SAM: Symbols and Meaning
Strategies for learners with visual and multiple impairments
April 19th and 20th
9AM - 4PM
@ Education Service Center Region 11
Description
Many young children and students with visual and multiple impairments are exposed to language referring to things they have never seen or touched. As a result, they hear words, and sometimes say words, that have no meaning. SAM is a program to help young children and students with visual and multiple impairments develop solid sensory-based concepts about people, objects, actions, and places as a foundation upon which to build use of meaningful symbols. SAM is designed to make sure that words and other symbols are paired with people, objects, and actions using multisensory strategies. SAM moves students from the sensorimotor stage skills addressed in the SLK to the symbolic skills that are part of the learning that takes place at the early preoperational stage of cognitive development.
Objectives
Explore multisensory strategies for the development of concepts about people, objects, actions, and places that are part of regularly occurring activities in common environments
Use evaluation tools to determine gaps in concept development
View video demonstrations of teaching activities designed to establish symbol meaning by matching symbols with their concrete referents in immediate sensory based repetitive trials
Audience
Teachers of the Visually Impaired
Orientation and Mobility Specialist
Special Education Teachers
Teachers of the Deaf Hard of Hearing
Paraprofessionals
Anyone working with or assessing students in the preoperational phase
Agenda
Day One
Morning
- Overcoming sensory barriers to the development of meaningful concepts
- First symbols: Words, mimicked actions, and whole objects
Afternoon
- Strategies and activities for building receptive vocabulary
Day Two
Morning
- Assessment tools for designing instruction and measuring achievement
Afternoon
- Using SAM games to expand concepts and vocabulary
Presented by: Millie Smith, Consultant, Developer of the APH Sensory Learning Kit and Symbols and Meaning Kit
Millie Smith is a private consultant for students with visual and multiple impairments. She worked at the Texas School for the Bind and Visually Impaired as an outreach teacher-trainer, classroom teacher of students with visual and multiple impairments, and a resource teacher for academic students who were visually impaired. Millie was an itinerant teacher of students who are visually impaired in the Dallas Independent School District, as well as an instructor at the University of Texas at Austin. She has a master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin in visual impairment and emotional disturbance. She has published several books and numerous articles.
Stephanie Walker
Educational Consultant
Visual Impairments and Orientation & Mobility
Instructional Services Division
Email: swalker@esc11.net
Website: www.esc11.net
Location: 1451 South Cherry Lane, White Settlement, TX, United States
Phone: 817-740-7594
Twitter: @braillegal