Support Services Handout Series
Number 4004 Communication Sheet
What your child does in communication training

Communication skills at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES) are provided and encouraged by everyone. However, specific skill areas for many students are offered by the Communication Specialists - Speech-Language and Audiology. Goal areas are designed for each student based on their particular needs and focus on optimizing their functional communication abilities. Children are encouraged to develop a number of tools and strategies for communicating with a variety of partners. American Sign Language is used by the Communication Specialists to facilitate the acquisition of these tools and strategies which include pragmatic language abilities (see description below), spoken English and written English skills. All of the services provided are related to the themes of the teams and/or support one or more of the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center priority areas (Literacy, Family Education and Transition). They also support the overall academic achievement of your child. As much as possible the communication activities are integrated into the activities of the classroom.

Communication Services

Pragmatic abilities: Before a child can learn to communicate he/she must learn important social skills. These skills must grow developmentally with the child to ensure successful communication abilities. They are necessary for ASL and spoken English and include but are not limited to: establishing and maintaining eye contact, taking turns (during games and conversations), maintaining a topic, sequencing ideas, beginning and ending conversations and taking the listener's perspective when telling a story.

Language: The development of vocabulary and grammatical skills is important to the development of any language. Formulating ideas and expressing them in a clear and understandable manner are also necessary. In addition, a child must be able to understand the language that he/she sees or hears. This includes following directions, answering questions, and understanding stories. Goals and activities which encourage these abilities are an integral part of the services your child receives.

Speech: Expressive speech means different goals for different children. Some children work on improving specific sounds that they have difficulty hearing and saying. This work may be at the word level, the phrase/sentence level or at the conversational level. In addition, some children work on improving their voice quality and ability to control the loudness level of their voice. Still others focus on using vocalizations appropriately and for attention getting purposes.

Speechreading: Almost all children work on and benefit from speechreading training. Speechreading includes more than just lipreading words that a person speaks. Speechreading uses all of the information available from a speaker. A child learns how to lipread, use residual hearing (if he/she has any), read the facial expression and body language of the speaker, incorporate the context of the situation, and utilize knowledge of the English language. For more information see Speechreading in Context: A Guide for Practice in Everyday Settings (A revision of David Deyo's Work by James Lee).

Another feature of speechreading training includes work on "mouthing" the correct shape of words/phrases. Children practice mouthing the words that they are learning to speechread. This ability can be helpful to the child in various communication interactions.

Listening: Children are provided a variety of opportunities to use and develop their listening skills. This may include activities such as playing musical chairs, listening to stories on tape or live voice, talking on the voice telephone, following directions and answering questions presented with voice. Children also learn to identify a variety of environmental sounds or recognize when sounds are different from one another (voice v. non-speech sounds).

Literacy Support: Recent research suggests that the mouthing skills children learn may aid in literacy development (decoding and comprehension). Also, for children with residual hearing, work on sound letter correspondence aids in literacy development. The Communication Specialists incorporate print materials and writing activities during communication instruction for the purpose of supporting the development of literacy skills.

Adaptive Technology Training: The children are given opportunities to use TTYs, voice-carry over telephones, and a variety of alerting/assistive devices. This exposure informs and empowers children to be independent. It also teaches them the importance of communication in all of its forms.

Communication Education: The children learn about their abilities as communicators. They learn how to advocate for themselves and how to explain their needs and skills to others. Individual and group instruction/presentations are provided to the students. Topics include: understanding your audiogram; what is sound?; hearing aid orientation; care and maintenance of hearing aids and assistive devices. A student guided, interactive instructional approach is used with the children. As a result, the children increase their responsibility for and their level of independence related to their communication skills, interactions, and strategies. An example of this is their increased responsibility for the use, care, and maintenance of their hearing aids.

The above description of services was developed to give parents a clearer understanding of the communication training provided to their deaf or hard of hearing child. It was distributed at a Parents' Night at the beginning of the school year. The information was compiled by James Lee, Communication Specialist - Speech-Language, and Stephanie Marshall, Communication Specialist - Audiology.

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