Today’s A-LIST Spotlight features a fabulous team of
educators at Tri-Village High School.
Intervention Specialist, Karyn Smith, and
speech pathologist, Heather Costa, work together to meet the needs of every
student to ensure students in the Tri-Village High School special needs program
have the communication supports they need for functional communication across
the day. As you can see, this PECS
(Picture Exchange Communication System) book is well used!
Because this is a high school, the students are engaged in
many functional jobs. The students have rotating job roles. A picture checklist
is provided for each role. The students
spend much of their time outside the classroom for vocational training and life
skills field trips.
Karyn does a great job developing a predictable routine for
the students. Everyday one student will ask to make his favorite, chocolate
pudding. An interactive visual tool is
provided to help the student make the pudding. He is able to do this
independently now.
A visual support is given to help the student measure the
milk.
The student also loves hot chocolate. Visuals are used to teach the student the
concept of “hot” and “cold” to give feedback about the hot chocolate. Descriptive words are an important part of
functional communication.
An interactive shopping list allows the students to build a
list based on what is needed for the kitchen. The list is taken to the store.
Each time an item from the list is placed in the cart, the picture can be removed
from the list. This makes it easy to know what item to look for next.
This tool was created for a new paraprofessional to provide
reminders of goals and supports when working with a particular student.
This small portable yes/no visual is consistently presented to
give a student a way to respond when asked, “do you want…?”
A break room is available for scheduled breaks across the
day to keep students regulated.
Technology is used to engage students and support writing.
This student uses the Clicker software program for easy journaling.
Here are a few pages from a social story created to help a
student who was experiencing anxiety at school.
The students in Karyn’s classroom have very diverse needs.
With the support from Heather and her team, Karyn works hard to ensure that each student
has every opportunity to grow and succeed.
We love that Karyn will reach out to us for support, even when the
student is doing well, to get ideas to help the student meet a higher level of
expectation. It is always a pleasure to
visit Karyn’s classroom at Tri Village High School and to see how well she and Heather collaborate to meet the needs of their students!
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