and what I keep thinking about is if I'm working with a child who has developmental disabilities, and they can't get me to stop persisting on trying to get them to do something they just can't do, they're going to start acting out. and they're going to have a melt down and when they are little, that melt down might be they'll shut down or start crying or whatever, but as they get older, they may start acting out physically. in fact, we do see that happening a lot, and I think that that is the problem. We're making demands that are just too much for where they are developmentally. So we have to be very mindful of that. the second phase in active learning's five phases of educational treatment is called imitation. and we're going to take a look at a video in a minute and I want you to watch what the teacher does in the video to indicate that she is following this child's lead. and the reason I talk about following the child's lead is this is something that Dr. Van Dyke talked about a lot and Lilli does, too. When we start with a child, we begin by imitating what they do. Not the other way around. We don't come in with our agenda, we follow the child's agenda. We go where the child is going and we do this by imitating what the child is doing with their body. So if they vocalize, we vocalize, if they bang, we bang. We do exactly what they do. Now, as the child goes along in this phase, and we have a rapport going with them, and they really get that we're imitating them, we can offer them something different and see if they'll imitate us. but if they don't, we're going to go right back to imitating the child. So let's take a look at the short clip and see what you notice her doing. (vocalizing)  

>> So did you notice that she tried to introduce a new skill by making a slightly different vocalization pattern? Did you notice that when he didn't imitate her, she just returned to imitating him? This is a great example of what we're doing in Phase II. So to summarize Phase II, the purpose of it is to increase the child's interest in activities nearby. So again the child trusts us and they are beginning to pay attention to us and what we're doing and what's going on around them. We're helping that child feel confident in initiating actions themselves, way too many children who are significantly developmentally delayed are very passive. So we want to move beyond that passivity and have them feel comfortable in initiating. We're increasing their belief in their own ability to do things. and then at the same time, as we go along, we are more able to introduce new activities and movements that the child may not have learned yet. We're not interested necessarily that they do exactly what we're doing, but just that they become aware of it and maybe are willing to attempt it. So we imitate the child's activity. We offer new actions of our own to see if the child will imitate us and then if not we come back to doing what the child is doing. Then we think about, you know, did I offer them something that was too high for them developmentally? And we might come back and try something slightly different. Phase III -- this phase is called interaction and again we're going to take a look at a video and I want you to be paying attention to what interests the child in this activity, and also think about is he comfortable interacting with the adult? Then the other thing is does the adult seem to demonstrate good interaction skills with this child? So let's take a look at the video. (vocalizing)  

>> Okay, so at some point the child becomes ready to initiate some interactions with other people. And by this we mean that the child is kind of becoming more social and so they are interested in you not just to use you as a tool to make something happen for them, but they really like interacting with you and that's one of the main motivations for them. So during this phase they begin to learn that they can try to do something and if they can't do it just right, no one is going to get upset at them. And the adult interacting with them is going to provide a lot of emotional support. Once again, they are going the play with that child without making any demand on the child. As the child learns to do more things independently, his sense of self-identity and self-confidence grows. Children 'begin to want to attempt to do more and more things on their oh, but they may decide it's okay to get help or to allow help. And if you think about a two-year-old or someone just under two before they get to the terrible twos, they take a lot of pride in attempting to do things on their own. When we're in this phase, Phase III, the adult focuses on interaction and turn taking. That's the major thing that they are trying to have happen. So it's not about can the child do a certain motion or a step in that activity well, it's just that they want to take a turn and then allow you to have a turn. This is a time when we do a lot of those simple turn taking games with children. And it can be things like just playing clapping games with your hands. or doing little sing songs where you do something and they do something. It's just a real easy time of back and forth is what you want to have going on with the child. Some of the things that I noticed, and I'd love to have you put things in the chat that you noticed, is that this child is able to do some wrist rotation, but it's still a little awkward, and he's very interested in the sound of the rain stick, but he's also somewhat interested in the visual aspects of the rain stick. and if you notice the adult, she waits until he offers her an opportunity to interact with him with the rain stick. She does taingt it away from him and say here is how you do it. Another thing she could have done is that she might have used one of the other rain sticks and played with it herself to sort of model for him. at this point, in this phase, you want to be sure and have lots of duplicates of materials because sometimes the child is not going to necessarily let go of their object. So it's nice to have one of R your own that you can sort of imitate them with an object of your own. So in Phase III, our purpose is to help the child learn dependency on another or several other people. That they can attempt something and that they can ask for help if they need it. It's really important for the child's development of self-identity and it's also a basis that back and forth, that serve and return, the turn taking for social development and also for communication. So as an adult we're going to provide every opportunity for the child to familiarize themselves with the activity and to participate and complete movements. So they might want to do a particular step, say, for example, if we're getting dressed they might want to attempt to do a part of it and that's fine. We're not going to demand that they do any particular thing, nor are we going to overly praise them if they do something. We just comment -- oh, yeah. You pulled your sock on or, oh, you took your sock off. We're going to model activities as close to the learner's hands and body as the child will allow. When we do that, we want to be sure that we're using hand under hand, not hand over hand. and if during this time the child withdraws or turns away, you may have moved a little too quickly and you want to back off just a little bit and slow things down. and just return to one of the earlier phases such as offering or imitation and then move back up into interaction. I want to point this out, these phases, one, two, three, four, and five -- you don't do phase one and stop that and start doing phase two and stop that and start doing phase three. These are different tools that you use in response to the child's behavior. Whenever you introduce something new, for example, you're probably going to wanting to back to phase one where you just offer them the new object or the new activity and just hope that they'll stick with you long enough to see what's going on. I hope that makes sense. If it doesn't, you know, put something in the chat and we'll talk about that a little more in a second. Now, the last two phases, face four and phase five, first thing, you're probably not going to be utilizing these particular educational treatments with the children that you work with. in part because of their age, and also because developmentally to use phase four and five, you have to be at least a 24 month level. and a lot of the children that you work with during the time that you're working with them are likely not to achieve that level of development. but a few of them may, so we're going to just quickly touch on those and then I want to direct you back to the active learning space website to learn more about this. Phase four is called sharing the work. And the purpose of this is just to increase the learner's experience of success, once again, to sort of expand their social relationships where they are more engaged with the person they are doing an activity with. Then maybe, you know, pique the child's interest in learning some new skills that they may not already have. This phase looks a lot like any of the early routines that you would do with a child where you're maybe, for example, cooking something and if the child wants to help pour or stir, you'll let them. You don't have an expectation they are going to do or want to do every step in the activity. Then at phase five, this is when a child has really mastered a lot of the foundational concepts and skills and is pretty confident in their ability to do something. but what you're trying do at this point is to help that child begin to endure meeting the demands of others or a situation and managing their own stress. Because life has things that happen. We've all experienced that in this last year, you know, things happen and we have to learn how to cope with that. So we want to help them endure changes that they may experience, develop their self-concept, and also to start to develop a sense of responsibility for getting things done. So in phase five, what we're really asking the child to do is to take on longer activities to have an expectation for that child, that they will do these things on their own. Again, we're not going to deny them support, but we're looking to them to -- if they can't do it, to initiate a request for help and to at least attempt to do things. but again, for most of you, you're not going to be using this educational treatment because the children just simply won't reach that developmental level while you're still working with them. Maybe as they get a little older they will. Once again just to summarize, five phases of educational treatment offering, imitation, interaction, and sharing the work and I want you to really spend some time on the website reviewing and learning about this. This is really key to active learning. And if you want to dive deep into educational treatment, I really encourage you to seek out the book "are you blind?" and in that book, Lilli talks in depth about these five phases and why she developed them and what they are about. So I encourage you to go there and check that out. So we've covered a lot of information. And I'm going to summarize really quickly some of the key points of active learning. Again, on the active learning space website, patty goes into detail about the key points of active learning and I encourage you to go and listen to what she has to share. I think you'll find it helpful. First having all, active participation -- children need to be active. They need to be doing. And they need to be doing on their own, but they also need opportunities to interact. So in active learning, you set up environments and activities for the child to play independently and you also schedule at least 45 minutes of their day in ininteractive play with an adult. They need opportunities to repeat. So children need activities that use skills that they already have and that they can do multiple times throughout the day. They need thousands and thousands of opportunities to practice individual skills because skills build on one another. We need to be mindful that the activities that we're selecting are developmentally appropriate, not just in their motor skills and sensory skills, but also in their social and emotional skills. We need to pick things are reinforcing to the individual, and we do that simply by paying attention and building activities and environments that focus on the child's interests. That doesn't mean we never introduce anything the child doesn't look because sometimes the child doesn't like it because they don't know about it. but we have to be mindful about how we do that. So, for example, if a child really loves smooth, shiny feeling kinds of objects, and really can't stand having their fingers touch anything sticky, we might do something as simple as offer them an apple that we've taken a bite out of so they can explore on their own that smooth surface of the apple and then touch that sticky thing and decide -- maybe I won't stay there this time. Maybe I'll come back and explore it later. Having control over what your body and your hands are doing is so important to active learning. Then finally, limit distractions. You know one of the things that I think is so important for us to remember as a teacher of the Deaf. I was taught to constantly be giving the child language. and as teacher of the visually impaired, I've often heard them say I was told to talk, talk, talk. When a child is actively engaged in learning or doing something, we want to limit distractions. And one of the biggest distractions off sensorimotor is us as the adult. So don't talk constantly. Turn off extraneous sounds in the room. For example, don't sit down to play with your child or to have that child play have the television going on in the background if nobody is really watching it or listening to it. if the child is easily distracted by visual information, don't set him upright by a busy hallway where everything that goes by is going catch his attention or in fronts of the window with lots of things moving. So just think about that, limit the distractions, that's really important.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: Hi, again, everybody. I know that a two-hour webinar is a long time to be sitting. So let's have a 7th inning stretch and just reach up. Stand up, get out of your Chair for a minute. Shake your hands. We're not going to give you an official break because we don't have that much time but we do want you to be comfortable. Well, Kate has given us a wonderful introduction on the guiding principles of active learning. And now we're going to turn our attention to some of the tools that you can use to implement these ideas. We really wanted to focus on the principles before this part of the presentation. Because we really want you all to understand that active learning is an approach. It's not just a piece of equipment. I think a lot of people typically have heard of a little room -- oh, yeah, I know about active learning. I've got a little room. Again, I think Kate's presentation really pointed out how important it is to understand all that's behind that. Well, looking at equipment now, we want you to really remember that any child can become more active if we provide the preferred materials and the preferred activities. It's also helpful to position them to support them in their self-initiated activity and to let them have time without interruption from an adult and Kate really talked a lot about the importance of that. So on this slide we're looking at, we see a young boy and he's on a platform swing with active learning materials placed all around him. We're going to watch a very short video clip of him before and after. And I think what you'll see here is it's really about expectations. if you expect the child to be engaged, you're more likely to get that engagement. and in the first part of this video, you'll see that the expectation is that he's going to take a nap. and in the second part of the video, which is filmed just seconds later, right afterwards, you'll see that the expectation has shifted and he's surrounded by active learning materials and he's more likely to be an engaged learner and in fact that is what happens. We really see that transformation take place when the items are placed right next to him where he can explore and interact with them. Let's take a look at that. these two video clips are take own the same day. We see a young boy lying on his back on a swing. He's covered by a blanket and turning his head side to side and otherwise not moving. In the second clip which is just minutes later the blanket has been removed and active learning materials have been placed all around him. Notice how he has become extremely active. Kicking his legs, moving his head and arms. These two clips illustrate how important adult expectations are and what a difference the environment makes in encouraging learning and active engagement.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: I wanted to point out our getting started guide and the link is here on the slide and in your handout. It's also easy to find because it's right on the home page of the active learning space site. I wanted to point it out because this guide is a really great way to get organized and to help to focus the team and it starts with assessment and goes through equipment and materials, tracking progress. and a lot of other tips and it will point people to the places where they can get more information and if any of this is new, it can also be a really helpful summary to people who already have looked at some of this before. Another thing I wanted to point out that's a really helpful planning tool are the active learning materials and planning sheets that are on the website. and in this slide you can see four different parts of this form. It's all a single form, but there are different parts. and we are going take a look at each of those. We highly recommend that you use this sheet that can be found again -- the link is right there in the slide and in your handout. and there is a blank form you can download and also a sample one that's been filled out to give you more of an idea of how to do it. So it's best if this could be filled out by the whole team and of course that includes the family. We love working with early intervention specialists because I think all of you understand better than anybody the importance of working with families and being equal partners. We recommend starting out with looking at likes and dislikes. And this can be objects or people or things. Activities, whatever it is, the next section is pathways to learning. And this part is really designed to look more at how the child uses each sensory channel. So vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell and movement or proprioception. the third section is ideas for specific objects to include in instruction, and you may think this looks like a long list or a lot of blank spaces I guess I should say. but Lilli Nielson said you should have 70 or more of specific objects to include in instruction. So that gives you some idea of how in depth you should go with this and how important this really is. It's important to think of which sensory channel or channels each of the objects addresses. So again thinking back to that path ways to learning that we just looked at, think about the corresponding objects that you're choosing and how each of those might address those different sensory channels. You want to use multiples of objects, with similar but slightly different features and we're going to look a little bit more at that. for example, you might have a collection of different types of balls and they might be made of different materials. Some might be made of fabric, like a felt ball or a little -- or some might be look a cosh ball or a ping pong ball. They are all balls but slightly different. and I think Kate mentioned also you'll want to have a quantity of every day objects. You know, more than one for you and for the child. So you can each have one. But it's really important to have these every day objects and you can use that more as like a shopping list for things that you want to look for. the next area of this form is the social and emotional development checklist, and this really relates back to what Kate was talking about earlier with the five phases of educational treatment. It's designed to help you figure out which phase the child is in. And it follows a child's developmental age and is grouped in three month increments. This can be really helpful as it breaks things down into smaller steps than some checklists do. So we really recommend that you look at that, download it. Use it with the whole team to help you plan. Okay, so now you've done all your planning. You've looked at your getting started guide. You've got your forms, and now let's think about the equipment. and I want to point out quickly that we recommend that some items should be purchased and some can be made. And we'll go over this in a little bit more detail. but I wanted to show you what's on this particular slide is another thing we recommend downloading. This is the quick guide to equipment. This can be really helpful to help you select the correct piece of equipment based on the skills the child is working on and to know the purpose of each piece of equipment, including different ways it can be used. Sometimes people do that backwards, like you might find a piece of equipment in your classroom or in your school and you kind of decide to use it because it's there. But it's important to come at this more from the other perspective, and think first about what the child is working on and what the goals are and then think about what pieces of equipment might be helpful to target that skill. and this guide lists each piece of major equipment and the skills that are targeted and considerations for using that particular piece of equipment. This is another form that's really helpful for you to take a look at when you're trying to figure out how you can best address certain skill areas. Let's talk about things you should buy. We're looking now at a collage that has four different pieces of equipment. A child with her feet pushing against an Essef Board in the top left. a boy exploring things in a tray while he's positioned on a support bench. in the bottom right. A child in a little room in the bottom left and a child in a Hopsa Dress on the top right with his feet exploring different items. We're not going to go into depth on each of these because there is a lot of information on the active learning space site, but we want you to know that these are all available in the United States through LilliWorks. You can find the website easily by Googling LilliWorks. And we have a lot of information about these with videos and different things. the reason that we recommend purchasing these rather than making them, it's not because we're getting some kind of commission, but it's really for safety reasons and also the fact that a number of the essential features require specific design and materials. So looking at these -- the Essef Ford is basically two wooden boards that are held together by loornlg coiled springs and it's designed to work on on balance while also increasing strength in both the upper and the lower body. and the child can push off against it like the girl in this picture, or they can sit on it or stand on it. Many of you are familiar with the little room. As we mentioned earlier, but we really encourage you to go and dig a bit deep o'er the active learning space site. You can check out different configure rags so a child could be lying down or sitting up as in this photo or the child could be a little bit taller and sitting up. You want to find out how to safely put a child in a little room. We have a very short video on how to do that. You're going to find out how to use the panels and how to select things to hang in the room and a range them. Lots of videos are there and we have a one hour webinar that is completely devoted to little rooms. More than you ever knew you didn't know about little rooms. the support bench is for children who are at least two years old and who are unable to sit up independently and the child is placed prone or on their belly on the front side across it and their arms and legs are free to move. See Shaw a very short clip of that earlier in the video of Jack that Kate showed and it's designed to help them to develop head and neck strength while also coordinating their movement near arms and legs. and the Hopsa Dress which again you see in the upper right there, is basically a harness that's designed to give wheelchair users the opportunity to move their legs and to begin to learn to bear their own weight, to balance while standing and eventually to achieve the ability to walk. It can be hung from a single point or on a track. And we saw Jack using one in the video earlier today. So let's move on now to things you can make. We're going to look a little bit more closely at each of these because it can be really a challenge for some people to purchase major pieces of equipment. with many children home during the pandemic, it's really important to try to get them set up with appropriate equipment and materials as soon as you can really. So there is another collage here. And this shows a wrist scarf, a doorstop board, an activity wall and a mobile. And we're going to go through each of these thrft is a lot of information on the site about it. We're looking here at the resonance board and if you can have only one piece of equipment, this is what we would recommend. As you can see on the slide, it's a simple piece of birch plywood with a two-inch lip or rim underneath, and it's designed to provide tactile and auditory feedback as the learner plays and moves also and vocal eyes. There is a little vibration and again that's the importance of the lip is that the plywood is -- the lip is on the bottom side, right, and the plywood and the child is lying flat on it or sitting on it, it can be used together with a little room. Putting a little room on top of it or be used by itself. We saw that in the offering video that Kate showed a couple of minutes ago. Again, please explore it on our website. We have instructions on how to make your own, different sized ones and we also have instructions on how to make one you can fold up. if you're an itinerant teacher or therapist who is on the road, or if you're a family member with a really crowded house, it can be really helpful to have one that you can fold up. So again we highly recommend the resonance board. Lots more information about that on our site. Okay, position boards. This is another item that can be purchased or made. I should mention in the previous slide when we were looking at the resonance board, that can be purchased as well; but we do offer you an information on how you can make your own. Again, the position board can be purchased or made. But since they are pretty easy to make, we've included them here and there are different levels of boards and they progress from helping the child to open their hands and scratch, to grasping and release and the design changes slightly at each of the three levels. They go from having the materials fixed in place to a little movement, to having a longer string or elastic where the child can pick it up and really manipulate it. These are especially great for kids with visual impairment because items that are interesting to explore, they are easy to find, and they don't roll away or disappear. The child can come back to it and find it again. So that's a really important piece of equipment that you can easily make yourself. Here we're looking at the echo bucket. So this is yet another piece of equipment that can be made or purchased, and as you can see in this photo, it's just a simple metal bucket that is suspended by a chain upside-down above the child. and there are holes around the rim of the bucket and you can attach objects can elastic around the edges. and the echo bucket is really designed to encourage vocalization, so the child, as the name would suggest, gets a nice echo from that. and if the child is lying on a resonance board, that is really especially effective and the sounds are really amplified. Again, you can find directions on our website on how to make this. Here we're looking at a couple of different designs of an activity wall. On the left-hand side is one made of beg board with items suspended from it. on the right side we're looking at a blue fabric wall where items are attached with velcro. and in the image on the right, we can see that there is a pegboard wall where a child can sit and explore these items on their own. So it's nice to have items at different heights so children can explore them in different positions, and as we've been talking about earlier, multiples -- in other words, more than one of an item -- can be hung together. So you can see for example in the left hand photo the bottom right of that pegboard there are multiple metal cups that are all hung together. So one cup alone is not that interesting but you've got three together you can compare them, you can bang them together and really explore how they are the same or different. That makes it interesting in a different kind of way. Here we're looking at three different types of mobiles you can make. on the left is a mobile made of pvc pipe. Again there are instructions on our site how to make this yourself. The other two photos are of table top mobile it's which are generally for older children who would be sitting at a table. I wanted to include these photos to give you some ideas. With the photo on the right, you can see that those are all toothbrushes hanging there, and this can be a great way to help desensitize a child who may not like to have their teeth brushed. and just by having the time to explore those on their own, they can become more familiar with a toothbrushes and may be be a little less afraid when I comes time to brush teeth and this kind of design could be used to hang spoons or anything. with the pvc mobile on the left, that's something that can be used in different positions, so for little children, small children, they could be lying down and that could be on their back and that above them. They could be sitting on the floor with some back support or they could be on their hands and knees, a number of different ways they could play with it. So you can see we have some different plastic plates on there, but it can be really -- you can hang whatever you want and it's great way again for materials to be interesting to explore, but they are not going the disappear and roll away. The child can play with them right there. Here we're look at a couple of different examples of elastic boards. The one on the left has got the strings strung vertically. And on the right they are strung horizontally. Again, there are directions on the website. You are welcome to download and make your own. This is another place that's really interesting for a child to explore things without having them disappear. and the examples that are on here, you can see how maybe it would be interesting if you're not really able to grasp something, it's a nice way to begin to kind of get your fingers in -- if it's elastic and kind of moving with the child's fingers. A nice way to begin to develop those early grasping skills. but you can also get something out of it just through a raking or scratching motion if there is not a lot of movement. So again this is a pretty easy simple piece of equipment that you can make yourself. Here we're looking at some examples of vests and gloves. And for many of the children that we're talking about, they may have really limited use of their hands or their feet or their arms and legs. They may not be able to hold on to objects in their hands and might not be able to bat or shake objects. So these are some examples of things that you can make that allows the child to have things directly on their body. So in the image on the left, we have a pair of fingerless gloves and these are available commercially. And you can just sew little velcro squares on them and then attach items. So in the example that we're looking at here, they are just little brushes, and plastic beads that are attached there. So again the child doesn't have to do a whole lot in order for something to happen, just a very simple movement of the hands can make something happen. and if the child maybe puts their hand in the mouth a lot, this is suddenly a whole new tableau, right. They bring their hand up to their mouth in the usual gesture and suddenly there are things to explore instead of just sucking their thumb maybe. They could be looking at these beads or the brush o'er whatever it is that you've put on there. It becomes much more interesting and educational. They can explore with their mouth, with their lips, their teeth, their tongue. and this is a helpful way to really kind of redrect children who are maybe doing a lot of self-injure just behavior like biting or chewing on their hands or arms. This way they can find something to play with instead. In that middle image, we see a wrist scarf. and with this you just have a strip of velcro like a bracelet. And it's just got colorful shoe laces attached. And in this slide we've got small bells attached to each shoe lace. Can you put whatever you want on there. this will be good for learners who are just beginning to move their and and arms and that stownd of the bells could motivate a child to practice movements with their hand or their wrist. and again, the child could bring that scarf up to their face or to their mouth and that would again distract from some self-injurious behavior, but also give them something interesting to look at if they have vision or to listen to. in the image on the right you can see an account tiff tie vest, and with this there are strips of velcro that have been sewn horizontally on the vest. It zips up in the back and if the child is unable to move their arms or hands away from their chest or their stomach area, this vest can be a really interesting place to explore materials. It's a little play space. And the items that are shown here are a brush, a string of beads, metal measuring spoons, little wooden dowels, toothbrushes. So obviously put on whatever you want that might be interesting to the child, but this gives them an interesting area to explore without need to go move as much and this could also be made with an apron, you know the vest is nice and sturdy, but you can use your imagination on how to do it. Similar idea here, these are different kinds of belts. And again these are for children who have limited use of their hands or arms to be able to, more things right on their own bodies. So in the image -- three images here, and the image on the left is kind of like a cummerbund or a wide belt that can just be wrapped right around the child's chest or other belly. Then you can attach items right on there with velcro and the child can play with them right there or they can pull then off. the same kind of design is there for the one in the middle. That's -- again, that's a belt where you can attach velcro items to it. They can be attached directly or with little pieces of elastic. Can you s ee loops on there. the image on the right gives you a different example. This is a belt with holes where the objects are attached and this works really well for kids who are very active. And maybe they are reluctant to sit still and explore things. They are always on the move and they have interesting things with them all the time. Again, you'll buckle the belt in the back so the child is not easily going to take it off. This can be -- any of these actually can be really great to give the child something to play with when they have to be seated for a long time. Like a long car ride or back and forth to school or if they are sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office, all of these things take up very little space, very easy to make and they really are interesting for children to explore. Here we have a couple of examples of pegboard books, and this is a really great way for young children to begin to explore books. and to make one, you attach the items to pegboard pages. So this heavy wooden pegboard and you can attach them with cable ties or elastic, and you can find a few different designs on our website. We've been talking about a lot of ways to attach things with elastic and I want to just take a moment to mention that we really recommend -- particularly with a little room or some of the things that are getting really heavy traffic or use -- to put tubing over the elastic, to keep the child's finger from getting twisted in it. Makes it a little sturdier also and there are directions on our website on how to make that tubing -- to put the elastic through the tubing. I wanted to point out that the pegboard book on the right side here was designed by Diane, probably a number of you might be familiar with her work. She does a lot with kids with CVI and in this example all of the objects that she's showing are yellow. Because that happened to be the preferred color of the child she was working with. I wanted to point out that the holes themselves can be a problem for children with CVI. Can you see that in the slide here, there is a white background with a black pegboard and it looks like many, many, many little dots which are going to be super distracting. Can So in that case, you might want to put a black background behind this to just decrease that visual distraction and help the child to focus more on that object right in front of them. This can be a really -- you can do a theme here. Say if you're looking at this book that Diane made was things that you would be using in school. It could be like a little routine book. It might be about daily living skills. Here is a bath time routine. So you can get more ideas on our website. Comparables, we've looked at a bunch of examples of things you can make at home but now we want to remind you that materials don't need to be expensive or special ordered. and on this slide, you can see a photo of a very young boy and he's playing with different times of balls in a metal cake pan on a high Chair tray. and a set of similar objects that have different properties is called comparables because those really allow a child to compare weight, size, texture, color, right? So in this slide we're seeing the golf balls and the ping pong balls, those have very different properties, little rubber balls, little mini whiffle balls, again, a child can be learning a lot. Early math skills with starting to compare all those. And we're going to watch a very short video here and this was shared by Bess Dennison from sky high. I think a lot of you know her work. We're big fans. and while you're watching this, watch to see what the child is learning with these different times of balls and hair curlers, just using a baking tin on his high Chair tray.  

>> a bowl of balls in various sizes, textures and colors sits in front of a young buy. He begins to pick up the balls and bang them against the metal bowl. (banging) He grabs the largest ball in the bowl and puts it in his mouth. He places another smaller ball in his mouth next.  

>> Well now we're looking at some home hacks, and you may not have the money to purchase some of these things that we talked about. We certainly know that during the pandemic people are trying all kinds of ways to recreate some of this equipment in the home environment. and we want to give you some more ideas on how this might look. So last spring, a year ago, the start of the pandemic, we all remember, patty, whom Kate has mentioned and also Jessica who is an O. T. where Patsy is, they presented a one hour webinar all about home hacks and they showed lots of ideas. and on the left you can see a broom that's stretched between two kitchen Chairs, and those rungs of the chairs keep the broom in place, keep it from slipping one way or the other. And there are soda cans that are just attached with string hanging from that. in the middle image you can see beads that are attached just with clothes pins on a metal bucket lying on its side. Can And on the right-hand side you can see rubber bands that are stretched across a cookie sheet and then across some different plastic containers and you can add some water to those containers to get different sounds. but what I wanted to point out with these is really everything that we're look at here, these are all things that we all have at home, right? and so you don't need to go out and buy a lot of special equipment and this again goes back to the importance of what Kate was talking about, of understanding the purpose of these activities, right? It's not about buying a little room, it's about thinking about what the goals are for the child and how you might be able to replicate those in the home environment. So there are some fabulous videos of these on our website and we're just going to show you three of our favorite clips for you to have a look. We're going to look at one kicking the cans in the -- using that broom we have set up there. One with the rubber bands that we've got set up and another one that's got a tipping tray so you can just do this with ping pong balls, very easily at home. So let's take a look at those three short videos. (cans banging) (balls rolling across a cake pan)  

>> There are lots of things on the website that are ideas that you can try at home and we have two pages that were contributed by parents. They are all ideas that parents create of things they can do at home with their children. And one is for younger learners and one is targeted for older learns. Take a look at all of it and see what works for the kids you're working with. in the image on the left, you can see the hand of a young boy with cerebral palsy and he's got his hands open on a spikey gel mat with water beads there and this activity of course is not recommended for somebody who is bringing things and putting them in their mouth. So you have to know your own student or child to know what would work. but I think this is a fabulous idea of something, again, we have many of these things a at home and it very quickly can be turned into an interesting active learning activity. in that middle image, the family just suspended various types of beads and a tambourine and some other items just on a frame in the living room. That this young boy can explore easily and by thfg in the living room, he can be with his family and part of whatever is going on, but also have his own things to keep him interested and entertained. and then finally on the right, is a little girl who is lying on the floor and reaching in front of herself just to pull some clothing items through the holes of a plastic laundry basket. Most families have a laundry basket at home. This is not a specialized piece of equipment and it doesn't require any special activities and you can tailor this activity to be harder or easier, depending on what you're working on with a particular child. So you might start by pulling something almost all the way threw one of those holes and then the child can pull it the rest of the way. and you know obviously you want to figure out the size of the items and what will fit through the holes. Again, very simple idea that you can just set up in the home. There are lots of things that can be tried at home and in the image here, we're looking at an activity wall. So again just a piece of that pegboard that's been mounted right next to a child's bed. and this particular activity, while it was made for an older child who tended -- he had a real sleep issue and he did not want to stay in bed and his parents had it. They had run rag Ed because they never got enough sleep. So the TBI worked together with family to create this particular activity wall right by his bed. of course can you put this by a crib or whatever else you have as a play space. It just shows that by putting something where a child is spending time, you can help them to learn to explore things more independently. and create a play space just about anywhere. So you could also put this in the living room. We looked at the frame in the last slide of where the child is playing in the living room, but it could be mounted on a wall there or any communal area in the house. You can also designate a cup board or a drawer in the kitchen for the child to explore things independently. So when the family is preparing meals, you want to have the child in there, and you could just put say metal pots and pan was their lids in one cabinet that the child can pull out and bang and explore. You know, that doesn't need to be specialized equipment, but it's a lot about providing access, right, and putting things where the child can easily find these things by themselves without a lot of extra hassle or time. That becomes a learning environment, and maybe in another drawer or another cabinet you could put plastic or metal bowls that nest, all different sizes, really interesting, the child pulls them out, stacks them, puts them inside and bangs them. You have interesting things to do without a lot of adaptations. Can Materials -- there is a lot to say about this and lots again as always on our website, but I do want to go through some of the basic things to be thinking about with this. on this slide we've got two images, the one on the top is a tray with a big assortment of balls, and on the bottom one is common kitchen items. So small metal strainer, a wire whisk, some wooden spoons, and I included these photos because I think they really illustrate that we're talking about a lot of items, right? We're not talking about just one or two, and for many of us in our training to become vision professionals, we were taught to present one item at a time. and you know, this can be really puzzling to people who are just discovering active learning for the first time. We want a lot of items. So think back to that video that Kate showed earlier of Jack sitting on the resonance board with Cindy. Do you remember how many things were around him? Right? So this really allows the child to compare things and we saw in that earlier video with ping pong balls. And it means that their hands can always be in contact with something, right? There is not a lot of blank space and it's kind of like -- oh, what's this? There is always something interesting to find and to explore. and I wanted to also include these two images because, again, we're not talking about expensive specialty items. These are all things that can be found at home and I know -- Kate and I often hear people say, well, active learning is a great idea, but we just don't have the money to buy the equipment. Well, look at what we're talking about here, folks. We're talking about metal measuring spoons, right? Wooden spoons, things that are very easily available. So again keep that in your mind. We're talking about an approach, not specific pieces of equipment So back to what these things are made of, if we think about most children's toys, what are they made of? Plastic, right? So that's about the least interesting texture that there is. And we know that plages particular is great because -- plastic is great because it's indetructible. We're not saying get rid of all plastic items, but how can you expand that to other times of materials also. What could you introduce that's made of wood or metal or other textures that are more interesting? These can make real interesting sounds when you bang them. Banging metal and wood together is going to make a much more interesting sound than banging plastic. We've looked at some of the ways objects can be presented and they could be suspended from the ceiling of a little room or hanging in a mobile. They can be attached to a position board. Can Or an activity wall, they might be free-standing, and available for the child to manipulate or explore them. Again, this all goes back to being in toon with what the goals are for that particular child. Are you working on grasp and release? Are you working on scratch something There is not one right way here but we want you to be familiar with some of the basic principles. We talked before and I'm going to say it again, we recommend having duplicates so that the child can explore things and compare them. They can bang them together. and also as Kate was talking about earlier, you can play together with them. You can imitate. They can imitate you. It makes it a lot more fun to have duplicates of things. We recommend you might want to put these all in a specific suitcase. It makes transportation much easier to home or school. and you can have -- if you're able torque you can have a suitcase for each child so that really helps with hygiene and making things clean and separate from others. and also kind of targeted to the skills that particular child might be working at. So if you know the learner's skill level, you know what they can do with their body, with their mouth, their face, their hands, their arms, their trunk, they are leagues, their feet, you can select materials that match that skill level. and we haven't talked a lot about the functional scheme assessment, but that's something that can really help to assist in this area. Looking at those very particular pinpointing -- those areas and skills that the child is working on. Number of objects again, we're talking about large quantities, various types. You really can't have too many. What the things are made of. We've talked a little bit about that, but in terms of -- we talked about wood and metal, but you can be thinking about things that change shape. Something like those little balls that squirt air out of them, you know that can be really interesting, that changes shape. Maybe a hot water bottle. You can fill it with hot liquid or cold liquid. Different things that move or flexible. There are loads of ideas on the website. And what is it that the object can do? You know, can it be bent? Can it make an interesting noise when it's banged? Does it have a smell or a taste? So you want to look for objects that have multiple features that could appeal to the child in different ways. Again, think back to what we talked about earlier today about the pathways to learning and the sensory channels. So time to think back to that. Resources -- we've talked about a lot of different things today. And we know that each of you is really at a different place with active learning. Some of you might have been using this approach for years and some of you might be hearing about it for the first time today. Maybe you've heard about a little room but that was it. Maybe some of you are trainers or consultants and your main job is really sharing information with others. So we hope that as a result of today's presentation you are much more familiar with what's on our website. Whether you want to send the links to families and other colleagues or whether you want to explore these things for yourself. We try to kind of point those things out. So a few specific things we want to mention. We have a whole section on the website with just forms and that can be a really helpful tool to know about. Observation forms. So if a child is in a little room, how are you tracking their progress? How are you really able to demonstrate that when it's time to write up your IEP or progress report, some evaluation, all of that can be found there. We also want to point out that we have a monthly newsletter, and it's of course free. And you can sign up for it. All we need is your E-mail address. We do not share our lists with anyone else. So we invite to you do that. That's a good way to find out what's new on the site and keep up with changes. We also have a fabulous set of mod utilities, thanks to Kate, and these are all self-paced, online courses, and you can do them on various topics related to active learning. and can you do them alone, but we really find that a lot of teams like to work through these together so that you can maybe all watch it ahead of time and come back and have a discussion about it. or if you're really focusing on one tuck area, maybe you can all watch that together or watch witness the child's parents at home. So different ways to use that, but it's a fabulous free resource that's available on the site. Webinars -- Kate and I have done lots of webinars over the years. Patty has done a lot. We really invite you and suggest that you go in and have a look. They are all free. They recorded. Typically about one hour and those are all listed on the website and I wanted to really point out that Lilli Nielson has some fabulous books that we've listed them on our site and given you short descriptions. They are again available from LilliWorks. They tend to be a little on the expensive side. So maybe you can find out if some of your teammates have access to those, but Kate specifically had mentioned are you blind? Which talks about the five phases of educational treatment. Space and self is a real favorite that's all about little rooms. I love early learning step by step, kind of a great way to get started. The come prehencing hand looks at fine motor skills. Check out some of those and find out what's available. and that's it, folks. We've got our E-mail addresses here. We invite you to send us any questions. We don't have time for, but we are going to take some time to join you live and talk about some of your questions today.  

>> Well, welcome back everyone. There was a lot in the chat so thank you for your questions.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: I'm sure that we won't have time to answer all of them because we do need to end it about 5 of. But Kate and I will try to put some responses up on the website. This particular webinar is being recorded and this along with the handout will be on the website. I'm going to look at some of the ones that came in and see if Kate and I can answer some of these. Kate, one that Christina asked way in the beginning that we wanted to come back to is -- she says I have a question as an early interventionist. We incorporate home routines and how we can help with communication in home retunes. Do you think the active learning approach should be incorporated in this type of intervention? You Juan to respond to that, Kate?  

>> Kate Hurst: Sure. Yes, I do think that active learning in activity routines at home are important. I do want to mention one thing though. I think that there is a difference between activities of daily living and a more structured, more advanced type of routine. So, for example, if you're feeding your child or you're bathing your child or grooming activities with your child. You make that more active learning based by slowing your pace down. By giving your child an opportunity to explore the activities -- the objects that you use within that routine, both within the context of the routine and outside of it. So, for example, maybe you're doing some teeth brushing with your child, and that's always a real difficult thing for parents. You might give your child loots and lots toothbrushes to play without side of the activity so they become more familiar with it. And they might on their own pick up one of their toothbrushes and stick it in their mouth. They'll do things on their own when you're not trying to force them to do things. We suggest that a lot with feeding things. Give your child a spoon. Put -- or several spoons. Put little things on it that they might be able to play with like pudding. Doesn't have to be a lot. That they might get in their mouth and experience that. Yes, I do think you can. on the other hand, you don't want the make demands on a child who is not ready for it. So thinking how you structure that routine and what educational treatments of the five phases your child is able to handle is really important. Charlotte, do you have other thoughts?  

>> Charlotte Cushman: No, I think that's great. I'm going to keep going. A safety question I want to be sure we respond to. Somebody had asked about with those little gloves and things, what if a child can pull those out and put them in their mouth? Clearly, you need to be thinking about safety all the time, not just with those gloves but with any material with a child who does tend to put things in their mouth. You need to know your student, and what would be best for that particular child. Kate, I know we're moving quickly, but we have a lot to cover here. Another question I wanted to get back to, a great question, way back from the beginning, was Julie had asked about -- with Cindy on the resonance board with Jack during that offering activity at the very beginning today. How would you know when to move on? How do you know when you're done and when it's time to try something new?  

>> Kate Hurst: Again, this is where we get into the art of being a good teacher or parent. And that is giving yourself permission to really spend a lot of time observing that child. And I recommend if you can, to videotape yourself with your cell phone or whatever with this child so you can really watch what changes you see in the child. and if you go back to that dynamic learning circle, you're looking to see is the child first aware of this object? You know, have I picked an object or a material that the child can even become aware of. And I know somebody asked about do you touch it to the child? No, you don't. You're trying to get the child to move. You might get it really close and maybe you have a child that periodically just sort of jerks their hands or wiggles their hand and they'll bump into it. You want them to engage the object on their own. and so you know you have to really look close. You have to think about in that planning form, what senses are available to them? We think about vision and hearing, but there is touch, there is smell, there is taste, there is proprioception. There is a lot of other pieces we have to think about. And that's why when you're making that list of possible objects and we have those different sensory channels, you have to think can my child -- do they have a way to access that information? So I think that that's really important. I'm going to zigzag real quick to another question that came up. And this is about, you know, parents having time to set for 45 minutes with their child to get them to do something. You know, life is all about let's get real. And parents with lots of other kids in the family may not have time for a 45 minute period of one on one time with their child. That could happen in the school perhaps; but you do have time, I would bet, where you could grab five minutes and ten minutes, and for a lot of children that's about all they can handle. At least at first. So the notion is that you make time, because Lilli says the child needs two things: They need time to do some independent exploration. But they also need time to have adult-child interactions. She says at school, 45 minutes a day at a minimum. That doesn't mean it happens at one time. It could happen in different chunks of time. Let your child play by themselves but towards the end as they are winding down, stop and talk with them. Offer them hand under hand, do something with that object depending on where the child is. That's important. So for parents, don't beat yourself up if you don't have 45 minutes.  

>> Charlotte Cushman: Kate I would add to that don't forget about daily living skills. You're doing that anyway, right? You're brushing the child's teeth, getting them dressed, bathed, all those things and if you go into that home hack section, we have a whole lot on daily livings skills. I'm watching the clock and feeling pressures because I know Kate Borg is waiting on stand by. We hope you got a better sense about hand under hand versus hand over hand. It's a really important concept. We put a bunch of links in the chat which we will also add to our website, but please do contact us if you'd like to talk about it some more. Because it's really the importance is really to give the child more of a sense of control. So instead of grabbing their hand and putting it on something, to allow them to figure out when they are red ready to move from your hand to put their hand directly on something. I guess that's about it for now. We've got -- we gave you our E-mail addresses. So let us know if you have more questions. Again, you can watch this again. Share it with colleagues on the website. So Kate Borg, there is your face.  

>> Kate Borg: Here is my face. Hello from Utah today. I am home visiting my parents. I'm really excited to be here. My mom is in the background going like this -- she's been listening in. She is early intervention in Utah. That's what she does here. So thank you so much, Kate, and Charlotte. This has been great. Thank you again to the western regional early intervention conference and all of the Deaf-blind projects and schools for the blind and schools for the Deaf that have contributed monetarily and otherwise for us to be able to do this today. All right, let me go ahead and give you today's code. You will get an evaluation in the E-mail from ESC works. Either today or tomorrow, within the next couple of days, and so you'll want to enter this code in. And it is: 031821. One more time: 031821. andi e also put that in the chat along with the coffee hour website. Again, to get that professional development credit, you'll respond to that evaluation and then you will get a certificate that you can download with those hours listed. I just want to make one more note. We've been sharing this as well. The mental health symposium for students who are Deaf and Deaf-blind will be happening next month in April. I'm putting that information in the chat as well. It is -- we'd love to have you attend. We are partnering with Texas School for the Deaf and the Texas mental health initiative for Deaf youth to present that webinar. We will not have coffee hour on Monday because of Deaf-blind symposium, but we do have coffee hour on Thursday the 25th. It will be VoiceOver on iOS and our advanced level. She's done a beginning and intermediate and now we're going advanced. It will be great. So thank you everyone. Thank you again to Kate and to Charlotte. And we will see you all next week.  

>> Thanks everyone.  

>> Bye-bye.