Building communication opportunities for our students is important. I know in my classroom, we’re constantly working on requesting different items to expand our vocabulary, utterances, or sentence complexity. These 3 quick and easy tips are going to help you increase the opportunities for communication in your classroom EVERYDAY.
This first tip is pretty simple. Keep items that are preferred or used often out of reach. In my classroom we have a play area where we work on PRT for communication and developing appropriate play skills. I have placed all of our classroom toys in a cabinet that locks. This requires my students to use communication to request what they’d like to play with. I added some icons to the front of the cabinet for students to request toys inside the cabinet.
Another tip, if you’re doing an art project, instead of providing the student with everything they need and lying it in front of them, have an adult be in control of all of the items. Your students can request things by shape, color, size, etc. It’s a great activity for working on requesting skill and expanding utterances. Here’s a great example. We were making an ant project in our classroom this week (shout out to Teaching Special Thinkers Easy Art Packs, seriously the best!) and I prepared all of the materials for my students, but kept those materials in a bin. When my students needed the next piece, they were able to request “I want a big black circle” or “I want a small black circle” to get the pieces they needed to complete the project. Oh, and we also were in control of the scissors, glue, markers, etc. You name it, they’re requesting it in our classroom!
Contriving situations is another great way to increase the amount of communication going on in your classroom. I have a few basic “tricks” up my sleeve that I use in my classroom all the time. The focus of these situations is to get our students reacting to things and realizing that their communication has meaning. Here are the situations I often contrive in my classroom.
When we’re working on a project or activity in our classroom, I’ll often give my students PART of the pieces needed and have figure out what else they need and request it in order to complete the task. This works particularly well for students who struggle with initiation. Often times, I’ll give my student a paper and say “write your name”. This is pretty hard to do without a writing instrument. This is when I can cue “what do you want?” and students are able to request a pencil or crayon to write their names.
Providing choice does a few things. It allows our students to take some control in their communication and request the things they want to play with, do, etc. It also provides us with an opportunity for my student interest and buy in during the activity. The more we are able to incorporate student choice and interests throughout the day, the more engagement we’re going to see from our students.
We’re huge on choice in our classroom. I love this recess game choice board I put together. When we’re heading out to recess, I’ll often ask some of my friends what they want to play and I’ll use that choice to help them ask friends to join them in their games.
Communication should be FUN! Sitting and having never ending PECS sessions isn’t exactly fun in my book, nor is it in my students. Getting new reinforcers to request, getting students interested in activities, and engaging in activities that are play based are great ways to keep communication fun throughout the school day.
Let’s face it, if the only time we’re working on communication skills is during 1:1 PECS sessions or Speech sessions with an SLP, not only is it going to be rote and sometimes boring for our students, they’re also going to fail to generalize the communication skills they learning across settings and if we want our students to become fluent communicators, it’s really about getting practice in as much as possible throughout the school day.
