Descriptive Teaching

By: Mike Hipple, PRC-Saltillo Blogger

In special education and assistive technology, we have our own language. Families might not understand the language and our sayings. One of them is called descriptive teaching. Now you might be asking yourself what is that and how do we use this with AAC Communicators? Good question and I am happy to answer this but first I have a story, surprise - surprise not. When I was in school, I started volunteering with younger students who use a communication device. I remember working with the student who she didn't want to use her communication device and her family and her school team was thinking about changing to a device that would have all sayings already programmed in from a PRC device with Minspeak and Unity system, because the team and I believed that the device was too hard for her. We were trying for years to make her build her own sentences and it didn't come. Her teacher said we need to change something and I agreed with her. The assistive technology specialist got a different device and we were planning to try the device with her, but she had a different plan. She started to speak in sentences three to four words long. I thought to myself no way and why did she choose now to start writing in sentences. Did she know that we were questioning her ability? Did she want to show us what she can do? Or was it the right time? I don't know and it is likely that I will never know. Descriptive Teaching is teaching the core words {80% of what everyone says everyday}, it is so important for everyone to have access to these words. That is why Minspeak have these words in their system. An activity that I like to do with groups is count how many core words that I say and they say throughout the time I am speaking. It shows them that we say a lot of core words and do descriptive teaching daily. If you are in a school setting, you might hear that during science, health, and history/geography/social studies we don't do descriptive teaching and don't use core words. They only use fringe words and phrases, they want you or someone else to add these to the device so students can easily talk about the subject. I get this a lot and this is how I answer the person. I understand and get your points, but what we are trying to teach the student is core language and how to build sentences so they can communicate effectively. We want all students to learn about history, but do they need to have words like Washington, 1776, or the Mayflower on their device? For some students who use a device, I think we don't need to add these words and phrases that they might use them for a couple of weeks or a month in their history class. When was the last time that you heard someone say Mayflower before today? For me I think it was when I was in school when we were studying American history. But we might like to teach the core words big, coming, and first to the student. So they have some words that they know when the class is learning about pilgrims, the history teacher might like to ask these questions. What was the boat size {big}, what were the pilgrims doing {coming}, and what number were the pilgrims who came to America {first}. Descriptive Teaching is so important for AAC Communicators to learn, because when they don't know how to spell a word they can tell their support person about the word and the person will have some guesses about what they are trying to say. We all do this when we can't think of the word or a place. I hope you enjoy this post and start helping the AAC Communicator or Communicators in your life to do descriptive teaching this school year.