Day 10

Belize Trip Day 10 – Tuesday, January 8th

Our group of study abroad students spent the second day at Stella Maris School after observing the students and teachers on day 1. From our observations, we were able to brainstorm and come up with ideas to assist the teachers in promoting communication from all of the students, especially those with behavioral issues such as autism spectrum disorders. In the morning, the six of us led a PowerPoint presentation to the teachers of Stella Maris offering them resources and ideas to implement into the classroom. Our presentation included information regarding the basics on literacy such as phonemic awareness, segmentation, blending, and rhyming of words to facilitate the student’s reading skills. We noticed that this was one of the areas in which most of the teachers asked for assistance in, so we also provided literacy activities that we created the night before. These activities were made for the teachers to use in the classroom to generate a more hands-on approach. We also provided information regarding autism and behavior management in the classroom. A very large percentage of the children at this school have ASD (there is at least one student in every classroom) and many of the teachers are not aware of the ways to manage the behavior of these children. We included a few handouts that provided information about autism in general and tips on promoting communication for children who are verbal and nonverbal. We then talked about the alternative communication methods that can be used for children who are nonverbal such as Picture Exchange Communication (PECS), implementation of American Sign Language (ASL), and use of gestures. The PECs boards that we created really seemed to intrigue all of the teachers, so we promised to make a few for all of the classrooms. We also informed them that the implementation of schedule boards consisting of pictures could be a helpful asset in keeping the children with ASD aware of what events must be completed in the day. Needless to say, we were up very late that night making these resources for the teachers, but we were so glad to be assisting them in any way we could. We were so excited to see how the children would respond to what we made and to provide them with the resources they need to engage in communication in whatever form fits their needs.

 Victoria Hanzo


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