Assessments | Teams | Communicating | Routines | Quiz
Routines
Joint Action ROUTINES
In the classrooms of DB students, you will probably hear a lot about “routines.” In her article "Routines," Millie Smith (a TVI whose expertise in working with VI and DB students is widely recognized) defines a routine this way:
A routine is an instructional strategy developed to increase the level of participation in activities for students who require consistency and repetition in order to learn.
Educators use joint action routines for two primary purposes:
- to build anticipation and memory
- to teach specific, usually functional, skills
At its most basic level, a joint action routine has these features:
- There is a clear signal to the student that the activity is starting.
- The steps of the activity occur in the same sequence.
- The routine has a specific set of “tools” or materials associated with it
- Each step is done is the same way each time (same materials, same person, same place).
- Assistance is given the same way each time until the student is ready to function within the routine using less cues
- The pacing of instruction is precisely maintained until the activity is finished (no side conversations, going off to get something you forgot, or spontaneously adding new or different steps that will not be replicated)
- There is a clear signal to the student that the activity is finished.
Linda Hagood’s book, Communication: A Guide for Teaching Students with Visual and Multiple Impairments,(see reference section for ordering info)
Why Use Routines?
Admittedly, joint action routines have been developed by educators to promote language. Not necessarily “speech” (spoken language), but any form of recognizable communication.
Occupational and Physical therapists are not typically part of the process of teaching communication, but for children with deafblindness and difficulty with communication, therapists can often be essential in the establishment of meaningful communication because the activities they do with students so often focus on movement, and incorporate objects that children enjoy using.
You may be using a therapy ball to do Bobath activities with your DB student who has diminished trunk control, but that’s not the only benefit to the child. In these gross motor activities, there are multiple opportunities for establishing choice-making, turn-taking and representational communication.
A NOTE on REPRESENTATION:
Research shows that all children use routines in the development of early language (See Hagood). Games like peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, and even simple “routines” such as a parent going to get the car keys, picking up a briefcase, waving and saying “Good bye,” all show a young learner that there are many predictable actions which are done in a predictable sequence and always (or almost always – there’s always that “Where’s my wallet” moment!) have the same outcome. The language associated with these routines is learned first, because the multiple reinforcers (repeated events, linked to objects or movements that are always associated with the event, the easy combination of movement and spoken word) make it is easier to comprehend.
Even before a child actually understands the true meaning of a word, the routine provides a structure for using language – in any of its forms. A child may use the word (or sign or symbol) for “ball” in reference to an activity she does every day several months before she understands “ball” in other contexts. For example, a child may sign “ball” to ask her therapist to play with a ball during their time together weeks before she will notice and identify the relationship between that ball and the one her dog plays with at home.
“Language”
TURN TAKING
Representation
Your best comprehensive (and short!) guide to the use and development of routines with DB students.
Make up a routine FOR THE CHILD (not for the individual discipline)
Everybody has input on what the steps will be, what each step’s focus will be, target language, etc.
- Agree on it
- Write the IEP for it
- Run it on a schedule
- Keep notes
- Reassess and CHANGE it whenever you need to (see Hagood’s Levels of Routines)
- Learn to wait
A sample meal routine
Mealtime is a good activity to develop into a routine because it usually happens three times a day. Practice opportunities are frequent. The team's plan might look something like this. (taken from What do routines look like? )
- Get spoon from calendar box to begin activity.
- Target skill: Tactual exploration of objects in calendar to recognize spoon.
- Person responsible: VI teacher
- Strategy: VI teacher demonstrates technique to T.A. who will implement instruction.
- Take spoon to eating area.
- Target skill: Maintain grasp, intentional release.
- Person responsible: O.T.
- Strategy: O.T. demonstrates technique to T.A. who will implement instruction.
- Give spoon to adult to request meat.
- Target skill: Use object to request.
- Person responsible: S.L.P.
- Strategy: S.L.P. demonstrates technique to T.A. who will implement instruction.
- Eat.
- Target skill: Manipulate spoon for scooping.
- Person responsible: O.T.
- Strategy: O.T. provides adaptive equipment and demonstrates technique to T.A. who will implement instruction.
- Put spoon in washtub at dish window to end activity.
- Target skill: Maintain grasp, intentional placement.
- Person responsible: O.T. and VI teacher
- Strategy: O.T. demonstrates technique to T.A. who will implement instruction. VI teacher provides visual enhancement of target.