Act of Commenting –  for Special Needs Teachers.

Act of Commenting –  for Special Needs Teachers.

act of commenting

Successful Communication for Minimally Verbal Students: A Blog Series for Special Needs Teachers

Are you an educator who supports minimally verbal students? Do you feel challenged about how to best support your students’ communication? If so, this blog series is for you. 

  • To share an opinion about something they like or don’t like. 
  • To label toys or things they see. 
  • To maintain an interaction. 

Commenting may typically occur when an individual is:

  • Interested in something (e.g., cooking). 
  • Interacting in a personally relevant activity (e.g., watching trains). 
  • Playing alongside another person (e.g., constructing LEGO®). 
  • Looking at interesting things (e.g., animals, books). 

How An individual who is mimimally verbal may comment by:

  • Moving their body and performing a gesture (e.g., pointing to an ant on the ground in the playground, and looking at their communication partner), 
  • Making sounds, a sign, and/or words (e.g., “an” for “ant”, using the key word sign for dog when they see a dog), 
  • Pressing an icon on an Augmented Alternative Communication (AAC) device (e.g., “dog” when they see a dog). 

It is important for you to record how your student commented.  Sometimes, taking a video-recording or photo can assist sharing this with others. By using the context, that is the environmental factors and your observations, you can interpret your students’ comments and acknowledge their communication.  Students who are minimally verbal, benefit from functional and experiential activities, and combined with your observations of their communication style, you can enhance the quality of your student’s interaction and language learning opportunities. 

It is also a good idea to keep that interaction going by responding to their comment, by adding on a comment too. For example: 

Student: “Fly.” (Teacher looks around trying to interpret their message, the teacher sees a fly on the wall.)

Teacher: “Fly!” (Teacher acknowledges in an excited tone.)

Teacher: “The fly is buzzing.” (Teacher adds on a comment.)

Tips to facilitate functional comments.

  • Use words, and visuals that are associated with certain settings of activities to provide your student with the opportunity to comment on them (e.g., have visuals associated with the activity of bubbles available and use these to comment on the activity by saying and pointing to the words “pop” “big bubble” “small bubble”). 
  • Ensure that any students who use AAC have the appropriate symbols to comment on their device by liaising with their speech pathologist and parents.  Encourage symbols for certain regular activities are put on the device.
  • When interacting with your student model comments that they could say based on their interests. 

Case study.

Mike is a student who has started to look at you and other students when playing, but he does not make any comments. You are Mike’s teacher and have started to notice this; you decide to discuss this with his parents and speech pathologist. Mike’s speech pathologist provides you with professional training about following his interests to develop commenting skills. You set aside during the class schedule to play a game that Mike loves, which is completing a puzzle board. You choose a highly preferred activity, as this will support ongoing interaction. You model simple comments during sharing a game. Mike finds the cow piece, you comment, “Cow!” using an animated voice. You could say, “It’s a cow.” Or “Moo.” 

The important step in supporting commenting, is to wait, observe and listen to your student, before you continue to comment.  It is important to give the student time to retrieve the information, process what you said, and then communicate with a comment.  The time you take to observe the student, and wait for their attempt, then ‘listen’ is critical to facilitate learning.  

Sharing with peers in activities can be challenging for some students, ensure that there are adequate duplicates, so that a student like Mike can focus on the interaction (i.e. you performing an action and commenting) rather than being concerned that the object may be taken by you to use. For example, when Mike is holding a 3D letter, block or puzzle piece and is looking at it you, find the same item and model the comment.  This provides the language input within a meaningful interaction, and this will facilitate language learning. 

What can a speech pathologist do to help?

A speech pathologist can support your understanding of your student’s communication skills, how they may comment and how as a communication partner and educator can be instrumental in further developing their skills.

At Speech in Focus, Speech Pathology Services, we can support your understanding of a student’s communication skills, and provide you with guidance about enhancing your student’s communication abilities.  It is important to note that speech pathology advice for each student may differ, as we all know each student is different.   Therefore, taking the time to collaborate with a speech pathologist to support you in incorporate each student’s communication needs in your classroom is important. 

Photo by Yan Krukov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-girl-pointing-at-a-number-on-wall-8613109/

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