TRANSCRIPT Beyond "Doing Fine": Why Our Deafblind Proficient Communicators Still Need Targeted Instruction 2-2-26 >>Rachel: Have you ever had a Deafblind student on your caseload or known about another student on a colleague's caseload where you thought, wow, this student sees really well. And can hear everything I'm saying. They're doing fine. They really don't need much support from me. Or have you ever heard or had a student that you knew had a visual impairment and maybe they wear hearing aids. But it hasn't really ever crossed your mind to identify the student as Deafblind? If so, you are in the right session. Today we're going to be going beyond doing fine. Why Our Deafblind Proficient Communicators Still Need Targeted Instruction. But first, before we talk about, go into proficient communicators, we need to know who is the student we're talking about. Pre-COVID there were several Deafblind Projects, several members of the Deafblind Projects all over the country, really, and the National Center on DeafBlindness hosted like an interest group for proficient communicators. And when everybody sat down and discussed who are these proficient communicators, they came up with these six different common characteristics that proficient communicators exhibit. So the first one is language and communication. So proficient communicators typically use conventional language. So American Sign Language, English, Spanish, or other sign systems. And as opposed to modes that are typically used by emergent communicators using maybe object cues or just non-conventional language. The second characteristic is general ed curriculum. Proficient communicators use the state-adopted curriculum for general education. It may be adapted in regards to scope but it's not an alternative curriculum. The third characteristic is the state testing on state-adopted curriculum. So proficient communicators take the state testing. So in Texas it's called the STAAR. But maybe in you're in a different state, they take something different. The next characteristic is an approved academic graduation plan. So proficient communicators are working towards that high school diploma that meets standards for the state, with or without accommodations. But be aware that -- be on the lookout for some of the proficient communicators that may be inappropriately tracked. So we're talking about, you know, you were on like the regular graduation plan, not graduation by IEP. The next characteristic is social skills. So our proficient communicators may have a really good understanding of social dynamics. They're very keenly aware of their peers. They may be able to start comparing themselves to their peers. But they still need that support to interact and make friends. And then the last one -- and it's a big one -- is intellectual disability. So testing typically will indicate that our proficient communicators are functioning within the normal range as opposed to having scores that indicate an intellectual disability. But -- and this is a very, very big but -- we have to be super careful with this. Because as we know, our cognitive testing isn't normed for our students who are Deafblind. And far too often our students are at risk for being labeled ID due to inappropriate testing. So if you have a student or students that meet all or most of these characteristics, you are likely serving a proficient communicator. And we need to make sure that we're addressing some of the most important needs. So according to last year's Texas Deafblind Count, we got 898 students identified as Deafblind last year. This year, the numbers aren't formally out yet, but we are up from that. Which is great because that means that more Deafblind friends are getting identified. And that is really great. And so out of this 898, 476 students took the STAAR with or without accommodations. Okay? And then that is really the only metric that we have right now to see who may be a proficient communicator. So this is the STAAR test that everybody takes. So STAAR alt, all the STAARs. Out of that 476, 178 took the regular STAAR with or without accommodations. As I mentioned, this is really the only metric that we have right now to find those students is to look at state testing. So who is eligible to take the STAAR with or without accommodations. And who is taking it without accommodations. So this, we feel, is a very low-ball number because we feel that some students may be mistakenly on the VI Registry count, under 504 or they aren't being properly identified. So we want to find these students so that we can put them under the Deafblind Child Count. These numbers need to be there to be reflected to influence our policy change. Okay. So 178 students took the STAAR with or without accommodations. That's 37%. Okay. So that's more than a third of our Deafblind students who are taking the STAAR could be targeted as proficient communicators. And, again, I think that this is a very low-ball number. I think there's a lot more out there and we're here today to talk about this so that we can identify them properly. So how can we make sure that we are identifying these students? A while ago there were a few state Deafblind Project members. These are Maurice Belote, Robbie Blaha, and Debbie Sanders. They developed a tool for proficient communicator identification. And they did this just before COVID. But after COVID hit, all of these proceeds kind of like shut down. So we picked it back up in 2019 -- no, we picked it back up in I think 2023 and relooked at it and put out this current version here, as of 2025. And so what we are hoping is that many individuals around the State of Texas and other state Deafblind Projects can utilize these projects. We're trying to find more proficient communicators. Yes, they are still a minority of our Deafblind population. The majority of our Deafblind population is still those with complex access needs. However, this is a growing number and we keep seeing that number pretty steady. Like over a third. And that is a pretty significant chunk. We want to make sure that we're identifying them. And so we would like to gather more information about students all over. Like here in Texas, especially, because we're here in Texas. But if you in other states that are joining us today, if you feel that this is a tool that could be beneficial for you and your team, please contact me so we can talk more about how to utilize it. All right. So it's really important to note that proficient communicators, although they are the lower number of our total Deafblind population, they are faced with some of the same underlying barriers as our emergent communicators. Such as they also may have issues with gathering important incidental information that may lead to incomplete or inaccurate concepts as they are growing up. 80% to 90% of what all of us know is gathered through incidental learning or what we observe through our eyes and our ears. And so when there is a barrier to that access, then we start to miss pieces of information. Also, our students who are proficient communicators need that additional time to gather that information and to have that processing time to respond. So in general, they may look like they are just fine. But they may not be. It really, really -- this really hits in middle school. Because as we go through this transition from elementary to middle, middle to high school, we know that more responsibility and more is expected of them and it starts to get really overwhelming. And so this misperception of our students who are proficient communicators who look like they're doing just fine, this really can lead teams to overlook ongoing instructional needs. Okay. So how do proficient communicators fall within the federal definition of Deafblind? So the federal definition says that DeafBlindness means concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental educational needs that they, the children, cannot be accommodated in special education programs designed solely for children with deafness or children with blindness. How do proficient communicators fall here? Because it's not that the student isn't able to communicate. We already talked about that the student already uses conventional communication. But it is about the student needing specialized instruction in areas specific to their combination of hearing and visual access needs. They can be a straight-A student and still need specialized instruction outside of typical DHH, Deaf or Hard of Hearing, and VI services to support their education, development, and educational needs. All right. So over the years, Robbie Blaha, who was formerly with us, and the rest of the Texas Deafblind Project team noticed there were similar trends that kept coming up during consultation across the state. And so these trends were compiled into 12 areas. 12 considerations for specialized instruction. All right. So the first one is concepts. So address the requisite concept or foundational concept development through assessment and instruction. So as we mentioned before, because of that barrier to that access, being Deafblind can result in gaps in the foundational information that are really essential for developing concepts. So identifying and then remediating those gaps is really necessary for progress in the general curriculum. And requisite concept development is an area that has to be systematically and constantly evaluated. So, there is a tool -- and I'm going to show you this tool really quickly. This is a tool for looking at those requisite skills. These are focused on science and social studies. Because typically daily schedule is going to have a lot of emphasis on math and English Language Arts. And so the purpose of this is to identify those gaps in essential concepts and then have that be the starting point for instruction. We know already that our students are in the general ed classrooms, they're accessing that curriculum. They're doing pretty well. But as we go through, we notice that there are splintered skills where we think they may understand a concept but then when we dig deeper, there's kind of like a -- the understanding of the concept is a little bit skewed. And so for this requisite concept tool, there are four primary goals. So to make -- so one of them is to be able to make realistic decisions or conclusions about how the world works. And to be able to have conversation about that. To be able to use known concepts and then relate to more complex or expanded information to draw new conclusions. Another goal is to make connections by understanding and contributing some informal changes, having that conversation with other people outside of your immediate environment. And then to establish and independently pursue personal interests. So having enough knowledge, gaining new knowledge, and then wanting to be curious about gaining even more knowledge. And these are the goals that we want this tool to have. But this isn't a standalone tool. It's not this tool that you can just pick up and kind of go through it together. It goes through all of the TEKS, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, from pre-K all the way up to eighth grade. There's a lot of information. But what I do really like about this tool is that it explains what the foundational concept is and then for that age group, how does that look? Like, what is the demonstration of that goal for the particular age range? And so we are really looking for teams to pilot and utilize the effectiveness of this tool. So if you are interested in looking at a piece of this, please contact me so that way we can start going through this together. I'm going to go back here. All right. The second specialized area is to prioritize content. So prioritizing the curricular content and develop standards based in IEP in core subjects. For students who are Deafblind, gathering information takes longer. We need to slow down the pace. You know, those varying degrees of vision and hearing could prohibit that incidental learning. And so what we need to do is look at the entire scope of the information of the curriculum and then really hone it in. So that way we can make sure that we are hitting on the most crucial pieces of information for the student to have understanding and to be able to move on to that next area. Or level. And so prioritizing that curricular content, it narrows the focus of the curriculum. So that way it's not so overwhelming but it's both manageable and instructive. All right. Looking at comprehension checks. So being very clear about defining what comprehension checks look like and then including that description into the student's IEP and their accommodations. So without knowing what the student's existing level of conceptual understanding is, we're not really able to help them understand what's next. Like, what is the more complex piece. And we can really gain insight into their knowledge by doing effective comprehension checks. Instead of asking, do you understand? The answer is always going to be "yes." Instead of: Do you need any help? The answer is always: No, I don't need any help. Maybe a more effective way to have a comprehension check is to say: Can you explain what that word or that concept means to me? So that way if a student is explaining it back to you, we are gaining more insight into what their understanding of how the concept was presented to them. All right. And so now what we're going to do is we're going to look at a video. [Video] >>Rachel: Okay. For this student, there was the classroom teacher, there was the interpreter, and the man that was next to him was his intervener. After the teacher and the interpreter were talking about the lesson, then they go back to their one-on-one session so that the intervener can decipher do you understand what they were talking about? He did ask a yes or no question. However, he did pull it out of the student, do you understand why this is happening? They did a little more digging in deeper and actually making connections to something that he does know. It's like a cup. The water won't go through. This is just an example of an effective comprehension check. All right. So the fourth area is extra time. So building in time into the day to intervene. Maybe adding like an elective or time in a resource classroom. So in the school district, I had my students and we had our own time for VI. And for high school, we used this as a local elective, like local credit. And so in Texas they're called innovative courses but I'm not sure if other states also have the same capability of being able to do that. But they just count as local credits and all of our students who are blind/low vision have access to be able to have these classes. Students who are Deafblind may need that additional instruction to master essential concepts. And in a regular classroom, there just isn't enough time to be able to do that, especially when we're trying to pursue those personal interests. And so having that extra time and that extra class time is really helpful. And so maybe creating that elective, that one class to either pre-teach, reteach, or using that time as those targeted comprehension checks. And we can't really expect that our students are going to learn the exact same scope at the same rate as their typical peers that have typical vision and hearing. But we need to help them be able to understand what the concept is that we're teaching and have that time for them to be able to explain it. Okay. Just a little bit of background knowledge on this. This is me with a former student of mine. And what we're looking at is the entire world that is mapped out on butcher paper. The entire world, all the continents and everything are outlined in glue gun. And then she was really very interested in time zones. So all of those black lines that you see are all the time zones of the world. And then after that, she was interested in which part is land, which part is water. Just because it's really hard to distinguish when it's just a whole big sheet of raised lines. So then we started looking at small bodies of water and trying to identify them. Then she wanted to know about those small bodies of water. [Video] >>Rachel: She asked if you could swim in the Red Sea. [Video] >>Rachel: Okay. So looking at this lesson, she was really, really interested in figuring out if you could swim in these different bodies of water. And then it went into are there sharks there? And then it went into -- so we're going through all of these different bodies of water and she's creating like a whole document about what the bodies of water are called, whether or not it's safe to swim, and whether or not there are sharks there. And so she was really, really interested in this topic. But this really isn't something that you can go in depth on in a Gen Ed classroom. This was a really important time for her to be able to set aside so she could pursue those personal interests. The fifth area is adapting assignments. So just looking at our students who are Deafblind, they just have to work so much harder than their peers to gather that information. And they often experience a lot of fatigue. So they are working on assignments all throughout the day and they are working so hard to gather all the information visually, all the information auditorially. They're trying to keep up with the pace. They're trying to keep up with all the homework and they are working well into the night. So they are looking at some different ways to adapt assignments. Or maybe come up with some strategies to reduce or maybe even eliminate some homework, may be necessary for some of our students and maybe providing some alternative assignments where the student can apply their knowledge or demonstrate their understanding in some other way would be really helpful. So there are different ways you could do this. Looking at shortening, providing extra time. Looking at alternative ways to exhibit the knowledge. So just looking at that, just because of how much they're having to focus and work, just to get in the information into the day. [Video] >>Rachel: Here is a student who is just working on his times tables. As his intervener is calling them out, he is just orally just calling back out those numbers. And that is just reducing that fatigue and that stress of having to work on all of these other skills when he's just needing to work on his multiplication facts. All right. So technology. Often our students who are Deafblind require a lot more technology than their peers. So they may acquire, they may be more responsible for a lot more devices than other students. And so it's going to be important to create a plan on how that technology is handled. For example, who is in charge of like charging up the devices? Who is in charge of carrying it? Who is in charge of setting it up? If it breaks, who is in charge of taking care of that? All of those different things. Whose device is it? Is it the student's personal device? Is it the school's device? All of that information can be put into a plan just so that everybody knows what to do with that. An example of a student who is using so much technology. [Video] [Students chatting in the background] >>Rachel: Okay. I just want to point out. So as the student was setting up all of his different things, what was happening around him? Just drop it in the chat. What was happening around him? What was he missing? Chaos. Socialization. Yes. Yes, socialization. When you first get into the classroom, you are chitchatting with your friends. You're asking what happened the night before or the weekend before or whatever or what's going to be happening this next weekend. You're chatting with your friends. This whole time, the class hasn't even begun yet. He is so busy. He wasn't just hanging out. Like, he was sitting there setting up everything on his own waiting for class to start. And he is missing all of that. So think about this -- this is such a great example of, you know, how hard our students who are Deafblind have to work compared to their sighted and hearing peers. And just how much we need to be aware of that so that way we can do what we can to help alleviate some of that stress and some of that fatigue for our students who are Deafblind. Okay. Stress. So our proficient communicators are often perfectionists. They want to get it right and many times they don't want to be seen as different from their peers, especially when they're in Gen Ed classes. And that causes a lot of anxiety or it can cause a lot of anxiety . So they're working so much harder to keep up with their peers. They're trying to keep up with realtime instruction. And over the course of the day and all throughout the night working, working, working. This can really lead to extremely high levels of stress and feels of inadequacy. Like I should be able to keep up with everybody else and why is this so hard for me? They are often perfectionists and that leads to a lot of stress. And then prolonged stress can lead to distress. So our students who are Deafblind have a unique learning style. And that's because, you know, they are having that reduced or that missing some access to that incidental learning. And so we as educators need to know how to think outside of the box. And so when we're looking at our student who may be in a Gen Ed class but for whatever reason may blow up and be super stressed and we're like, oh, my gosh! Where did this bad behavior come from? Or where did this behavior come from? Instead of looking at it through that lens, that's just the normal response to when you're super stressed out. When your body is completely stressed out, you blow up. And so instead of looking at it as, oh, we need to not do that, we need to look at what's happening. What's going on with the student. What can we do to alleviate those feelings of stress for this student. All right. Social skills. So when we're looking at our students who are Deafblind -- and being Deafblind can really affect the ability to form relationships and respond to interactions to our peers. For example, we may have a lack of environmental information. Like, we're not sure what's going on or where our peers are or what they're doing, because we can't see, we don't have access to that. We may have difficulty identifying people or locating them, knowing where they are or what they're doing or maybe understanding what they want. Because we can't really read the facial expressions. And so many just regular interactions can seem kind of threatening or negative or maybe just confusing to the student. And so maybe when our students need to come closer or to implement, you know, touch strategies, that can be seen from others as offensive. And so it's not really unusual to see withdrawal, for our students to withdraw and problems with bonding with peers. So it will be really important to consider there may be some social issues or some social concerns that we want to take into consideration that maybe what's happening is that they have this ongoing lack of essential information to be able to make those connections with their peers. And so for this next video, I interviewed my student, Sophie, about that. [Video] >>Rachel: Okay. So, you know, it's always hard when you look back on your practice and you think, oh, man. If I had known better, I would have done better. And so for Sophie, I didn't realize that this was an issue because I didn't really know to look for it. She was one of those students who I thought she's doing great. She's doing fine. She's super social. She's doing awesome. Had I known that she was struggling to locate people or to understand, you know, to read people's faces, as she said. Or to remember their faces and to remember their names. We could have worked on that. We could have come up with some strategies for that. And so my hope is that through sharing these different areas of specialized instruction, that you guys will be aware of it and you guys can help your students, like Sophie. All right. So the tenth area is self-advocacy. So being an effective self-advocate about your communication and access to information is really essential for all of us, really, for success in higher education, employment, and other community settings. Like, we need to know how to share with others the things that we need. And this is no different for our students who are Deafblind. However, just a note on advocacy fatigue. So it's really important that with our students, you know, they may differ in their ability to self-advocate for themselves. And thinking about the demands of constantly having to advocate for basic needs in regards to access can be incredibly fatiguing for our students. So if they're constantly having to ask can you please make that larger? Or can you please allow me to come closer to the board? Or can you please remember to send this to me digitally so that I can blow it up myself? When they are constantly having to advocate for the same things over and over again, what do you think is eventually going to happen? Drop it in the chat. They stop asking. They do. And we never, never want them to stop asking or to stop advocating for themselves just because of these -- because they're easy things that we can do as educators to be able to help our students access their information. Disengage. Absolutely. They will disengage. And how sad is that? [Video] >>Rachel: Okay. So this young lady, she was kind of liker an example of all the things that we already talked about. All the different classes that she's taking. She is going to tutorials in the morning and after school. And she's taking all of these honors classes and she's doing all of these different things. And she's trying to work with the teachers with her FM system to make sure she can hear the message, because she can't really understand. And she is requesting that they put on the captions so she can understand the words because she's not understanding the spoken English correctly. And she's having to advocate to, please, turn off the FM system when you're talking to somebody else because it's very distracting to me. All of these things. She is a perfect example of all of these things that we talked about today. And paying attention and looking at all of these different specialized areas to help students like her to alleviate some of that stress that they may be feeling. The eleventh area is supplemental services. There are certain services and supports that are designed for students who are Deafblind and that we need to look at and consider. So one of those is a paraprofessional called an intervener. And we do, on our website, have a determine the need for an intervener in educational settings. Going through that with your team to see if the student is getting access to these multiple different areas, how they're getting that access, and who is providing that access. So interveners are one way for that supplemental services -- it's not the only way -- but it's one way they can get extra in-class support. [Video] >>Rachel: I love the last thing that that intervener said. You don't want to be right on top of them but they're there if you need them. Doing with and not for the student and allowing them that time to be able to do it on their own. Okay. And the last area is transition. So with our students who are Deafblind, oftentimes planning for transition takes quite a bit of time. So by law we are required to start talking about transition at 14. However, for our students who are Deafblind, I think that's too late. We need to be talking about it throughout school. Because all the activities and everything that we're doing now needs to be able to bleed to what they want to do, what the goals are for the future. So when they enter in, you know, graduation, there's just some considerations to look at. Are they going to college? Are they going to get a job? Are they going to live independently? What are those goals and what are we doing to help that student reach those goals? And what skills need to be targeted to help them be better equipped for these things? And so planning for the future. For the Expanded Core Curriculum considerations for students who are Deafblind, this is a -- this can be found in the essentials tool of the trade, second edition. But it can also be found on our website as well. And I am opening this. And you guys have a link to this. So this goes through seven different areas to consider. This doesn't replace the Expanded Core Curriculum for students who are blind or have low vision or the Expanded Core Curriculum for students who are deaf and hard of hearing. This is a supplement to. These Deafblind considerations are what the other two are missing when it comes to our students who are Deafblind. And there is a section on transition. Oh, I missed it. Planning for the future. And so it goes through all of these different questions. Many of these questions, you know, you may not have thought of. Looking at this as a starting point would be really great for the TSVI and the TDHH to look at together. All right. Now here are the references. And then I just wanted to kind of put in a plug. If you are interested in piloting any of the identification tool or the requisite concept evaluation tool, please contact me. Because I would love to pick your brains and to figure out, you know, whether or not these tools are helpful in identifying our proficient communicators. And if you have any questions at all, please type them in the chat or come off mute and talk. We have just a few more minutes. And, if not, then I really thank you for joining me today and talking about proficient communicators. But if there's any of those specialized areas that we talked about today that you have questions on, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or to the Project.