Kurzweil 3000 is a word processing (text-to-speech) program with some neat features and real value for some students.

     The manufacturer, on its website, calls the 3000 a “comprehensive reading, writing and learning software solution for any struggling reader, including individuals with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, attention deficit disorder or those who are English Language Learners.”

     I don’t know that I’d say any struggling reader, but I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks with two different students, and am reasonably impressed.

     Kurzweil will read aloud anything you can type into it or cut and paste from another document, in one of eight different voices.  I like “VW Kate.”  Even cooler, you can copy text from the internet (Firefox recommended for that).  For a kid who struggles with reading, this can be a real learning tool.  He can have Kurzweil read aloud to him the article he found but couldn’t quite understand.

     For students who struggle with spelling (and how many of the kids we work with don’t?) it has not only your typical Spell Check feature (called ABC, with a tiny icon on the bottom blue toolbar) but also a Word Prediction feature (another a tiny icon that looks like a crystal ball).  

     Word Prediction, while you are typing, will suggest (in a floating box) a number of words you might be trying to spell.  Biggest problem with it is that, once you’ve misspelled the word (how about “typiccal”) and hit the space bar, all those possible choices disappear and you hear VW Kate say “tip-pickle.”  You think that doesn’t sound quite right, glance at the Word Prediction box and it’s empty.  So you have to use the Spell Check anyway to see your error.

     Still, the fact that Kurzweil reads aloud what you have  just typed as soon as you hit the space bar gives you immediate feedback that you may have misspelled it.  And if you’ve garbled the word so badly that VW Kate can’t even attempt a pronunciation, “she” spells it letter by letter, a dead giveaway that your spelling is way wrong.

     You can start the read aloud from any point in the document, to listen and see if you typed what you meant to, or left out a word, or didn’t complete a thought.  If Kate doesn’t pause where you think she should, it probably means you left out a comma or a period.

I think the program will be most useful for revisions and final drafts of documents that were written without the special features, possibly on MSWord or even Notepad. 

     The reason I say that is I often find that a child who knows he can’t spell and tries to use spell check features in the beginning step of writing will get so bogged down, word-by-word, with the spelling that he loses the thought.  He produces, very slowly, a string of correctly-spelled words that make no sense.

     Kurzweil 3000 has many useful features, like choices of read mode and speed and four-colors of highlight, and other features like Bookmark, Column Notes, Note Snippets, and Word Lists which I haven’t had occasion yet to try out.  I don’t recommend using what seems to be a redundant “Spell” feature on the top red toolbar because it didn’t seem to work for me.

(Joint posted on www.paraeducatorcentral.com)

No related posts.

Experiencing some success with the rule cards I devised for Jacob, and taking further advantage of his desire and willingness to read, I took another step this week.

Jacob (not his real name) is a kindergartner with autism  who decodes well, better than most of his peers, but is easily distracted, especially by the knowledge that just across our small playground there are cars passing by– cars he’d rather watch than do just about anything else. I am his one-on-one paraeducator.

Except in the morning, when he is at his most attentive, it has been a nearly constant job to redirect him to whatever task is at hand, using the five “Jacob’s Rules.”  Usually I don’t have to read the rule aloud any longer, simply get his attention to it by placing it in front of him and perhaps prompting: “What should you be doing?”

But rules alone don’t help much with transitions, of which there are dozens in the day of a kindergartner; and when the kindergartner has a constant distraction just outside the window, something else was called for.

Both Jacob’s mom and his new speech therapist mentioned that he had some success in the past with a “First ___, Then ___” approach to get him to do something less desired before doing something desired.

My thought about how to utilize “First ___, Then ___”  in the classroom was not to reward every appropriate behavior but simply to get him to do things in sequence, to focus on what he should be doing now and then proceed to what he will be doing next, without walking to the window during every transition.   I am not helping him become a better student if I lead him by the hand to each new activity.

With the support of his classroom teacher and case manager, I got a small whiteboard, maybe 10×12 inches (about 25×30 cm) and used painter’s tape to divide it into four panels.  The left side I labeled “First” and the right side “Then.”  It looks like this…

Now I carry around my ring of Jacob’s Rules, the whiteboard, a dry erase marker, and a small square of felt cloth I use for an eraser.  I write the activities in sequence, always showing what he just finished, what he should be doing now, and what he’ll do next.

 He’s a kindergartner, after all, even if he decodes well, but I often have to tell him what it says.  Still, he loves to read, and will attend to any new entry on the board.   I let him hold the board in his lap so he can see what the current activity is and what the next one will be.

An added bonus:  Because Jacob is fully included with students that do not have special needs but read less well than he does, they are fascinated by his rules and his “First ___, Then ___” board.  They want to read them too! 

Even though all his classmates are learning to write their letters, and he lags well behind them, Jacob is held in high regard by the other students for his ability to read.  For a child with autism, it can only be a good thing when his peers early recognize him for his strengths.

Related posts:

1. Writing rules for a kindergartner with autism
2. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?
3. Don’t stop advocating for the child with autism!

Just when I thought I knew what I was doing after years as a paraprofessional working one-on-one with children with autism, life teaches me a hard lesson:  it is a different world in kindergarten!

I mean, kindergartners are barely socialized!  And I’m not talking about the ones with autism.  They have to be taught how to walk in line, how to use crayons, how to sit in one spot.

I work with an included five-year-old who can already read at about a first grade level but rarely talks spontaneously.  He is stimulated to the point of fascination by moving vehicles and our classroom has a full view of the street.  He will stand up, turn his back on the teacher, peer out the windows (or walk to the door when the windows are blocked) and bounce stiffly in place while watching the cars.

For more than I week, I redirected him (over and over) back to his place at the checkered rug, where most instruction takes place.  Finally, I had an idea.

As I said, he reads, or at least decodes, well.  Things like “Animals need plants to grow” and “Think About It” which were titles in a science book we were looking at together.  He may have hyperlexia, but it is difficult at this point to assess how much he comprehends of what he reads.

I also have had the experience with more than one older child with autism that they tend to (dare I say) religiously follow rules, and are often upset by other students who disobey them.

So I decided to write some rules for Jacob (not his real name).

Jacob’s Rule 1:  In your square or in your chair.  Other kids were sent to their desks when they wouldn’t behave at the rug, so I did the same with Jacob.  He accepted this readily.

Jacob’s Rule 2:  Eyes on the teacher.  He would rarely watch the teacher or look at what she was demonstrating to the class.  I showed him the rule while turning him toward the teacher.

Jacob’s Rule 3:  Stay in line.  He doesn’t stray far from the line but rarely follows behind the person in front of him.

Jacob’s Rule 4:  Hands to yourself.  He has a friend he adores, a girl smaller than he is, who he loves to touch and hug.  Which is quite cute but…not conducive to what is considered appropriate classroom behavior.

Jacob’s Rule 5:  No watching the cars.  This one was a gamble.  Jacob’s car watching is less a choice and more a compulsion.  But I was hopeful that, once he accepted that there were rules in the classroom, we could stop the “stimming” by reminding him of the rule.  So far, I’ve had some success with this.

I printed each rule on a different colored square of paper, laminated them, and put them on a ring.  I carry the ring around most of the time and when I enforce a rule, I hold it in front of Jacob until he looks at it, then point to the words as I read them.  He will now read along with me and will almost always comply with no additional prompting. 

Granted, it is often as little as 30 seconds before he forgets and repeats the activity, but I am thrilled that a child with autism that young is responding to written rules.

Related posts:

1. First…Then: A kindergartner with autism, Part II
2. Reader with autism and figurative language, part 1
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

I have spent more time thinking about fiction than non-fiction when it comes to supporting readers with autism, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t need to make it a priority as the kids get older.

Most kids on the autism spectrum (but again, not all) tend to prefer non-fiction books and don’t exhibit as much difficulty making meaning of what the text tells them.   This is because the information in expository text is usually very literal and concrete, and doesn’t require any deep probing for concepts that are, by their very nature, alien to the kids.   

What we learn about rainforest animals in a science text  is straight-forward.  Information about where and how they live, what they eat, and who preys on them can be provided in pictures, diagrams, and simple, clear sentences.   Readers with autism can often read, assimilate, and categorize expository information very quickly and without support.

What we learn about friendship in The Secret Garden, on the other hand, isn’t something we can visualize, takes more than one sentence to describe, and  needs all kinds of words and examples, and the ability to carry ideas forward and stretch them back in the story.  This is hard for many kids in general education!

We must not neglect non-fiction reading with our readers with autism, however.  By the fourth grade, kids are going to need to be able to understand the concept of “main idea and supporting detail;” to identify them, to use them in organizing facts and concepts, and to write them.  If we ignore these essential skills, our readers with autism are going to be limited in what they can do with information they read about.

I re-discovered this foundational piece of expository text comprehension this year when I began to teach the BING, BANG, BONGO method of writing five-paragraph essays to a group of general and special ed students in the fifth grade.  Although at first it appeared that everyone was doing quite well using a planning template to formulate their body paragraphs, I realized after a couple of sessions that more than half the kids were not able to create a main idea sentence (BING sentence, BANG sentence, BONGO sentence) based on the three details they’d chosen for a topic.  As I listened and watched a little longer, I concluded that they weren’t even aware of the fact that all paragraphs have a main idea and supporting details and don’t identify them as they read, much less write.  We are now going back, in guided reading groups, into the social studies textbook to explore and practice.

Here’s the deal:  If you don’t (a) understand that every paragraph has a main idea and supporting details related to that main idea; and (b) know what the difference is between main idea and supporting details, and (c) know how to identify the idea and details, you cannot:

• Learn how to determine the important facts in what you are reading,
• Learn how to take accurate notes in class, or
• Write an essay

By the time a kid hits the fifth grade, we are requiring them to write multiple-paragraph essays about topics related to social studies or science units.  Our readers with autism don’t get an automatic  pass on that requirement; even if teachers don’t demand a lengthy written report, they do want some display of mastery and understanding, and more often than not, the display has to involve use of main idea/supporting detail concepts.

More to come…

Related posts:

1. Non-fiction matters, Part II
2. Reader with autism and figurative language, part 1
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

Read Alouds are a vital component of the literacy curriculum, yet many autistic children do not respond well to them.  With autism on the rise, advice on this issue from the Readers with Autism blog couldn’t be more timely:

http://readerswithautism.com/2009/08/the-problem-of-the-read-aloud/

You can subscribe to us here or on Facebook.  Look for a series of new posts on reading and autism coming in October.  As always, if you have specific questions, please post them.

You might also find interesting our sister blog about rigor in the classroom (particularly special education), The Demanding Classroom.com.

Related posts:

1. The problem of the read-aloud
2. Hearing the story in your head: The role of expressive reading

Anyone who spends much time living or working with children with autism will have experienced their quirky senses of humor.  Others may be surprised to discover that a child with a flat affect and monotonous speaking voice can be intentionally funny.  And appreciate humor for humor’s sake.

An example:

Summer school, an art project–students are stenciling each letter of their first names on separate squares of paper, then using colored pencils to ornament each letter.  Stars, squiggles, stripes, polka dots, a beach scene–whatever strikes their fancy.  The squares will be placed on the wall showing each kid’s personalized signature.

Midway through this project, which took part of three days, the teacher had an idea: “You know, we can take the letters and make them look like an animal, like A for Alligator.” Then he holds up the letter from his own name that he happens to be working on at the moment…an N.

One, two, three seconds elapse.

“…or Nalligator!” he says. We all laugh, sitting around the table together.

Alejandro (not his real name) sits quietly for perhaps 30 seconds, then smiles and says in a voice louder than normal:

“Nunafish!“  Students, staff, we all crack up.  But Alejandro is on a roll…

“Nooster,” he adds, still grinning, and finally…

“Nabbit!”

Enough said?

* * * * *

No related posts.

Just a couple of observations about two high school students I have worked with recently:

One writes in short, concrete sentences, almost always in the present tense, even when he’s journaling about what he did yesterday.  Is verb tense, particularly when writing, a common problem for kids on the spectrum?

Both of these students (and one is much nearer the Asperger’s end of the spectrum than the other) are capable of reading aloud with inflection if they KNOW what the emotion of the speaker is supposed to be. If there are textual clues that the speaker is angry or happy, they know how that sounds. I find this interesting since one of my students speaks in a monotone generally and reads routinely in a very soft tone.

Yet if the text says something like:

John was angry. “Give me my backpack!” he demanded–both will add appropriate, louder, inflection when reading John’s words.

To get a student with autism to read with inflection, especially the younger ones, perhaps we need to TELL them what the emotion of the speaker is.  They usually won’t infer this from the situation, even though most of us will.  But they know how an angry person sounds if they know he’s angry.  Or a happy person.  Or a sad person.

The more they recognize the different tones of voice, the easier it will be to infer emotions in daily communication.  Perhaps.

Related posts:

1. Inference Cuing: What is the most likely reason for that?
2. Hearing the story in your head: The role of expressive reading
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

It has frequently been observed that children on the autism spectrum  tend to be concrete and literal thinkers who have difficulty with abstract concepts like inferring a character’s unstated motive.  When reading fiction, the concrete thinkers will focus narrowly on the minute physical details and often miss the “big picture.”

Fernando’s red jacket flapped in the wind as he raced on his new bicycle down Maple Street.  Ignoring the stop sign at the end of the block, Fernando ran straight into the side of a passing city bus.  When he woke up he heard a siren and realized he was in the back of an ambulance.

The child with autism should have no difficulty telling you that Fernando’s jacket was red, and his bike was new.  He probably would be able to report that Fernando ran into a bus.

Yet some may not recognize that the person in the ambulance is Fernando, because Fernando’s name is not stated in the last sentence, only the pronoun “he” is used (an example of anaphora).  Children with autism frequently will not connect one sentence to the next, even within paragraphs.

While it may seem to us both obvious and critically important for the reader to recognize that Fernando is injured, the child with autism may make no such connections without coaching.  They do not always think about the ramifications of coats flapping in the wind, bicycles speeding, and stop signs ignored.  The visual image of a child’s body striking the side of a moving bus does not automatically come to them, or necessarily suggest to them an ambulance ride to the hospital, or worse.

Anaphoric cuing (about which there are several articles on this blog) teaches the child to stop when he gets to anaphora and ask himself who or what, or where or when or why questions to focus his attention on the meaning of what he is reading by identifying the referent words.  The reader needs to think about who is waking up in an ambulance, and why.  Was Fernando napping or was he knocked unconscious?

Inferring motive

A character’s motives may be similarly difficult for the child with autism to recognize, even when they seem clear to most readers.

Bob’ s favorite green Boston Celtics hat was missing from his locker!  He looked up and down the hallway and spotted George wearing a green hat!  Bob ran down the hall, shoved George against the wall, and grabbed the hat off his head.  As Bob was walking away, he noticed that the green hat he was holding said Dallas Mavericks.

The child with autism might know that Celtic hats are green, might know Bob’s was missing, might know the hat George was wearing was green, and yet may be stumped by the question:  Why did Bob shove George and take his hat? Since the text does not explicitly say that Bob suspected George of taking his hat, the reader with autism might not make this seemingly obvious inference.

How to infer state of mind, emotion, or motive from a character’s actions is something that must be taught patiently to young readers with autism.  Often the teacher or aide must have to learn how to recognize themselves when they are inferring so they can guide the student to a similar inference.

What is most likely?

When a character is described as frowning and speaking loudly, we may infer “anger” without even being aware we made an inference.

Julia waited on the front porch of Elizabeth’s house for 15 minutes.  When Elizabeth finally came outside, Julia frowned and asked loudly, “Can we go now?”

The concrete thinker, if asked, might surprise us with the number of other possible (if implausible) explanations for speaking loudly while frowning.  They can always come up with fanciful scenarios (“maybe a caterpillar crawled in her ear“) which have no connection whatsoever to the text.  They may need to be prompted to focus their thinking on what is most common and most likely under the circumstances of the story.

• What are the most common reasons why someone would do that?

• What is the most likely reason this character is doing that, considering what just happened to her?

Keeping track of details is a strength

When instructing a whole classroom of students, most of which do not have autism, on a long piece of fiction one may discover an advantage that many readers with autism have: they can often keep track of a surprising number of minor characters and minute details, even if they have difficulty connecting them.

A high school student with autism, having studied an abridged version of Romeo and Juliet for several weeks in class, was watching the Zefferelli film and laughed to himself when Romeo’s servant, Balthazar, passes a monk on a donkey while on his way to Mantua to tell Romeo of Juliet’s apparent death. “Friar John” the student said.  Friar John was not named in the version of the play studied.  The name was mentioned once in class weeks before.

I have also observed (to my surprise) that some children with autism are as capable as other kids of learning the meaning of idioms such as “nose to the grindstone” or “sick as a dog” or “hold your horses.”  In fact, they may even recognize the humor in certain idioms, once they learn the meaning, that others more familiar with the terms may overlook.  Drawing an absurd picture to illustrate a witty idiom may be great fun for these children.

Related posts:

1. FAQs about anaphoric cuing and reading comprehension
2. Anaphoric cuing: Asking clarifying questions
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

The new proposed DSM-V, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual that is the bible for mental health professionals, would eliminate Asperger’s syndrome (first added to DSM-IV in 1994) as a diagnosis separate from autism.  Those now diagnosed with Asperger’s will presumably fall into the milder end of a broadened “Autism Spectrum Disorder.”  Numerous articles about the proposed change are available, including this one from National Public Radio.

The new name for the category, autism spectrum disorder, includes autistic disorder (autism), Asperger’s disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. 

For those like me curious about the actual wording of the new proposed section of the DSM-V (and I’ll admit I’m a wonk and want to see these things verbatim, not just interpreted for me by someone who thinks I can’t read well enough to understand it), here it is:  [Bold face and words in brackets I have added]

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Must meet criteria 1, 2, and 3:

 1.  Clinically significant, persistent deficits in social communication and interactions, as manifest by all of the following: 

a.  Marked deficits in nonverbal and verbal communication used for social interaction:

b.  Lack of social reciprocity; [and]

c.  Failure to develop and maintain peer relationships appropriate to developmental level  [and]

2.  Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least TWO of the following: 

a.  Stereotyped motor or verbal behaviors, or unusual sensory behaviors 

b.  Excessive adherence to routines and ritualized patterns of behavior

c.  Restricted, fixated interests [and]

3.  Symptoms must be present in early childhood (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities)

http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=94

Related posts:

1. Reader with autism and figurative language, part 1
2. When a reader with autism needs to respond to literature…
3. Autism and hyperlexia, part 1: Anaphoric cuing?

By Richard Finegan

You may call me a paraeducator, a paraprofessional, a one-on-one aide, a classroom assistant, a special education technician, even a teacher’s aide (though I am there for the student, not the teacher) but please don’t call me a shadow or describe what I do as shadowing.

The term shadow suggests that the aide never leaves the side of the child. That describes a bodyguard, not a paraeducator. I would not be doing my job if I hovered as close to my student as Malia Obama’s Secret Service agent.

True, I am what used to be called (and I still call) a one-on-one aide, and I do move from classroom to classroom with the same child. But my job is to help that student become more independent, more self-regulated and self-sufficient. I’ve never heard anyone explain how this can happen if I am constantly elbow-to-elbow with my kid.

A better analogy to what we do might be a sheepdog: Constantly alert and watching his or her charges but only moving in and out again as circumstances require. Yes, this analogy works better; shepherding is an improvement over shadowing. Even so, I don’t think I’m quite ready to be called a sheepdog either. Smile.

This is more than just a semantic issue. When others refer to me as a shadow or to what I do as shadowing, they consciously or unconsciously suggest that I should be sticking like glue to my student and that I am perhaps not doing my job properly if I am halfway across the classroom taking notes or, more often, walking around interacting with other students.

Worse even is what it suggests to new paraeducators trying to learn to do what we do. What they should be hearing is: Get up. Step back. Give your student some room to grow!

Related posts:

1. Paraeducators need to speak for ourselves
2. Writing rules for a kindergartner with autism
3. FAQs about anaphoric cuing and reading comprehension