Communication Workgroup Day 5

Facilitators: Jessica Chandler, TBLVL/COMS/ECSE,

Colleen Johnson, TBLVL/COMS, and Kristin Leslie, ATP, MAT, OTR/L

In the Chat:

Valentine’s Day is all about expressing care and connection- how are you staying connected with others?

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Agenda

• Review - Group Norms

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• Topic: Tactile Symbols & Communication�Special Guest: Angela Powell, TBLVL, Outreach Consultant

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• Breakout Room Discussion

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• Research Highlight

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• March 11th - Guest: Heidi Brislin, MS, OTR/L - Edmonds School District

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For your review...

Communication Bill of Rights & Group Norms

1. Let's keep our responses crisp, concise, and conversational.
2. Generate light, not heat, by focusing on illuminating insights, understanding, and productive discourse.
3. Practice respectful listening—actively listen to others' perspectives without interrupting or dismissing them, fostering an atmosphere of mutual respect.
4. Be additive—look for opportunities to enhance what another participant has shared in ways that improve understanding.
5. Not everyone needs to answer every question. 
6. Share student stories and stories of collaboration. They help the audience connect to the ideas and possibilities for students and teams.
7. Define acronyms, terms, and concepts that may be unfamiliar to the audience to ensure clarity and understanding.

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Tactile Symbols and Communication

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Special Guest:

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Angela Powell

Teacher of Blind/ Low Vision

Outreach Consultant

Kentucky School for the Blind

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Breakout Room Discussion

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Prompts -

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What stood out to you about today’s presentation?

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How might you apply a tool or strategy you learned about today?

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Breakout 1

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Prompts -

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What stood out to you about the presentation?

• transportation for the symbols can be tough
• arbitrary of the symbols - how can we generalize it to other communication partners such as other peers?
• What about speech output? How can you generalize it?
• How do they transition to reading?
• How is it generalized to the home environment?
• Can it be applied to high-tech dynamic systems long-term?
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How might you apply a tool or strategy you learned about today?

• Maybe it can be applied to the TactileTalk Toolkit
• Applying it to tactile schedules which can be helpful for transitions
• Can it be applied to high-tech dynamic systems long-term?

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Breakout 2

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Prompts -

What stood out to you about the presentation?

Symbols: abstract, tactile components

The Core Board: Symbols stay in one place

Portability: Hole drilled in symbol, Wheatley Board

What was the process for landing on this?

How might you apply a tool or strategy you learned about today?

Portability ideas!

Buy in very important from classroom staff. Generalization was definitely in place!

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Breakout 3

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Prompts -

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What stood out to you about the presentation?

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How might you apply a tool or strategy you learned about today?

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Notes/Take-aways:

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Shape of the card is the part of speech similar to CORE boards.

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Stood out: Loved bulletin board for a space

Big Metal key rings for mobile vocabulary

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Questions: There is a book that comes with the board that shows you how to make many of the symbols and has parts. In Kentucky has a state agreement of what major symbols are.

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Check out Texas School for the Blind website for Tactile symbols- Their resources are amazing.

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Use Communication Matrix to determine communication levels.

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How to move them to a more robust system

Breakout 4

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Prompts -

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What stood out to you about the presentation?

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How might you apply a tool or strategy you learned about today?

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Notes/Take-aways:

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I liked the visual representations of the symbols.

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• touch, feel, say,
• Getting the whole team involved, making double symbols for everything to send home
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Research Highlight

The Power of Communicating with Tactile Symbols – Paths to Literacy

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Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired | TSBVI

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Tactile Connections

Resources from Today’s Session

Session Folder Link

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Session Folders

• Presentation Resources
• Participant Shared- Resources

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March 11th 3:30-4:30

Student Stories:

Collaboration to Support Communication

Special Guest:

Heidi Brislin, MS, OTR/L

Edmonds School District

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