Abstract
Tactile Strategies for Early Communicators: Practical Ideas for Interactive Daily Routines
Children with Visual Impairment and Additional Disabilities (including Deafblindness) develop concepts through direct experience with people, materials, and environments. Through touch! This presentation will offer multiple examples of early literacy and communication activities using alternative tactile forms of communication to build motivation, participation, and reciprocity. Participants will reflect on their own experiences with touch, considering how to use this sense to facilitate access to shared topics, communication forms, and social interaction.
Participants will:
- Consider their own sense of touch and its relationship to interactions with an early communicator who is Deafblind
- Observe tactile communication strategies through video examples, partner simulations, and direct modeling from presenter
- Identify the components of an accessible tactile communication system
- Review communication targets for daily interactive routines based on student’s individual learning characteristics
