Dori Senatori

Pre-K Student Observation

 

History:

 

This student started out receiving ECI services at age 2 with a diagnosis of Cortical Visual Impairment, orthopedic impairments, other health impairments, sensory impairments, non-verbal, and fed through a G-tube. Today, he is in an early learning program in Leander ISD with other children who are non disabled. The student is 4 years old and uses a wheel chair and a walker with assistance. Recently, this student had strabismus surgery for both eyes with much success and reports of increased ability to use his vision per his mom. The student is able to use his left hand to manipulate objects and stabilize with his right upper extremity, as the student has an emerging gross grasp in his right hand.

 

Observation location/participants:

 

The observation took place in the ELE room with the student’s TVI, teacher, teacher aides, and 8 other students.

 

The format of the TVI lesson:

 

I observed the TVI working with her 4 year old student utilizing a black background board with a photograph that had one object on it. The TVI showed the student the picture to tell him what they were going to work on. She then told the student to point to the picture and take it off the board and hand it to her (the student is not yet able to point with his left hand, but he places his left hand on the picture. The goal is for pointing with his left index finger to utilize the PECS system), and then he went to search for the object that he just saw in the picture. I asked the TVI about this task and she told me that they had been working on the student’s association with the object, so that he knew what he saw in the picture was actually a real object. The TVI told me that they initially started with an object calendar in the beginning when they first started working together, and now they are at the picture stage. The TVI told me that she is working closely with the speech therapist with the goal of the student to use a PECS system for communication.

 

Next the TVI tried putting two pictures on the black background board, and asked the student which toy he wanted to play with. The student scanned back and forth looking at both pictures on the board and placed his left hand by his choice, he then pulled the picture off the board with a gross swiping motion and handed it to the TVI. The student then was able to find his toy that he chose in his familiar toy basket and play with it.

 

Lastly, the students were told by the teacher that they had a choice of two centers to play in. The TVI used a choice board with a black background and placed a picture of the two center choices, one on each side. The TVI then asked the student which center he would like to choose, and the student tapped the puppet center picture with his left hand. This time the student just tapped the picture to make a choice and crawled off quickly to the puppet theater center to play with his friends.

 

Observation Reflection:

 

I was standing in the classroom with the TVI talking with her before she started her lesson and she was describing her student to me and what she was going to do, when it struck me that I had actually been with her on an ECI visit with this very same student!  I did not realize this before I had set up the observation with her. At the time when we visited the student in his home, he was around 2 years old and just started to move around the house on his own. The student was still medically fragile and the doctor did not want him attending any sort of day care or pre-k situations at that time.

 

Finally, this year at age 4 he was cleared to come to this ELE program in Leander ISD.

 

This student has made excellent progress from when I had initially visited him in his home! The student is now able to communicate his needs with the use of his pictures and choice board system, and knows that an object is associated with each of the familiar pictures. The student appears to be able to interact with the other students even though he is non-verbal, as I observed him playing puppets with another student.

 

This observation was a very nice surprise for me and it was a great learning experience to see a student who has CVI go from using a simple shape puzzle on a light box to having the ability to use pictures and make a choice between two objects.