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I-M-ABLE: A Pathway to Literacy

In planning a literacy program for 6-year-old Andrea (a pseudonym), teachers in the Vision Resource Department, of the Toronto Board of Education, had some significant hurdles to consider. A psychological assessment suggested that Andrea, who was blind, autistic, and had little grasp of the English language, responded like a 2 year old, rather than a 6 year old. Andrea was placed in a multiple exceptionality class of a regular public school where reading and writing were milestones that would not be achieved by all students. Whether Andrea would become a reader was yet to be determined. The school staff members focused on her language skills and teaching her to understand and trust the classroom environment, while her itinerant teacher of students with visual impairments considered Diane Wormsley's functional approach to braille literacy, the Individualized Meaning-centered Approach to Braille Literacy Education (I-M-ABLE), for Andrea. It was apparent that traditional methods were unlikely to work for this student. Andrea's autism and other special needs beyond her visual impairment meant that she had large gaps in concept development. Learning for Andrea would have to center on her life experiences and the meaning that could be derived from them with her. In the first year of her four-year program, the activities selected for Andrea included traditional prebraille skills, such as finger strengthening with play dough and clothespins, tactile discrimination games, and concept development kits with concrete objects. But Wormsley's functional approach to braille literacy provided the next steps. Following Wormsley's outline, Andrea's classroom was set up with braille labels in as many places as possible, creating a "braille-rich environment." The words were meaningful to Andrea in the beginning only as a series of tactile markers around the classroom, but they gave her a consistent presence of braille signs, such as the sort of print signs that are available in most environments. Andrea's name was brailled on many items, such as her chair and table, and she was often referred to these signs by hand-over-hand touching. The Perkins Brailler was initially a toy to be explored and scribbled with. Understanding the concepts of left and right through games and play, and incorporating finger tracking left to right, were also specific skills for the first year. Andrea used a caddy with meaningful tactile symbols from which she could pick objects. She would feel the symbol, say what it meant, and then touch the object to see if she was correct, a precursor to the actual words. Understanding words was, of course, the staff's end goal. Guided by Wormsley's program, we placed Andrea's name on several word cards, and to challenge her discrimination skills, the shorter word Mom was brailled onto others. Andrea knew her own name and repeated it often, and she certainly knew who Mom was, because she had a strong attachment to her family. This was the start of her favorite form of reading over the next three years--her collection of word cards. One of Andrea's strengths was her tactile discrimination skills. Andrea would feel the dots on the double-spaced word cards and was soon able to distinguish that different cells had different combinations of dots. She was on her way to learning letters. Once Andrea memorized the alphabet song, it was broken down into the exploration of the various letters--first, of course, were the letters A and N, the first two letters in her name. These letters were followed by several other letters that were introduced one by one and then used as initial letters of words on word cards. Special words that we used in repeated conversations were sometimes chosen to become word cards. For example, Andrea enjoyed exploring necklaces and bracelets. Both were long words that contrasted well with shorter ones. Both were used in conversation by Andrea several times a day when she commented on her own necklace or bracelet or ones that were worn by others. …