What is the purpose of this website?
This website provides guidelines for teaching literacy skills to learners with special needs, especially learners with complex communication needs
- Autism spectrum disorders
- Cerebral palsy
- Down syndrome
- Developmental apraxia
- Multiple disabilities.
The website provides information on:
- What skills to teach
- How to teach these skills
- Videotaped examples of instruction with learners with special needs.
Krista
- Krista has multiple challenges, including a hearing impairment, a visual impairment, and a motor impairment. She also has a tracheotomy.
- Krista has a dynamic personality. She makes everyone smile.
- Like many of her peers, she loves Zac Efron from High School Musical and Zack and Cody from the Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
- She uses sign approximations and a computer with speech output (a Mercury with Speaking Dynamically Pro software). Because of her hearing impairment, she does best when others sign as they talk.
- We started to work with Krista when she was 8 years old. At that time, she was in a special education class at school and was not receiving literacy instruction.
- Watch this video of Krista at 9 years of age. She is independently reading a personalized book about a summer adventure with Zac Efron.
- She is so excited to be a reader!
- Visit the rest of the website to learn more about how Krista learned to read stories independently.
Unauthorized copying, transmittal, or exhibition of this video outside of this website is prohibited.
We will be updating this site during the next few months, be sure to check back for new videos and examples!
This literacy curriculum was developed and evaluated through a research grant (#H133E030018) funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) as part of the AAC-RERC. The contents do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDRR.