Brussel·les 8-13 Novembre

Internal Structure of the MPI

A. HEEMSCHOOL 1Special infant education and primary education for children with mental and motor disabilities as well as children with Autism-Spectrum-Disorder.

B:HEEMSCHOOL 2Special secondary education for mentally and motorically disabled boys and girls as well as children with Autism-spectrum-Disorder.

C-BOARDING-SCHOOLFor boys and girls of Heemschool 1&2

D. SEMI-BOARDING-SCHOOLOn Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays reception from 8h. Until 17:30hOn Fridays reception from 8h. Until 16:30h

E. RECEPTION CENTREOpen during weekends and holidays. The reception centre provides qualitative reception for pupils of Heemschool 1&2 as well as for pupils from other schools for special education, 365 days a year.

GOOD PRACTICES• SOCIAL READING• AUGMENTATIVE COMMUNICATION• MAGIC BOX• FORERUNNERS IN COMMUNICATION

MAGIC BOX

- The ‘Hocus Pocus Magic Box’ is an activity designed to increase basic communication skills for children with complex and multiple learning difficulties.

- The aim of he ‘Hocus Magic Box’ is is to stimulate different senses in a very systematic and coordinated way.

- Different objects and materials are offered to the children and every one gets enough time to explore the objects with their different senses: taste, vision, smell, hearing and tactile senses. No spoken language is used during the activity, only music and sound effects.

- In every session we use the same structure. We always start and end the activity with waving a heavy coloured table sheet on a same song. This sheet acts as an object of reference.Then we put the materials one by one on the table and offer them to the children.

MAGIC BOX

OBJECTIVES:

•To share sensory experiences with other children, to develop peer awareness.•To develop facial expressions•Improve listening skills and widen attention span.•Promote sensory exploration of materials.•To create visual clues and to invite students to track them (VI)•To help learners to communicate emotions through facial expressions. •To invite the learners to make choices of preference.•To react to verbal prompting.•To invite students to ask for more and to work on cause and effect exercises.•Sharing attention•Sharing pleasure

SOCIAL READING

Reading is linking speech sounds to characters (sound-symbol), which are synthesized from left to right until a word is formed (c-a-t makes cat).Reading includes not only a technical aspect, but also a comprehensive aspect (reading comprehension). It requires a double decoding:

• Graphical code that must be converted into a sound code (c-a-t is pronounced /k/¨/ae/ /t/).• A meaning that must be given to that soundcode.

Social Reading = signal-reading: an object, photo, image, icon or whole-word can be ‘read’ This requires a single decoding: giving meaning to a certain image.

The learning process that is used to teach this method is associative learning.

COMENIUS PROJECT“Hear my Voice”

SOCIAL READING

SOCIAL READING

OBJECTIVES

•pupils can actively participate in the life of their school and the wider community.•pupils are encouraged to make choices in meaningful contexts in their daily lives.•making written communication more clear to our pupils.•their personal initiative as well as their social and civic participation and inclusion: shopping, using public transport...

Applications in daily use: shopping lists, recipes, step-by-step instructions, school diary, student newspaper ...

FORERUNNERS IN COMMUNICATION

Is an instrument to explore underlying competence for augmentative communication, it measures perception and sense-making of non-transient forms of communication at the levels of presentation and representation.

The target group consists primarily of individuals with autism and intellectual disability (ID) without or with only limited verbal communication.

The ComFor is suitable for children and adults with a developmental level between 12 and 60 months. Determination of the level of sense-making is crucial for individualized interventions.

COMENIUS PROJECT“Hear my Voice”

FORERUNNERS IN COMMUNICATION

FORERUNNERS IN COMMUNICATION

First level: sensationIn this level children can smell, feel and see. And have a comfortable feeling of objects, smells, views and feelings they are used to.Ex: these children will splash their hands in a glass of water.

Second level: presentationIn this level children recognize things when they are in front of them.Ex. these children will know that they can drink from a glass filled with water.

FORERUNNERS IN COMMUNICATION

Third level: level of representationThe child can recognize objects and/or pictures and understand that they are related to places or activities.Ex. The child knows that a picture of a glass of water will refer to drinking.

Fourth level: meta-representationThe child sees different meanings of a picture/objectIn this level the child can see the glass also as something to put a flower in.The level of communication determines the ability of a person to understand AAC.The level of communication can be tested with the COMFOR (Noens e.a.)

COMENIUS PROJECT“Hear my Voice”