Support Services Handout Series
Number 4008 Communication Sheet
Twelve Practical Ways To Support Literacy and Transition

1. Have students address envelopes to themselves or their families. Place a model envelope in your waiting room or office. Use address labels to minimize wasted envelopes if mistakes are made.
2. Ask all students sign-in and write out why they are visiting your office.
3. Ask students to fill-out a brief questionnaire related to their visit.
4. Post a list of important audiology words and phrases to assist students with vocabulary and spelling.
5. Keep dictionaries available (picture and traditional) in your waiting room to help students with spelling and dictionary skills.
6. Help students locate your name in the white or yellow pages of the telephone book. This teaches them how to use the telephone book and empowers them to be more communicatively independent.
7. Write a child-oriented report and send it directly to your young clients. Or have a fill-in the blank report and send it home with your regular report and have the child complete it with parental help.
8. Post a local map in your waiting area and highlight your office. While children are waiting they can locate their own home. Then they can practice writing directions from their home to your office.
9. If you do a monthly newsletter, invite school-age clients to write articles related to their experiences in school or how they use technology in their lives.
10. Encourage every student to have communication technology in their home. If appropriate they should have a TTY or telephone amplifier, visual smoke alarm, telephone light, door light and visual/vibrating alarm clock. These devices should be present even before the child can use them him/herself so that the parents can model how to use them and explain information they provide.
11. Give your young patients calendars and a schedule of their appointments and responsibilities (e.g. check their batteries, do a listening check and have their hearing aids checked). The students can write these activities on the calendar and indicate when they have completed them. You can review it with them during their next visit. This promotes independence, encourages them to be organized and involves literacy.
12. Provide every child with a 9-1-1 emergency fill-in the blank script. Encourage them to complete with their families and place it near every telephone.

Developed by Susan Jacoby, Audiologist/Communication Specialist,
Model Secondary School for the Deaf

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