Teaching reading & typing. All ideas welcomed (especially think outside the box ones). (Long sorry)

[gess]

OK, DS1 is 8 years old. He has severe learning difficulties, severe autism and is non-verbal. Suspend disbelief for a moment though please and believe me when I say he is 'smart' (otherwise you are going to think the rest of this post is cuckoo ).

I'd really like to teach ds1 to type. This is for a few reasons. Firstly I think he's highly unlikely to speak. He wants to speak, he;s always tried to speak, he has lots of sounds that he uses as words, but for some reason he cannot produce recognisable words. I don't think that will change.

He uses PECS very well. I love PECS, but I also think he's ready to move on. Also the problem with PECS is that the symbol he needs and is shouting for is always in someones back pocket, or in the pocket of the jeans in the washing machine etc etc. He now has some signs, but he has trouble forming them properly and his signs end up bastardized, Which is fine at home. We understand them, but others will not.

If taught to type he could use a letterboard out and about. Far easier than carrying a PECS board. And less frustrating for him. He would be able to ask for anyting, not just stuff in his PECS book.

And finally a few people with autism that appears very like his (big problems with motor planning, better receptive than expressive language, highly compulsive, non verbal) have eneded up being able to write bloody books once taught to type. I don't know whether that is remotely a possibility and to be honest have no feelings either way, except that I think I need to explore the area as a possibility.

OK so that's that's the background. So we've been exploring how much he can read already. He can match some words/pictures and that's expanding. We can work on that quite easily.

I've also dug out a letter board. And a few times he has pointed to the initial letter of a word quite carefully ('s' to indicate 'sing' whilst simultaneosly using his sign for sing; b for bus, and the initial letter of his name to indicate that he wanted to look at photos of himself for example_. He has also used the board to answer questions such as 'how old are you?'. But I have a feeling that because he's used PECS for so long that he kind of thinks that one letter, one 'thing' represents one word.

So I need ideas on how to move from word/picture matching to building up words himself. We have magnetic letters and I've shown him his favourite word (broken) spelt out.

I think all thins mght be confusing though as I'm not sure that conceptually moving hands over a keyboard/letterboard is the same as building up words with magenetic letters.

He loves photos. I've thought of perhaps photo/wprd matching (so present a [photo tell him to give me the word), then moving onto getting him to type the word. Fully prompted at first. Starting with very few words for 5 mins a day then increasing.

Any other ideas. Also if anyone knows of any books with simple (perhaps single) words plus photos rather than pictures please let me know. We have the PM readers.

I don't think phonics will be appropriate as I'm not even sure how he hears word sounds. But his visual memory is exceptional.

sorry that was very long.

how about some of these Montessori resources? Some have photos, some have clip art pictures. I cna dig out some more Montessori stuff if you think that might be useful?

oh those are great thank you (he'll love the bathroom pictures just as pictures anyway )

There are some Touch Typing courses for kids . ds does one at school (they offer it for kids who struggle with handwriting), I'll try to find out what it is later.

also (on the Montessori theme) there's a "Moveable alphabet" which is simply all the letters on wooden tiles (or in my case, laminated paper and cut into tiles) and the idea is to copy the letters in the word on the card by picking out the individual letters - it's a continuation from the "matching word card to picture and word card" excercise. I'm starting this with DD3 as she's still developing her fine motor skills and isn't confident enough to write the letters herself yet. Try with scrabble letters (or magnetic ones) - you demonstrate, DS copies. If he gets the concept, then typing shouldn't be too hard - you can also get a cover for the keyboard which has lower case letters (or do sticky labels) as lower case is probably easier to start with, and I'm guessing you'd rather communication over correct punctuation

sorry, just re-read your OP, adn I've repeated most of it! I'd be tempted to keep going with the spelling out of words as it seems ot be a developemntal stage to go from recognising the initial letter of a word, to recognising the other letters too (DD announced out in a supermarket once "Look mummy, that's my name up there" pointing at the "Fresh Meat" sign as she only recognised the F which starts her name). I think it's simply recognising the "pattern" of the letter groups, some people will see letters as individual letters/sounds which need ot be blended, others might see it as a pattern, and need ot "learn" each pattern seperately (i.e. not see the similarities with "cat" and "mat" for example as they make two completely different patterns).
Does that help at all, or am I just rambling?

What a great idea! Both DS and DD learned to type using Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (you can read about it here: www.amazon.co.uk/Mavis-Teaches-Typing-For-Kids/dp/B00004UAE7). It is game based so your DS might enjoy it.

I think your idea of showing a picture and then getting him to type the word is a great one (in fact I think it's one of the exercises on Mavis Beacon). I don't think he will be confused by moving from magnetic letters to typing - and it's a great way to start connecting the whole word with the picture.

Good luck -he's obviously ready for more detailed communication.

Hi Gess - sounds exciting. For some reason it's making me think about when I start teaching someone the piano (is he into music by the way - only that if you've got a piano/keyboard, letters of course relate to music so it's another way of using letters and realising they mean something different) to little ones - using 1 finger (the same finger) for 1 note, in different rhythms, so they get to learn and remember which note = which letter.

Just imagining you could choose a different finger every day (but use the touch typing model maybe so that little finger left hand = A and 4th finger = S for instance) and help him to make a row of that letter - change the font, colour, put a snazzy background in. Even do it in powerpoint and make the letters race in from one side of the screen!

I think it's really exciting (I know I've already said that) - you could make different templates for different letters using clipart - so lots of pictures of things beginning with A/B/C etc. depending on which letter you're doing that day.

Let us know how it goes.

also perhaps try labelling everything in the house (door, window etc) to reinforce the whole word, not just the initial letter?

Gess I have no experience on this but think it is a fantastic idea.

Did you see the video diary if the young woman with autism (think it was on Youtube maybe~). AMazing

IS THIS article any use?

yes bobbygrant - I think i know the one you mean (where she hides beneath the desk and types) I have a vague memory that she's more or less non-verbal. A fasincating website.

I think the touch typing will be too difficult for him. (I'm still trying to isolate the 'reading finger' he tends to point with his middle finger ) HIs pointing is getting better (he likes to point to photos he wants enlarged on iphoto). I should have said that I'm not acutally using a computer keyboard as the computer sends him on into compulsive city and it becomes impossible to do anything and he ends up somewhere on the ceiling screaming. Ideally we'd have something like a Lightwriter or canon communicator which were designed for this sort of thing, but the canons are obsolete and the lightwriters 2 grand so I've bought a second hand alphasmart from ebay. Actually must check to see if they do keyguards.

I'm just trynig to get rid of the piano dotty (anyone want a fee one I'm about to list on freecycle!)

Shrinkingviolet your ideas are fantastic. PMSL at Fresh Meat. Ds1's teacher said a lot of children learn from initial letters. I suspect that each word is a new word. For example he could read 'one' and 'two' aged 2. But I think he's doing it in a Chinese/Japanese way (so 'one' is one and that collection of letters is completely different from any other - say gone). Does that make sense? I guess that's a question. Do I settle on teaching each word individually as if they're all kanji letters (this is what I think I should do- his memory is ridiculously good- far better than mine- so it won't be a problem for him and his language may never progress past a single word phase anyway)

Having read stuff by someone who learned to type as a teen she said that when she started a 'ball' as in a coillection of letters wasn't necessarily related to a round thing that bounced around the room. Although she could read ball. She had to learn that connection. So she had a concept of 'ball' - a collection of letters and a different concept of 'ball' round thing. But she kind of had some confused language. I may hve remembered the incoreectly. At which stage my head started to spin. She's 30 odd now, still can't really talk, still needs a very high level of care, but has an English degree. It's a fascinating condition autism. Reading her book was an eye opener as her behaviours were so similar to ds1.

bobbygrant-0 have only skimmed by mwah- you're a star looks like another name for me to contact (I have a list )

whoops turned into cod there- was trying to say thanks bobbygrant.

gess - i think this is the lady i was refrring to here

yes that's her, she's written quite a bit about facilitated communication.

Having to be very quick with this as I'm at work & should be somewhere else, but I was thinking along the lines of clicking & dragging pictures of letters to a line to form words (to give the idea of using a keyboard to 'make' words) & then matbe typing the letters underneath?
Will give it more thought.

I have some of thise sorts of things rusty with the intellikeys keyboard. BUt he goes so doolally near a computer atm I haven't had a chnace to explore.

If you are not using a computer then what about a form of a game dc had when younger. There were individual letters (you could use the magnetic letters) and a set of cards. On one side of the card was, for example, a picture of a ball with the word ball printed underneath and the child would arrange the letters following the printed word. When they were confident then they could use the cards only looking at the other side which had only the picture. (This was related to a board game and collecting letters with a dice but you don't need to do that bit unless you think DS would like it).

ShrinkingViolet has mentioned labelling everything. My cousin used to recommend labelling everything in the house to help deaf children she worked with to build up a word bank of reading quickly. It is very effective - you can even make a game of it once some words are well known by changing them over so they are incorrect and asking DS to spot the mistake. With his exceptional visual memory learning whole words should work well.

oh that's a good idea. Will try that.

Hi Gess. You've said phonics might not be the way to go but he can identify some sounds. I used a very, very gradual phonics book with my son (who is deaf, different problem, but I wasn't sure how much sound he could hear or how distorted it was through his hearing aids from what it should be) and it's worked v well indeed. I would say that it's the best of the phonics based ones around (S Engelmann, on amazon but the link is too long to cpy & paste).

I'm just not sure how I'd approach phonics because as well as the hearing/speech sound problem I'm not sure what language represents to him iyswim. I'm not sure what his 'inner language' is. It may be that blocks of words represent something visual which means 'x' but its not language in its proper sense. Agh I'm being confusing but I mean that I strongly suspect that written words will be processed as discrete chunks rather than building blocks iyswim.

I will look at the book you mention though.

Thanks cat. The reason I haven't applied for funding yet is because the method will be bordering on facilitated communication (it won;t be it exactly) which in the UK is incredibly controvesial (and will land me with a nutty mother in denail label even though I'm doing it in a very structured- 'teaching ' type way). If he gets underway with the letterboard and typing I'll video and go full steam ahead for funding from somewhere.....

I have programmes with intellikeys which do that with symbols- it's a pity he gets so compulsive on the compuet (blocks out any chance of work)>

There's a (duck for cover) thomas the tank engine book that might be useful - it has jigsaw type pieces with a word on on (say) cow, that is shaped the same as a cow insert in the book iyswim.