section 3, module 13 facilitating growth and skill … 13... · · 2017-06-20unit 2: facilitating...

Section 3, Module 13 Facilitating Growth

and Skill Development

Foundations in Community Disability Studies

Section 3, Module 13

Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................ 1

Learning Outcomes ....................................................................................................................................... 1

Unit 1: The Planning Process ............................................................................................................................ 2

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 2

Teaching Functional and Age-Appropriate Skills .............................................................................. 2

Planning ............................................................................................................................................................. 3

Unit 2: Facilitating Learning ............................................................................................................................. 7

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 7

Common Goals and Objectives for Children and Adults ................................................................. 7

Two General Approaches to Learning: Formal and Informal ........................................................ 9

The Principle of Partial Participation ...................................................................................................11

Five Useful and Effective Strategies to Help People Learn ...........................................................12

Encouraging Learning by Using Rewards Effectively .....................................................................18

Unit 3: Data Collecting and Graphing ..........................................................................................................20

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................20

Types of Data .................................................................................................................................................20

Graphing Your Information ......................................................................................................................22

Unit 4: Developing New Skills for Living in the Community ..............................................................25

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................25

Community Living .......................................................................................................................................25

Teachable Moments and the Natural Environment ........................................................................27

Differences between Parenting Children and Teaching Adults ..................................................28

Partial Participation and Interdependence ........................................................................................28

Putting It All Together: Critical and Analytical Thinking Skills ..................................................29

References for Module 13: Facilitating Growth and Development .................................................32

Self-Assessment ...................................................................................................................................................33

Answer Key for Self-Assessment ...........................................................................................................35

Module 13: Facilitating

Growth and Skill

Development

Foundations in Community Disability Studies: Facilitating Growth and Skill Development 1

Copyright © 2005, 2010, 2015 Alberta Council of Disability Services (ACDS) All Rights Reserved

Introduction Your role as a Community Disability Services Worker includes helping children and adults with developmental disabilities learn new skills so they can become full participants in community life. Naturally, the skills needed are different for children than they are for adults. However, all the skills have one thing in common – they help people increase their ability to participate in a wider range of community activities. Since learning is a lifelong activity, it is reasonable to expect adults with disabilities to learn skills or strengthen existing abilities for as long as they wish to continue learning. Most people enjoy learning new skills well into their senior years.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this module, you will be able to:

1. Describe the planning process used to help people with developmental disabilities learn functional and age-appropriate skills.

2. Identify and use appropriate strategies to help individuals you are supporting to learn new skills.

3. Collect information about people’s behaviour and display it on a graph. 4. Help individuals you are supporting to develop the skills they need to participate in

community life.

Foundations in Community Disability Studies: 2 Facilitating Growth and Skill Development


Unit 1: The Planning Process

Introduction

Unit 1 defines functional and age-appropriate skills and gives examples of appropriate skills for children and adults. Before we can help people develop new skills, we need to identify the knowledge and skills they already have. The next step is to identify the skills individuals need to learn in order to become more independent and participate as members of their communities. This unit also describes the planning process that is used to help individuals set priorities and reach their goals for the future.

Unit 1 Learning Outcomes

After completing this unit, you will be able to:

1. Explain what is meant by functional and age-appropriate skills. 2. Identify the key components of the planning process and your role in this process in

your agency or program area.

Teaching Functional and Age-Appropriate Skills

The skills learned by adults must be both functional (i.e., useful in daily life) and age-appropriate. Age-appropriate means we would not teach skills to adults that people normally use when they are children. A simple example is learning to tie shoes. Many alternatives to tying shoes exist, including wearing slip-ons, using curly laces for running and leisure shoes, or choosing shoes with other forms of closures, such as buckles, straps (e.g., those found on some sandals or boots), or Velcro. These options should be pursued rather than teaching people to tie their shoes at age 30 or 40.

Sometimes a person chooses to learn a skill that would normally be taught to a child. He or she is motivated to learn the skill and chooses to work on learning it for his or her own satisfaction. An excellent example of this is an older person who may not have had the opportunity to learn to read as a child. He or she may choose to enrol in an adult literacy program. As a Community Disability Services Worker, you should support these decisions as long as they are truly chosen by the person. You must avoid directing or influencing the individuals you are supporting toward activities that are not age-appropriate.

As another example, think about an adult with a disability who has not learned to pay for things using cash or a debit card. He must rely on others to help him with many of his everyday transactions in the community, such as buying something from a vending machine, making a purchase at a grocery store, or paying for a meal in a restaurant. This means his independence in the community is limited. Furthermore, he may not want to be alone in these settings or to try to pay for things on his own because he may feel embarrassed. This could further restrict his opportunities. Finally, his lack of skill can make other people in the community aware of his disability.



Clearly, the ability to use cash or a debit card is both functional and age-appropriate. Learning this skill may be essential for improving the person’s access to his community and his sense of belonging. To teach this skill, you do not need to go all the way back to the beginning and teach the person how to count and do addition and subtraction. There are many other ways of helping him gain this skill without using age-inappropriate teaching strategies. You could teach visual recognition and naming of bills and coins. Then you could progress to real-life learning experiences in which you would coach the person to use the correct denomination, first to make small purchases, and then for more complicated transactions. In the next units, you will learn more about the teaching strategies you could use.

Finally, let’s consider a young child who needs to learn to play and socialize with other children in unfamiliar situations such as play groups, kindergarten, or swimming lessons. She needs to learn how to make friends in order to be accepted by her peers. Teaching her to greet and be comfortable with new people in unfamiliar settings is both functional and age-appropriate.

Transitional Ages

If you are supporting teenagers, it is essential to be looking ahead to their lives as adults. Think about some new environments they could experience in the future (e.g., paid employment or volunteer work instead of school). Identify the skills they need to be successful in these settings.1 Teaching these skills now will help the person make a smooth transition into the next stage of his or her life.

Planning

Purposes of developing a plan with the individuals whom you are supporting:

To clearly identify the future priorities of the person.2 To ensure action and energy are focused on priority areas.3 To ensure coordination of activities of various agencies and individuals toward

agreed-upon goals, where necessary. To monitor progress through regular reviews and change the plan to make sure it is

current and continues to reflect the individual’s wishes and/or those of his or her guardian(s).4

For some adults with developmental disabilities, the plan also is part of a proposal for funding that is submitted to the regional Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD)

1 Paul Wehman, Phillip J. McLaughlin, and Therese Wehman, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Toward Full Community Inclusion, 3rd ed. (Austin, Texas: Pro-Ed, 2005), 79.

2 Positive Behavioral Support: Including People with Difficult Behavior in the Community eds. Lynn Kern Koegel, Robert L. Koegel, and Glen Dunlap (Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 2009), 442.

3 Positive Behavioral Support, 442.

4 Positive Behavioral Support, 464.



Community Board. In these situations, the goals of the plan are translated to a staffing or support structure and a budget is prepared.

A Plan by Any Name Is Still a Plan

Every agency providing service to children and adults with disabilities uses some form of planning. Many different names may be used for these plans:

individual service plans; general service plans; family service plans; lifestyle plans; coordinated assessment and planning; individual educational plan; 24-hour plans; person-centred plan; individual treatment plan; or team approach planning.

Common Components of All Plans

Regardless of what your agency calls its planning process, all types of plans have some common components. These should include:

Full involvement of the person and his or her support network, including guardians, family members, support staff, friends, and employers, as directed by the individual or his or her guardian(s).

Recognition of the person’s choices, wishes, and goals as central to the plan. The planning process and its outcomes should be driven by the individual for whom the planning is occurring.5 This is often called being person-centred rather than service- or support-centred.

Information gathering about the person’s current and future environments, desired areas for learning or growth, and the skills required to succeed.

Information about the person’s current interests and capacities (e.g., skills, qualities, hopes, dreams, talents).

A positive focus on future activities that will increase skills or improve quality of life for the person as a whole (i.e., a single plan that covers school or work, home, social activities, and other areas on a 24-hour, seven days per week basis).

A focus on functional and age-appropriate skills and activities that are needed and wanted by the individual.

Special considerations when transitions are expected (e.g., for youth aged 15 to 17 who may move from school to work, volunteer, or community exploration activities, for seniors who may need increased personal care or medical support).

5 Anne Gordon, Steve Holburn, and Peter Vietze, Person-centred Planning Made Easy: The Picture Method (Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 2007), 3.



A review of previously set goals and progress toward these goals. A formal or informal assessment of the person’s current needs, skills, wants, and

wishes. Development of goals (and sometimes objectives) and an action plan (i.e., who will

do what by when) to ensure that effort is directed toward helping the person achieve his or her goals.

Priorities established based on the importance of some goals over others, with goals related to health and safety coming first.

Timelines for completion of goals and objectives, progress reviews, and an annual review of the plan as a whole.

A copy of the plan is given to the individual involved, guardian(s), and any other participants (e.g., a teacher or a job coach at work) who need a copy in order to help the person reach the goals identified in the plan.

The timeline for goals in an individual’s plan is normally about one year. Objectives (i.e., the activities or steps that enable a person to reach a goal) usually have timelines of a few months. At the end of each year, the plan is reviewed and updated with input from the person and his or her support network.

The Community Disability Services Worker’s Roles in the Planning Process

As a Community Disability Services Worker, you are part of a team, and may be invited to participate in helping the individuals you are supporting to develop their plans. You may be involved in a number of ways, including those listed below:

Determining how successful individuals and their support networks have been in achieving previously set goals.

Helping to identify a person’s interests (e.g., through observing what they enjoy doing).

Asking individuals what they would like to learn, do, or explore in the future. Identifying areas where individuals might benefit from increased independence and

learning new skills in order to participate fully in the community. Talking with the person, his or her family members, and friends who know the

individual best in order to find out the person’s likes, dislikes, and personal goals. Attending meetings, often called case conferences, planning meetings, or review or

update meetings. Helping to write or review draft plans. Reading plans in order to understand them and support their implementation.

You may also be required to provide information for the progress reports that are done monthly or quarterly in many agencies.



Learning Activity

1. What is your agency’s planning process called? Does the agency have only one planning process or several different processes? If it has several processes, what are the differences between these processes? 2. What are the steps in the planning process(es)? 3. What is your role in planning likely to be? You may have to talk to your

supervisor or other Community Disability Services Workers about this expectation. 4. Review the service plan for at least one of the individuals whom you support. Then talk

to the person and determine if the plan reflects his or her goals and desires. 5. From your observations of this person’s daily activities and interactions in his or her

community, can you see how the plan is being implemented or used to further his or her learning and participation?

If any of the above questions raise concerns, discuss them with your supervisor or manager, or bring them forward at your next team meeting.



Unit 2: Facilitating Learning

Introduction

After an individual’s plan has been prepared, you will need to identify and use strategies to help the person reach her or his goals and objectives. Many goals and objectives for people with developmental disabilities involve learning new skills.

We all learn in many different ways. Formal learning is usually based on lesson plans and occurs at specified times and locations.6 Informal learning happens when people gain skills by participating in daily activities. Community Disability Support Workers can use a variety of strategies to help clients learn. Five of these strategies are described in Unit 2. You will enjoy reading examples and real-life stories of people who are learning how to care for themselves and participate in their communities.



1. Identify common goals and objectives for children and adults with developmental disabilities.

2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of formal and informal approaches to teaching new skills.

3. Explain the concept of partial participation and suggest how it could be used to support a person with a disability you work with.

4. Describe five teaching strategies (i.e., task analysis, tell – show – guide, shaping, chaining, fading), and give examples of when each could be used.

5. Suggest rewards that would motivate the individual you are supporting to work to develop new skills.

Common Goals and Objectives for Children and Adults

For adults with disabilities, some goals will relate to where they will live and work, and what they will do during their leisure time. Goals should build on people’s current assets and continue to strengthen their skills by focusing on the things they enjoy doing. Objectives may be smaller and more immediate than goals, such as learning how to take care of their own bedrooms, how to cook a meal (or part of a meal), how to use public

6 Patrick Werquin, Terms, Concepts and Models for Analyzing the Value of Recognition Programmes (RNFIL – Third Meeting of National Representatives and International Organisations, 2007), http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/58/41834711.pdf, 3, quoted in Sarah Elaine Eaton, Formal, non-formal and informal learning: The case of literacy, essential skills and language learning in Canada (Eaton International Consulting Inc., 2010), accessed as reference on February 17, 2015 http://www.nald.ca/library/research/eaton/eaton.pdf, 6. accessed as reference on February 17, 2015

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/58/41834711.pdf

http://www.nald.ca/library/research/eaton/eaton.pdf



transit, or how to do the laundry. Other learning may involve entertainment or recreation, such as learning to sing or play an instrument, taking a yoga class, or learning to draw or paint.

For children with developmental disabilities, goals may be related to school progress (e.g., reading, writing, arithmetic), increasing independence with personal care (e.g., bathing, tooth brushing, or dressing), increasing participation in household activities (e.g., making lunches, taking care of pets, making the bed), and increasing community involvement (e.g., attending a club, swim class, dance group).

For both children and adults, the types of goals and objectives and the timelines for achieving each will depend on the severity of the disability, the person’s motivation and interests, and how much support is available to help him or her. People who live or work in staff-supported situations often have different goals and timelines than people who live with family, in supported living situations with roommates, or in foster care.

Beginning Where the Person Is Now

A story is told about a woman who wanted to go on a trip to New York City. She called a travel agent and asked, “How do I get to New York?” The travel agent wisely said, “Ma’am, that depends on where you are now and how quickly you want to get there!”

As this story illustrates, how we help people achieve their goals depends on how fast they want to see new skills develop and what related skills (often called prerequisite skills) they have now that they can build upon. The speed of learning depends on five factors:

the teaching strategies used; how formal or informal the learning process is; the person’s motivation for learning the skill; the amount of time or number of opportunities available to practice and learn; and the amount of support (i.e., people, time) available to assist the learner.

A Real-Life Story

A woman who has a son with cerebral palsy and vision loss related a story about her son’s interest in learning. At four years of age he was a happy, healthy child who was well accepted by neighbourhood children. He did not walk. Instead, he made his way around home and around the block by folding one leg under him and hopping, using his other leg and both arms and hands made into fists to propel him forward. He and his friends accepted this as his unique way of going places. Unfortunately, the local preschool program insisted that he either be able to walk (with crutches or canes) or use a wheelchair. No hopping allowed!

The child had been through much physical therapy and had had several surgeries to lengthen ligaments and reduce the contracture of his muscles. His doctors, parents, and therapists all felt he would eventually walk, and there was nothing physically stopping him from doing so. He continued to attend physical therapy several days a week to improve his ability to walk in the future.



The day came when most of his friends began preschool classes. He found himself alone, with few children to play with. His mother explained that unless he could walk, use crutches, or use a wheelchair, he would not be allowed to go to school. A few days later, he announced that walking would be his choice. Within three weeks, with much focus and energy on both his and his parents’ parts, he was walking well enough to attend preschool with his friends. This is a great example of how motivation, need, and support together can help anyone learn.

Two General Approaches to Learning: Formal and Informal

Formal Learning

When a formal approach to learning is used, the process is planned and structured. Often a written program is developed and learning times are planned and scheduled. Each learning time (often called a session) usually has specific activities and expected outcomes.7

Possible Advantages of a Formal Approach to Learning

Skills to be learned receive priority, and time and energy are spent on helping the person learn. Little is left to chance.

Data may be collected to determine whether or not skills are actually being acquired. If learning is slower than expected, the strategies used for teaching the skill can be

changed. The intensity of the learning sessions can help people learn skills faster. This is

important if a person needs a skill quickly in order to participate in work or community activities, or for health and safety reasons.

The focus on teaching can help some people concentrate on learning. It indicates that what is being learned is important.

Early in the learning process, sessions can take place outside of the environment in which the new skills will be used. This reduces the pressure to do things “perfectly” and decreases the significance of making a mistake.

Learning can be transferred to the real world in a planned way (often called generalization training), which can make people more confident and more successful.

Rewards (often called positive reinforcement) are planned and made available in precise ways (e.g., an individual receives a reward when he or she performs a task correctly three times).

Possible Disadvantages of a Formal Approach to Learning

The structure may not allow the person much choice about what to learn and when to learn it.

7 Werquin, quoted in Eaton, 6.



He or she may not be motivated to learn the new skill at the time when the session is scheduled.

Support staff may overlook spontaneous opportunities for teaching and learning because more formal learning is planned for later in the day or week.

Rewards (positive reinforcement) may not be natural and spontaneous because they are planned and delivered by the person who is teaching the skill.

Clearly, structured learning has its place. However, many adults with disabilities who are now in their 50s and 60s may react strongly and negatively to formal structured learning approaches. Some feel that they were “programmed to death” in their early lives. From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, there was a heavy emphasis on formal approaches to learning. Many individuals still have formal programs to teach new skills; however, informal learning is being used more often now. This trend toward more informal (although not less focused) learning that is natural and community based is likely to continue for many years.

Your role as a Community Disability Services Worker in formal programs will likely be to participate in using teaching strategies that have been developed by other members of your team. Be sure you ask your supervisor what is expected of you and what skills you need to learn to be effective in helping the people you are supporting progress in their lives.

Informal Learning

An informal approach to learning capitalizes on spontaneous and natural opportunities provided as a person moves through the day and week. In fact, the informal approach is sometimes called “natural learning.”8 Many skills must be used in several different environments. Someone who is learning to pay for things on his or her own eventually must be able to do this in a grocery store, a restaurant, at a theatre or video store, and at a department store. This suggests that the practice the person needs must first be in one or two settings, and then in a wider range of environments.

Informal learning does not mean that the teaching process is left to chance or is unplanned. For example, a teenager who is learning to increase her social contacts and skills may meet with her support worker to plan one or two activities every week that allow her to learn and practice these skills.

Possible Advantages of an Informal Approach to Learning

Learning is done more naturally as part of daily activities at work, school, home, and in the community.

Learning can happen when motivation is high. Spontaneous opportunities for learning are maximized. As a result, there may be

more chances for people to practice new skills. Generalization (the use of skills in different but similar settings) can take place

naturally, rather than having to be planned.

8 “What is Natural Learning,” Washington Natural Learning Association, accessed October 16, 2010, http://wnla.tripod.com/id36.html (web site defunct).

http://wnla.tripod.com/id36.html



Natural rewards, as well as planned rewards, are possible. Natural rewards include a sense of accomplishment when a task or activity is successfully completed or partially completed.

Possible Disadvantages of an Informal Approach to Learning

Support staff or families may forget to create opportunities for learning. Teaching may become a lower priority than other daily tasks.

Specific data may not be kept about emerging skills, resulting in subjective evaluations of whether or not the skills are actually being learned.

Successes or partial successes may not be rewarded sufficiently, or support workers may rely too heavily on natural rewards, especially in the early stages of learning something new, which may result in loss of motivation or interest in learning.

Learning Activity

For each of the following examples, indicate whether you think an informal or a formal approach to teaching this skill would work best. Be prepared to discuss the reasons for your answer with your tutor or other learners.

Learning to prepare a simple breakfast for two people Learning to order lunch at a fast-food restaurant Learning to recognize coins and denominations of paper money Learning to brush one’s own teeth Learning to play a musical instrument Learning to read Learning to dress for playing outside in winter Learning to use a power wheelchair Learning to swim

The Principle of Partial Participation

Although individuals with disabilities have the ability to learn many new skills, their ability to learn a whole task varies widely, depending on the type and severity of their disabilities. The principle of partial participation suggests that people should do the parts of a skill that are realistic and useful for them to learn.9 For example, a person with a severe cognitive delay may be able to learn to spread butter on bread to make a sandwich, but may not be able to make a whole sandwich or a whole lunch for school or work. Partial participation makes it possible for the person to be part of daily lunch making and to be proud of his or her success without ever having to learn the whole task. For young children or people with severe or multiple disabilities, this principle is important. It helps ensure they are actively involved in daily activities, stimulation, interaction, and challenge. As the word suggests, they are participants rather than spectators.

9 Wehman, McLaughlin, and Wehman, 257.



Five Useful and Effective Strategies to Help People Learn

In the past, the following five teaching strategies were used only in formal and structured learning situations. However, all five strategies are equally useful in informal learning situations. The strategies require some advance planning in order to be most effective; however, even informal approaches require you to be intentional about teaching. This means that in spontaneous situations, you are actively assisting people to learn new skills in the most efficient and effective ways possible.

Strategy 1: Break the Skill Down into Smaller Steps – Task Analysis

Some people can be taught some skills in one big “chunk.” However, many of us need to have more complex skills broken down into smaller pieces or steps to make learning easier and more rewarding. This is often called “task analysis.”10 Think of when you were learning to drive a car. If someone tried to teach you this complex set of skills all at once, you probably would have felt frustrated and would not have been as successful as you wanted to be. Your experience would be different if the person teaching you took a step-by-step approach. Breaking the task into steps would enable you to experience a small series of successes, excitement about your new skills, and a sense of satisfaction and increased motivation to continue to learn.

Note that these steps are custom designed for the person who is learning. Some people can learn best with very small steps, and others can learn well with slightly larger steps. Your knowledge of the person’s abilities, current skill levels, and motivation will tell you how big the steps should be. If your task analysis steps are too big or too small, you will know this by the person’s reactions. Steps that are too big will result in too many mistakes or in failure to progress and loss of interest. Steps that are too small will lead to boredom and loss of motivation.

Learning Activity

Think of a skill one of the individuals you are supporting could learn that is connected to the goals in his or her plan. Break this skill down into the steps you think this person could handle. Show this list to your supervisor, tutor, or other learners, and discuss whether the steps seem to be the right size for this person.

You could repeat this exercise with a second skill or with a second person.

10 Raymond G. Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA.: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2008), 229.



Strategy 2: Tell – Show – Guide

This strategy is based on two simple principles. The first principle requires us to give people the least amount of assistance they need to complete a skill, or part of a skill, successfully. Giving too much assistance slows down learning and may make people feel like they are being treated as less able than they are. Finding the right amount of assistance is an art. The amount of assistance will be different

for different people; for different skills or steps of the skills being taught; and at different learning times (e.g., in a new community setting with lots of distractions,

more assistance may be necessary than when the skill is being demonstrated in a familiar, quieter setting).

The second principle emphasizes the importance of modeling successful completion of a skill. The person sees someone do part, or all, of the task, and learns by watching someone else succeed.11

Telling the person involves giving verbal directions about how to do the task. This is usually done while the person learning or the person teaching is doing the task. Telling is also sometimes called cueing, although cues may also be physical (e.g., pointing is a cue).12 The instructions should be simple, clear, and given one step at a time. Giving too much information or giving instructions too quickly makes learning more difficult.

For example, suppose you are teaching a teenager how to do his own laundry. Because the task is complex, you will want to do a task analysis first. Then, begin with the first step and tell the person how to do the step, not just what to do. Don’t say, “Now sort the colours, the darks, and the whites.” This is what, not how. Some very able clients may be able to sort without any help, but most people will need more help. Remember, your job is to help people succeed by learning in small steps, encouraging them along the way, and keeping their motivation high in the process.

The next part of this strategy is to show the person how to do the task or the current step of the task. This is called modeling.13 It is very effective because it lets the person see you doing the task and succeeding. Telling and showing are often combined. For example, you say, “Now, we’re going to sort your laundry. First, let’s make three piles. Whites go here, colours here, and darks here. Now you try. Take a white thing and put it there.” As you are saying this, you are taking one piece of each colour of clothing and placing it on the floor. Then you direct the person to try while you give simple directions (telling) and show where to put the item (showing by pointing). Make sure you reward the person for success (“Well done.”) or partial success (“Good try. You’ll get it next time.”).

11 Miltenberger, 253.





The next part of this strategy is called guiding. Most often, guiding takes the form of “hand-over-hand” assistance.14 Guiding is only necessary if telling and showing do not lead to successful learning. Continuing with the above example, you could say, “You’re trying hard. I’m going to give you a bit more help to make it easier. Here’s a white thing, hold on to it with me. Now let’s put it over here with the other whites. Great.”

Learning Activity

Choose a skill that one of the individuals you support is currently learning or could learn as part of the goals in his or her plan. Describe how you could use the tell – show – guide strategy to teach this skill. Discuss your ideas with your supervisor, tutor, or other learners.

Strategy 3: Shaping

Shaping is an excellent strategy for both formal and informal situations. For informal learning, begin by looking for a tiny piece (called an “approximation”) of the final skill the person is learning.15 The person might have done this behaviour spontaneously and unintentionally. You could also cue or instruct the person to do the approximation. For spontaneous behaviours, you must be a careful observer, looking for anything that looks like the whole skill. When you see (or hear) the approximation, you reward the person for doing it.16 As you will see later, the reward may be praise, an object, food, or a special treat.

The next step is to look for a bit more – something a little closer to the final skill than you were looking for the first time. Again, this may be based on a cue or direction, or could occur spontaneously. You continue rewarding increasingly closer and closer approximations to the final skill.17 This process is often called “successive approximations,” for obvious reasons.18 Shaping and tell – show – guide are very compatible teaching strategies.

Let’s look at an example of a Community Disability Services Worker helping a child to improve her manners at the table – specifically, using a napkin to wipe her mouth. The example below uses both shaping and tell – show – guide to support learning the new skill. Please note that the series of approximations described in the scenario would likely occur over several meals during a week or more. It is important to make the learning experience natural and enjoyable and not overdo the teaching process. Putting too much pressure on the person or over-rewarding approximations can cause anger or withdrawal from the learning process.








First, you notice that the child touches the napkin laying folded beside her plate. You praise her for touching the napkin (the first approximation). Then, you suggest she unfold the napkin and place it on her lap (telling). She unfolds the napkin and leaves it beside her plate (an approximation). Again, you provide praise. At the next meal, you ask, “What do you do with your napkin?” (a type of telling called an indirect verbal prompt). She places the napkin on her lap. “Wow, great job.” At another meal, you model using your napkin to wipe your mouth. You also draw her attention to others at the table using their napkins appropriately (showing). Later in the meal she picks up the napkin, wipes her fingers, and places it beside her plate. You comment positively on what she did well (wiping her fingers is an approximation for wiping her mouth). You continue to cue, look for approximations, and reward effort until the skill is learned.

Strategy 4: Chaining

Chaining is a strategy that requires a little more planning and is often used as part of a formal teaching plan. The first step is to complete a task analysis that is customized specifically for the person who is learning the skill.19 There are two different ways of chaining: forward and backward. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Forward chaining begins with the first step of the task analysis;20 backward chaining begins with the last step.21 The person does only this step and the rest of the task (all the other steps in the task analysis) are completed by the person who is teaching the skill. Of course, the person’s success with this one step is rewarded using praise and/or other rewards. Next the person does the first two steps (or last two steps with backward chaining) and is rewarded for succeeding.

Let’s look at an example of backward chaining.

A Real-Life Story

Robert has a new job at a car dealership. His support worker must help him learn how to wash new cars that are being prepared for delivery to customers. The worker does a task analysis and identifies 15 steps for washing the outside of a car. (Note: There may be more or fewer steps in other task analyses based on different people’s learning abilities and existing skill levels.) The worker decides that backward chaining will be used and begins by washing the car herself, describing what she is doing as she does it. (Telling and showing are usually part of chaining, too.)

Robert watches her work, enjoying his new job immensely! Then the worker stops before the last step. “Your turn,” she says. “Your job is to wipe the bumpers and mirrors with this cloth.” He happily finishes the job and admires his handiwork. The new car manager checks the quality of his work and praises him for doing an excellent job. At the end of the day, the






support worker goes home tired but very satisfied with Robert’s progress. After washing eight cars, he is now doing the last five of the fifteen steps without help and with much admiration from his co-workers and boss. Now that’s teamwork!

Tomorrow and the next day, and the next day, more steps will be added until Robert has mastered all of the 15 steps in the task. He goes home tired and happy with his accomplishments. The worker smiles and knows her role as teacher has been a key to his success now and in the future. And the car dealership owner wants more individuals with disabilities to work for him in the future.

Strategy 5: Fading

This strategy usually refers to making small changes in the amount of assistance, direction, or guidance you are giving a person. The changes should be small enough to be almost unnoticeable to the learner.22 The idea is to support learning with minimal or no mistakes. This helps the person feel confident and excited about his or her progress. The speed at which a person learns determines how quickly you can fade the assistance you are giving. Fading assistance too quickly will cause mistakes and may result in the person losing motivation and perhaps withdrawing from the learning situation. An example of fading is described in the following story.

A Real-Life Story

Jennifer was a 12-year old girl with autism who needed to learn to cross the busy street in front of her home. She had a new friend who had just moved in across the street, and the girls’ mothers wanted them to be able to visit each other without being supervised by adults. A marked and lighted crosswalk existed at the corner just three doors down. Jennifer’s mother asked her Community Disability Services Worker to help teach Jennifer to learn the new skill of crossing the street safely at the crosswalk.

First, the Community Disability Services Worker, Jennifer, and her mother went together to the crosswalk to observe her existing level of skill (called a baseline). They did this four times on two different days and found out that Jennifer could push the crosswalk button when the worker pointed to it and told her to, but she did not wait for the lights to turn, nor did she check for traffic before crossing the street. Based on this information, the support worker did a task analysis, breaking the skill down into five steps.

Each day Jennifer’s mother or the support worker walked with her to the crosswalk. On the first day, Jennifer was given a verbal prompt to push the button (Step 1) and a physical prompt (a light touch on her forearm) together with a verbal prompt, “Wait for the light to turn green, Jennifer.” (Step 2). When the light turned green, Jennifer was given a verbal prompt to look left and right to make sure all vehicles had stopped (Step 3). Then, the physical prompt (light touch on her forearm) was removed and she was verbally prompted to walk across the street (Step 4). Jennifer crossed the street (Step 5). Her friend and the




friend’s mother waited on the other side of the street and gave her lots of praise (reward) for crossing the street safely. The two girls then went off to play.

On the second day, the verbal prompt to push the button was changed to “What do you do first, Jennifer?” This is still a verbal prompt, but it is indirect rather than direct. Jennifer was able to push the button correctly. All other prompts remained the same on the second day. On the third day, no prompt was given. Jennifer walked to the edge of the street, paused, looked at her mother, smiled, and then laughed and pushed the button. Her mom was justifiably excited with Jennifer’s progress, and so was Jennifer! In her excitement, Jennifer almost stepped off the curb before the light turned green, but her mom’s gentle reminder (a light touch on her forearm) prevented her from making this mistake.

On the fourth day, the physical prompt (touch on the forearm) was reduced to a gesture with the support worker’s hand (indicating Jennifer should wait); the verbal prompt to wait remained the same. All other prompts remained the same, including no prompt for Jennifer to push the button, since now she was expected to do this independently.

On the fifth day, the gesture to wait was removed, and only the verbal prompt to wait remained. On the sixth day, the verbal prompt was reduced and was now indirect. (“What are you supposed to do now, Jennifer? Right! You wait for the light to turn green. Well done.”)

Using fading, it took just over two weeks of practice before Jennifer could cross the street safely and independently. Just for reassurance, Jennifer’s mother or the friend’s mother always watched her cross the street from their front room windows. This final level of assistance gave Jennifer the little extra confidence she needed and at the same time reassured both mothers that she really did have the ability to do this new task safely!

A final note: Jennifer is now 30 years old, and she works full-time at an insurance company as a file clerk.

Fading prompts takes time, but as you can see, Jennifer, her mother, and her support worker were focused on making her learning successful, step-by-step. The consequence of making a mistake was very serious, so Jennifer needed gradual changes (fading) of the levels of assistance based on her ability to demonstrate she could handle the next step of the task without placing herself at risk.



Learning Activity

For each of the following examples, describe what teaching strategies would be appropriate. Hint: More than one strategy may be useful for some of the examples:

Teaching a child to tie her shoelaces. Teaching a man with cerebral palsy to make a bed. Helping a woman shop for a new dress for a family party. Teaching a man working in a bakery to count 12 buns, put them in a bag, and close the

top with a twist tie. Teaching a co-worker how to snowboard. Teaching your supervisor how to play a new computer game.

Encouraging Learning by Using Rewards Effectively

We have discussed several ways you can make learning easier for people. Each of these teaching strategies can be made more powerful and more effective when combined with rewards or “positive reinforcement.”23 There are several different types of rewards, including:

things to eat (sometimes called “primary reinforcers”);24 things to do (e.g., activities, games, outings); time with people; physical touch (Caution: Touch must be appropriate, feel safe, and be wanted by the

person receiving it. Please see the Abuse Prevention and Response Protocol for guidance); and

verbal encouragement (e.g., praise).

The type of rewards used depends on a number of factors. The most important of these is whether the person desires the reward and sees it as valuable. Your goal in using rewards is twofold:

To encourage people to try, increasing or supporting their motivation to learn. To tell people when they are being successful.

It is important to know the people you are supporting. Talk with them (if possible) about what they find motivating and rewarding, and then plan to use some or all of these rewards to support and encourage learning. Using things that you like but that the people you are supporting do not like or want will not be effective in helping them learn.





Guidelines for Using Rewards Effectively

Choose rewards that people want or enjoy.25 Use different rewards with different people, at different times of the day or week,

and for different types of skills being learned.26 Use different types of rewards (e.g., a treat today, a game tomorrow, a visit with a

special friend at the end of the week).27 Use a variety of rewards (e.g., different types of treats).28 Combine different types of rewards (e.g., praise and a pat on the back). Give rewards promptly. When people try a new skill or improve one step, use praise

to encourage them to try again.29 Plan the use of rewards. Decide what behaviour you will reward and when rewards

will be given. Give bigger and more meaningful rewards for completing learning milestones (e.g.,

learning to prepare a weekday breakfast independently could be rewarded with a breakfast in a full-service restaurant).30

Cautions about Using Rewards

Don’t rely too heavily on praise alone as a reward. Even if the person enjoys verbal reinforcement, praise can become ineffective if it is overused.31

Don’t overuse any single reward. A person may find a shopping trip to the mall very rewarding, but if it is used daily, it will become boring or, worse yet, something to be avoided!32

All types of rewards must be genuine and real. There is nothing worse than something given without sincerity.

Rewards do not have to be expensive to be effective. Sometimes the best reward is simply an evening at home with a friend, a great movie, and some freshly popped popcorn, assuming, of course, that this is rewarding to the person receiving it.

People’s interests and motivations change from day to day and week to week. You must adjust the rewards you use to reflect these changes.33

Remember to use age-appropriate rewards at all times.












Unit 3: Data Collecting and Graphing

Introduction

Whether you are using formal or informal learning approaches to support learning, you may want to track someone’s progress. This means you will need to collect information (data) each step along the way. Observe and record what the person’s skills are before you begin teaching. As you learned in Unit 2, this is called a baseline. As the word suggests, you are determining the current level of the person’s abilities so you can measure her or his progress. Recording progress is important for several reasons:

It helps both the individual and you to get excited about learning because you can see from the data that progress is being made. This encourages future learning.

The data help you and your team decide if the strategies you are using are working. If they are not, you must try another way to help the person to learn.

The data may be turned into a picture (e.g., a graph) that shows the individual’s progress.



1. Identify four different types of information that you can record. 2. Set up a data collection sheet. 3. Use the information you collect to make a graph of the behaviour of a person you are

supporting.

Types of Data

You can record many different types of information. The most common types are listed below:

1. Frequency data: This data describes how many times someone does something.34 An example of frequency data is a record of the number of times a young child pulls herself up on a piece of furniture as she learns to stand and eventually to walk.

2. Duration data: This data describes how long it takes to complete a task from the time a person starts until the person has finished.35 An example is how long it takes a man to clear the table and load the dishwasher after a meal.

3. Accuracy data: This data describes the quality of the work done to complete a task. Examples are the number of sorting errors a woman makes when learning to do her own laundry, or the percentage of items sorted correctly.





4. Prompt or guidance level data: This data describes how much help a person is receiving from a support person. As a person learns the skill, less help should be required and data should indicate his or her learning is progressing. For example, on the first day of teaching, a child with a severe disability requires hand-over-hand guidance to bring a spoon from a bowl to his mouth. Several weeks later, the level of assistance needed is a light touch on the back of his hand.

When you are collecting data, you should set up a simple data collection sheet. The sheet must include the following information:36

name of the person; task or skill being taught; a column for consecutive dates; spaces for the data to be entered; space for comments; and space for your initials or name.

Name: Task or Skill:

Date

Number of Correct

Attempts Total Number of

Attempts Percentage

Correct Comments and

Initials

Note that the data sheet allows you to record several days (or even weeks) of information on one page. It also allows you to record several different types of information. A different data sheet should be created for each type of skill or learning situation.




Learning Activity

Draft a sample data sheet you think would be appropriate for gathering information when you are teaching each of the following skills:

Teaching a child to dress herself. Teaching an adult who is visually impaired to cross the street safely.

Teaching an adult who is learning to use a power wheelchair to drive safely around his home.

Graphing Your Information

After several weeks of teaching a new skill, you will have many data sheets collected. You may want to summarize the learner’s progress so you can see it more easily as a picture. To do this, you can create a chart that is called a graph. A graph displays several days or weeks of learning information.37 Any of the four types of data listed earlier may be graphed, but the graph for each type of data will look different.

When you draw a graph, there will always be two axes (lines). One axis will be horizontal, running from left to right across the bottom of the page. The horizontal axis usually represents time (i.e., minutes, days, weeks, months).38 The vertical axis runs from the left end of the horizontal axis up toward the top left corner of the page. This axis usually represents the information you have collected. Each axis must be labelled (e.g., Correct Responses, Time) and have its increments labelled (e.g., Week 1, Week 2, Week 3).39 Mark the numbers clearly, using a hash-mark (a small dash made on the line). Review the data and graph below carefully so you understand these components.

Remember the earlier example about backward chaining and learning to prepare new cars for delivery to customers at a car dealership? On the next page, you will find some data that could have been taken from that example, summarized in a simple graph. You can see that the graph gives you a better picture of Robert’s progress. It could also raise some questions about why he did better on some days than on others.






Name: Robert Task or Skill: Washing cars

Assistance code: V = verbal prompt; P = physical prompt; I = independent (no prompt)

Total steps in task: 15 (backwards chain)

Date (mm/dd/yy)

Number of Steps

Completed Level of

Assistance Comments Initials

of CDSW 08/05/03 1

2 3 5

VI VI VI II

Eight cars; added steps as R showed independence or interest. He took over and did the last two cars from step 11 on independently.

JJ

08/06/03 5 6

VI PPP

Five cars. R was distracted today and didn’t pay as close attention.

JJ

08/07/03 6 7 8

PVI VI VV

What a change! R totally turned around today. We did seven cars and added two steps.

JJ

08/08/03 8 9 10

VI VI P

Some resistance near the end, so only five cars again today.

JJ

08/09/03 10 11

PPVI VV

Slow start today. Still did six cars and added another step.

JJ

0123456789

101112131415

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

July-05-03 July-06-03 July-07-03 July-08-03 July-09-03

# of Steps Completed



Learning Activity

Review the following data. Find two pieces of graph paper and draw two different graphs. Draft one graph to summarize the data for the levels of the task being learned. The second graph should show the levels of assistance used for the various steps. Review your graphs when you next meet with your tutor. Can you think of how to combine the two graphs in

a single chart that shows a clear picture of Robert’s progress?

Name: Robert Task or Skill: Paying for a snack at a convenience store

Assistance code: V = verbal prompt; P = physical prompt; I = independent (no prompt)

Total steps in task: 15

Date (mm/dd/yy)

Steps Completed

Level of Assistance Comments

Initials of CDSW

03/06/03 3 PPV Trying hard PJ

03/08/03 3 VVV Very focused JT

03/10/03 4 VVVP Progress! PJ

03/13/03 5 VIIIV CB

03/15/03 5 IIIII Wow! PJ

03/16/03 6 PVIIIP Tough Day JT

03/18/03 6 VVVIII Better day JT

03/19/03 7 VVIIIIP Awesome CB

03/22/03 8 VIIIIIVV Motivated! CB

03/24/03 8 IIIIVVII PJ

03/25/03 9 VIIIIVVIP PJ



Unit 4: Developing New Skills for

Living in the Community

Introduction

Unit 1 discussed the importance of helping people to learn age-appropriate and functional skills. This is nowhere more crucial than in the area of community living. Note that the disabilities a person has may change, but this does not necessarily have to reduce his or her involvement in the community. Many people with severe and multiple disabilities lead active and very fulfilling lives in their communities. As a Community Disability Services Worker, one of your responsibilities is to support individuals accessing services to be included as members of their communities.



1. Identify skills that individuals with disabilities need to live in the community. 2. Use “teachable moments” as opportunities for individuals to learn new skills. 3. Explain why teaching adults is different from parenting children. 4. Define partial participation and interdependence.

Community Living

Community living and independent living are not the same. Individuals with disabilities may live, participate in recreational activities, work, and/or go to school in the community. Some people may be independent (i.e., not requiring any more support than people who do not have a disability). Some individuals may need daily support (e.g., to buy groceries, to prepare a meal, to take a class). Others may require 24-hour support (e.g., to provide personal care, to eat, to ride a bus). Regardless of the level of support they require, people’s lives are spent in their communities interacting with a wide range of citizens in a variety of settings.

How you will support individuals’ lives in community depends on:40

The preferred activities and interests of each person. The choices they make about these activities. Their learning plans, goals, and objectives. Their abilities and types of disabilities. Their daily rhythm (e.g., getting up early every morning; socializing at home rather

than outside their home; working, volunteering, or participating in daily activities). Their energy levels.

40 Gordon, Holburn, and Vietze, 3-5.



Their friendships, families, and social contacts.

Skills Needed for Community Living

Individuals must be involved in deciding what skills for community living they wish to learn. Their options will depend on:

the activities or situations they choose to be involved in; their motivation to learn new skills; the level of support available to them; and personal characteristics such as age, activity levels, abilities, interests, and gender.

Since motivation is necessary for anyone to learn, you may suggest or recommend skills, but each person (and/or his or her guardian) must make the final decision. Here are some examples of skills associated with community living:

social skills (needed for a variety of settings); developing and maintaining relationships, including friendships and intimate

partners; Personal safety skills, including both basic skills, such as street crossing or getting

help, and complex skills, such as dealing with verbal or physical abuse; and setting boundaries.

problem-solving skills (e.g., how to ask for help, what situations to avoid, how to be assertive and say no);

transportation skills (e.g., using public transit, disabled transit, and taxis in communities where these services exist);

money management, including budgeting, paying for items purchased, bank accounts, using an ATM, using a bank, and saving;

household management, including grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, housecleaning, yard work, decorating, and pet care;

accessing community services, including recreational facilities, banks, hairdressers, stores, restaurants, and medical services; and

recreation and leisure skills, including choosing activities, accessing and paying for activities, playing sports, and joining teams or clubs.

You can tell by the length and complexity of this list that every person may not need or want to learn every skill for community living. Some people live with others who will help them do these things. This means the person may participate in activities without having to learn all the complex skills required to be completely independent. Roommates and friends may have complementary skills, so that one person’s ability can enable both people to participate in an activity. The following story provides an example of complementary skills.

A Real-Life Story

Bob and Jim live together. Bob is able to read quite well and tells Jim there is a great movie opening at a local theatre this weekend. Bob checks the paper for times, location, and cost. Jim has lived in this community all his life and is very skilled at finding his way around using the bus system. He checks to see what buses they will need to take to the movie



theatre and what the weekend schedule is so they will not be late. This example illustrates how the complementary skills of the two men allow both to participate in a mutually satisfying community activity.

Specific disabilities may influence people’s priorities for learning new skills. For example, a person who uses a wheelchair for mobility may choose a wheelchair basketball team rather than swimming for recreation. Note that regardless of ability or disability, all people should be able to enjoy their community. As a Community Disability Services Worker, one of your challenges is to make their experiences fun and educational at the same time. The level and type of support people need will depend on their current skills (often called prerequisite skills), their interest or motivation in learning, the complexity of the new skill, and the time available to help them learn.

Learning Activity

Choose one person with whom you currently work. Answer the following questions.

1. In what areas of community living is the person currently quite skilled or perhaps even independent?

2. What areas of community living would the person like to learn more about? (Ask a person you are supporting and/or refer to her or his service plan.)

3. What informal or formal teaching strategies could you use to support learning in the areas the person has identified?

Teachable Moments and the Natural Environment

As indicated earlier, learning can be formal or informal. Each type of learning has its advantages. In general, you can support learning community living skills by taking advantage of “teachable moments.” This concept refers to making the most of a situation by teaching the person something spontaneously, just because the opportunity presents itself.

For example, you are having lunch in a restaurant with one of the individuals you support. The burger arrives with fries instead of the salad she ordered. This is a teachable moment – the person can learn assertiveness (how to send the order back politely), problem solving (how to identify the problem and what to do about it), and communication skills (letting the waitress know the order is wrong and how to correct it). You support the individual by encouraging her to call the waitress back, point out the problem, and ask for it to be corrected. You should do this by giving instructions and guidance, not by doing it for her. Remember, this is a learning opportunity. The person will learn nothing if you handle the situation for her. The only times you would take over are emergencies or when a person is not safe – those are not teachable moments!

The goal of using teachable moments is to make learning a natural part of living. This reflects a shift within the field of community disability services away from formal



programming and toward learning in the natural environment.41 Although formal teaching programs still exist, they are being used less and less. Instead, we try to create experiences and choose activities that offer more spontaneous and enjoyable learning opportunities for individuals.

Differences between Parenting Children and Teaching Adults

When children are young, we must give them a significant amount of direction and assistance. We never question whether this is necessary; we know that it is. However, when we work with adults who have disabilities, it is important to respect their status as adults. This requires us to treat them as equals or peers, not as children, even though they may still be learning new skills.

Some guidelines for teaching adults:

Encourage them to make their own decisions whenever possible (e.g., what to order in a restaurant, when to have a bath or shower, what to do on a Saturday afternoon and with whom).

Allow them to have new experiences and to make mistakes (e.g., buying an unfamiliar food at the grocery store, trying out a new recipe, going to a social gathering where they know only one or two people, getting a radical new haircut).

Do things with people rather than for them. Give feedback and encouragement, not correction or judgment.

Partial Participation and Interdependence

In Unit 2, we defined the term partial participation. This concept, developed more than thirty years ago, suggests that it is necessary and appropriate for people to participate in aspects of community life, even though they may never become fully independent.42 For example, people with severe cognitive or mental disabilities may be able to be in the kitchen and assist in some ways with preparing a meal. They will likely never actually prepare a meal or even prepare parts of the meal on their own. As a result, the support worker guides them through participating in the process. Perhaps the person would open the refrigerator door with assistance, or take a dish out of the cupboard, or even spread peanut butter on toast with hand-over-hand guidance. All of these experiences are life-enriching when assistance is given with respect and encouragement.

An associated idea is that of interdependence. This means that to some degree, everyone depends on others to live successfully in the community.43 No one is truly independent, and



43 interdependence, Dictionary.com, Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition, HarperCollins Publishers, accessed August 24, 2011, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/interdependence.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/interdependence



perhaps this is not really the goal for any of us, including individuals with disabilities. Think of all the services, professionals, and helpers you have in your life. All of us are interdependent. There will always be things we need help with or prefer not to do ourselves, and therefore we have others do them with or for us. This standard is perfectly appropriate for individuals with disabilities as well. It expands rather than limits their access to community life.

Putting It All Together: Critical and Analytical Thinking Skills

There will be times in your work as a Community Disability Services Worker when you see things that don’t seem to be quite right. The skills of the people involved are perhaps not being used to maximize their confidence and independence. You need to be able to make observations about the situation, analyze this information, and then suggest how the situation could be improved. This last step requires you to use your best interpersonal communication skills in order to focus on making things better without becoming confrontational or jeopardizing your relationships with your supervisor and co-workers. Read the Steps for Systematic Problem Solving below before you do the next two exercises. It is important to discuss your answers to the questions with your tutor and other learners.

The final two exercises in this module require you to do some analytical thinking and problem solving. Don’t be surprised if you react strongly to these situations. They are taken from real-life experiences of the author of this module. Remember that you have many roles as a Community Disability Services Worker, and one of them is as an advocate. Your job includes making living in the community a positive, educational, and enjoyable experience for everyone you serve. This is your chance to make a difference in positive and creative ways.

Steps for Systematic Problem-Solving44

1. Clearly define what the problem is. Be specific and determine clearly what the source of the problem is. Consider

also how often it occurs and who is affected by it. 2. Generate various courses of action.

Brainstorm possible solutions and consider steps that may provide partial solutions.

3. Evaluate your alternatives and select a course of action. Consider: Are your strategies realistic? What are the costs? What is the most

important outcome? 4. Take action while maintaining flexibility.

Try out solutions and revise your strategies as necessary.

44 Wayne Weiten, Dana S Dunn, and Elizabeth Yost Hammer, Psychology Applied to Modern Life: Adjustment in the 21st Century, 9th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2009), 120-121.



Learning Activity

Read the following story and then answer the questions that follow.

A Real-Life Story

A group of four people with intellectual disabilities and three support staff arrive at a mall food fair. Each of the individuals is carrying a small nylon lunch

bag. They sit at three tables close together, with one support staff at each table. The individuals open their lunches, remove their sandwiches and drinks, and begin to eat. The staff make sure the individuals they are supporting are settled in and then, one at a time, they visit the food kiosks and order their lunches, returning to the table to eat with thegroup.

One individual reaches over, takes the staff person’s coffee cup and has a sip, and then returns it to its original place in front of the staff person. The staff person immediately corrects the individual by telling him that he must not “steal” other people’s food or drinks. The person makes no comment but smiles broadly. The two other staff people laugh, as do several of the other individuals.

1. What is wrong with this situation? List at least three or four things that could and should be different.

2. What could have been done differently to make this a positive community living and learning experience?

3. If you were part of the group and knew what you know now, what would you have done at the food fair to suggest a better approach to your co-workers? In other words, what could you have done to improve the situation as it was happening? Make your responses professional, respectful, and solution oriented.

4. Suppose you had a team meeting scheduled for the next day. How would you bring up your concerns? What solutions would you propose?



Learning Activity

Read the following story and then answer the questions that follow.

A Real-Life Story

A 43-year old man with intellectual and physical disabilities attends a day program with more than thirty other individuals with disabilities. He uses a

power wheelchair for mobility, and his ability to speak is limited. However, he understands most of what is said to him, has a great sense of humour, and enjoys being with people.

A tour of outside visitors is taking place, and the man is alone in a room, sitting in his wheelchair at the end of a large table. He has a pile of different coloured poker chips in front of him. He is sorting the chips by colour, one at a time, into one of three tin cans with slots cut in the top to receive the chips. His head is down close to the table, but his hands are in motion doing the sorting task. When the people on the tour enter the room, the staff person introduces him by his first name to the group. His head immediately rises, he smiles widely, vocalizes a “hello,” and reaches out to shake hands with the person closest to him. He smiles, nods, and interacts sociably for a minute or so.

1. What is wrong with this situation? List at least three or four things that could and should be different.

2. What could have been done differently to make this community day program experience more positive and learning-focused?

3. If you were a staff person who worked for this organization and knew what you know now, what could you do or suggest to your co-workers or supervisor? In other words, what could you do to improve the situation? Make your responses professional, respectful, and solution oriented.

4. Suppose you had a team meeting scheduled for the next day. How would you bring up your concerns? What solutions would you propose?



References for Module 13:

Facilitating Growth and Development

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. Accessed February 17, 2015. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/interdependence.

Eaton, Sarah Elaine. Formal, non-formal and informal learning: The case of literacy, essential skills and language learning in Canada. Eaton International Consulting Inc., 2010. Accessed Oct. 17, 2016. http://www/eatonintl.com

Gordon, Anne, Steve Holburn, and Peter Vietze. Person-centred Planning Made Easy: The Picture Method. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 2007.

Miltenberger, Raymond G. Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, 4th ed. Belmont, CA.: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2008.

Positive Behavioral Support: Including People with Difficult Behavior in the Community, edited by Lynn Kern Koegel, Robert L. Koegel, and Glen Dunlap Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 2009.

Washington Natural Learning Association. “What is Natural Learning.” Accessed February 17, 2015. http://wnla.tripod.com/id36.html (web site defunct; page may be accessed via the Wayback Machine, at http://web.archive.org/web/20080517060320/http://wnla.tripod.com/id36.html).

Wehman, Paul, Phillip J. McLaughlin, and Therese Wehman. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Toward Full Community Inclusion. 3rd ed. Austin, Texas: Pro-Ed, 2005.

Weiten, Wayne, Dana S Dunn, and Elizabeth Yost Hammer. Psychology Applied to Modern Life: Adjustment in the 21st Century, 9th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2009.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/interdependence

http://www/eatonintl.com

http://wnla.tripod.com/id36.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20080517060320/http:/wnla.tripod.com/id36.html



Self-Assessment This activity will help you to determine whether you have accomplished the learning outcomes of Facilitating Growth and Skill Development. Please answer the following questions and then compare your responses to the answer key that follows the self-assessment.

1. What are three reasons why you would develop a plan with an individual you are supporting?

2. List at least three names for plans.

3. Most plans contain 12 elements. List as many as you can.

4. List at least three possible advantages of a formal approach to learning.



5. List at least three possible advantages of an informal approach to learning.

6. What is meant by the term partial participation?

7. List the five key strategies for teaching new skills.

8. Describe the teaching process called fading.

9. List at least four of the eight guidelines for using rewards effectively.

10. Give five examples of skills that may be needed by people who live in the community.



Answer Key for Self-Assessment

If your answers do not include most of the following points, you may want to review this material before taking the test on Facilitating Growth and Skill Development.

1. Reasons for developing a plan with a person (any three of the following): To identify the future priorities of the person and his or her support network. To identify the individual’s needs and develop strategies to meet these needs. To set priorities. To coordinate activities of various agencies and individuals. To monitor progress and change the plan if necessary.

2. Names for plans: Individual Service Plans General Service Plans Family Service Plans Lifestyle Plans Coordinated Assessment And Planning Individual Educational Plan 24-Hour Plans Person-Centred Plan Individual Treatment Plan Team Approach Planning

3. Elements of plans: Compare your answer to the list on pages 4 & 5. 4. Possible advantages of a formal approach to learning: Compare your answer with the list

on page 9. 5. Possible advantages of an informal approach to learning: Compare your answer with the

list on page 10. 6. Partial participation means that individuals with disabilities who are unable to

perform an entire skill should be shown how to do the parts of the skill that they are capable of learning.

7. Five key strategies for teaching new skills: Task analysis, breaking down the skill into smaller steps Tell – show – guide Shaping Chaining Fading

8. Fading involves gradually lessening the amount of assistance a person receives in order to do a task until the person has learned how to do the task independently.

9. Guidelines for using rewards effectively: Compare your answer to the list on pages 18 & 19.

10. Examples of skills that may be needed by people who live in the community: Compare your answer to the list on page 26.

section 3, module 13 facilitating growth and skill … 13... · · 2017-06-20unit 2: facilitating...

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