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MIMO Strategies

By: Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com
June 12, 2022
​When working with students with mild to moderate disabilities, it is important that each student is challenged but also experiences success. Provide activities that can be extended to challenge students and use backward chaining to ensure success. It is common for students with additional disabilities to have off days or weeks. When this happens and you are working on a skill the student is typically more successful with, use backward chaining until the student is able to be successful completing the activity. When demonstrating how to perform a task, use hand under hand rather than hand over hand. To do this, place your hands under the student’s hands and allow the student to feel your hands as you complete a task.

Providing Experiences

Build on prior experiences and knowledge. It is OK to repeat topics and even activities from previous years. As the student grows, they will have a deeper understanding of the task and be able to build on prior experiences and knowledge.  Ensure the student has an opportunity to have hands-on experience with each step of the process. Make sure the student is involved in each step of a sequence, routine and activity. You don’t want to create a fairy godmother syndrome where the student thinks things just magically appear. Help the student make connections by be a part of the complete process whether it’s a cooking activity or retrieving materials prior to work and putting them away at the end.  Maximize instructional time by layering activities. To do this, ensure the activities work on more than one goal or skill area at a time.

Individualized Instruction

Individualize your instruction for each student that you work with. While I like to create materials that I can use in different ways with different students, so I don’t have to constantly recreate activities, you need to be sure your plan is appropriate for the student’s visual and learning needs by using accessible materials and matching the instruction to the students achievement level. Adapt to each student's interests as well as well as their abilities and skills. Be sure to adjust your delivery based on cues from the student. While you want to have a plan at the onset of the lesson, it is so important to be responsive to the student and take advantage of any teachable moments. Remember, learning happens best in the moment and through natural context so be flexible and adjust the lesson or activity accordingly. You can always reuse a lesson you had planned, but you won’t be able to get back a natural occurring moment.

Pacing Instruction

Be sure you pace your instruction to meet the student’s needs.  Be clear and concise with the student and let them know what the activity is or all the activities you have planned for the session. I like to give the students control and options within the lesson. Allow the student to select what to do first or allow them to pick the rules or a choice between materials used. Slow your pacing as needed and allow time for the student to process information. It can sometimes be hard to sit back and not talk and allow the student time to respond. If you have to, sit on your hands! Remember your goal is to use the lowest level of prompting that is needed. So don't provide hand over hand assistance if it's a task the student can do by themselves or with minimal prompts. Don’t inadvertently teach the student learned dependency or that they can never do a task good enough. Finally, be consistent across all environments and model instructional strategies to parents, teachers and paraprofessionals so skills will be carried over and addressed throughout the day and have a more meaningful and lasting impact.

Prompt Hierarchy

The least amount of prompts to provide a student is to use environmental cues. An example of this is that the student hears the braillewriter ding and automatically knows it’s time to return to the next line. Next would be gesturing to the student. For students who have normal vision it could mean nodding her pointing, but for students with visual impairments provide be sure to provide an auditory cue for the student. This could mean tapping or ruffling the braille paper to signal to the student that they need to remove the braille paper from the braille writer in order to read back what they wrote.  The next would be indirect verbal prompt. An example is if the student needs to remove the braille paper from the braille writer in order to read it. Prompt the student, we need to read back what we wrote. What do we need to do first?” The next would be a direct verbal prompt such as telling the student to remove the paper from the braillewriter.  This is followed by a partial physical prompt. An example of this would be touching the student's elbow to prompt the student to take action. And the final is using a full physical prompt which is hand under hand or hand over hand to complete the activity.

Support Communication

To provide a literacy rich environment, you must know the student’s primary reading medium. Be sure that print is available throughout the room. If the student is a braille learner, also provide braille in addition to print so the student has opportunities to be exposed to braille and build reading fluency. Always pair print will braille to allow for shared access by print readers.  If the student uses a communication system, know how to access and use it so you can promote communication during your interactions. Be sure to allow time for casual conversation and getting to know about what is going on with the student so that interactions are not just teacher directed. Show genuine interest in them as this will help you know areas of interest that you can incorporate into instruction.

Real Objects & Activities

It is important to use real objects and materials with the student as this will help bridge concepts and make activities more meaningful. When you're selecting objects, select from a wide variety of objects and those with different textures and shapes. You don't have to necessarily go out and buy everything. Trust me, I am frugal and always look for items that I already have around my home, those that I can borrow, or those I can get from around the community or school that are free. I also like to go to the dollar store because you can find such a wide variety of materials and textures to use for projects there. Their selections can change throughout the year and with seasons so you never know what you will find. I also like to check out Walmart, craft stores, Home Depot and the dollar section at Target.  ​

Use Themes to Keep Goals & Tasks Fresh

Using themes can help keep your lessons and activities fresh and will help you naturally embed concepts. With theme changes, change the materials you use. Typically, students with mild to moderate disabilities will take longer to work on goals areas and master concepts. By changing up materials, you keep the instruction fresh and also help students generalize their skills. Additionally, using different materials and topics will enhance student interest and motivation.

Challenging Behaviors

All students, whether or not they have special needs, can have challenging behaviors. That being said, it is common for students who are blind or visually impaired with mild to moderate disabilities to have unique challenging behaviors such as self-injurious behavior, or behaviors that are harmful to others such as biting, throwing, head butting, hair pulling, or pinching. I’m certainly no behavior expert, but I will share some tips and strategies I’ve learned from the experts and those that have worked for me.

Be Flexible, Plan Ahead, Stay Calm

While it may be easier said than done, the best thing you can do is to try and remain calm. Prior to working with a student, talk with teachers and therapists on what behaviors the student has and what the know antecedents are. If the student doesn’t know you well, work alongside a trusted adult that the student will work with. Don’t fight the battle and think it has to be your way or the highway. It may take time to build trust with the student and learn how to best work with them. As you get to know the student, you will be able to anticipate any difficulty the student may have with a lesson. If the lesson starts to fall apart, think on your toes and adjust it. And remember, don’t forget to take advantage of teachable moments and be responsive to the student’s immediate needs.

Attention Span & Distractibility

Some of you may be able to relate to the picture on this slide of the dog from up who is looking off to the side in a distracted way with the text Squirrel below.  Try to relate to the student and how you respond when you are working on a task or trying to attend to a presentation or in a meeting. We all have sensory needs and many of us have figured out what helps us stay focused. Be attuned to the student and help the student find sensory input that will help them attend to a task and for longer periods of time. Some students may need calming activities while others may need arousing activities. You can help by keeping the student engaged and motivated through fun and meaningful activities and by minimizing auditory and visual distractors. Try to keep each activity short and concrete with a clear beginning, middle and end.

Behavior Management

The following is a list of common behavior management strategies that are recommended by most behavior specialists, no matter what behavior program may be used. Be supportive of the student. Remember, no one feels good about being out of control. Plan for success. You can do that by collaborating with the team and working together to find strategies that work best. And if there is a behavior management system in place, follow through on the system so there is continuity within the student’s day. Incorporate the students learning media, sensory needs, and individual preferences. Allow the student to have choices. As I said, I like to build choice making opportunities into my lessons with all students. While not everything can be a choice, there is always something a student can choose between whether it’s the order of activities, which book to read, where to sit or a choice between what materials are used. And of course, consider reinforces. This could be a simple sticker at the end, a mint or listening to their favorite song together.

Be Strategic

While you want to plan for success, know that problems may occur so be strategic. If a student is known to be physically aggressive, position yourself in a way that you can step back or dodge. Don’t pin yourself in a corner. As stated before, be sure you know the antecedents so you can try to avoid them but prepare if they occur. While we typically work close with our students, try to maintain space. Position yourself on a side where they less frequently hit or on the other side of the table. If you have long hair, you don’t want it dangling in front of a child that pulls hair. Ponytails can be enticing. If hair pulling frequently happens, try wearing a ball cap that keeps your hair up and protects your head. Finally, there are some classrooms where I know I need to take off my earrings, scarf or lanyard before even entering. You don’t want to wear anything that would increase the odds of getting injured.

Building Trust

It is so important to build trust with the student. It may taken longer to establish trust with some students but you can do so by being responsive to the student’s immediate needs. Listen to them and show you genuinely care. Get on the student’s level, walk beside students instead of in front of them. Speak in a calm and kind voice. Finally, be consistent in your demeanor and interactions. If you are a hot mess and the student doesn’t know what mood you will be in, they won’t feel they can trust you.

Set the Mood & Meet Sensory Needs

You can help meet the student’s needs by considering what sensory experiences you provide in the area in which you work. You may consider brewing a cup of coffee just before the student arrives, diffusing essential oils and playing calm background music. Pictured on this slide is the set up I have in my room. For the first two years working with one of my students, I would brew a cup of coffee, play Enya day without rain then watermark, and diffuse the doterra Balance blend. My room can sometimes get really cold so I also had an electric blanket that we would share as I noticed her hands were very cold. This past year, my goal was to stretch my student and help her be more flexible. When you do this, I recommend just changing one element at a time. 
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