Literacy and the Non-Speaking Student
About the Workshop
The acquisition of literacy skills has often proven extremely challenging for students whose speech is severely limited or nonexistent due to physical impairment. Yet these same individuals are likely to be dependent on AAC devices in place of oral language. This workshop will explore materials and techniques for helping these students become literate.
Your Contributions
As you go through the workshop's three units, each page provides an opportunity for you to post comments. Please feel free to suggest resources, ideas, stories*, and links that are relevant to the current page is covering. Further versions of this workshop may incorporate your comments and insights.
*Remember when posting to respect to the privacy of students you work with! Do not use real names or other identifiable references.
Workshop In Brief
- Unit 1:
- The components of literacy,
- Stages of literacy development,
- How different disabilities impact literacy development.
About the Workshop Creator
This workshop was created by Hester Brooks, who has worked with non-speaking children with severe physical disabilities for a number of years. Read Hester's article Testing Reading and Writing of a Student with Severe Speech and Physical Impairments.