Womans-Corner
Articles and Information for Working Women and Family
Special Needs Children

The advice contained within this article is offered for your consideration by Lisa Simmons. You, as a parent or professional, must decide whether any of the ideas presented here should be implemented in your unique situation. The staff of the Ideal Lives Project encourage all site visitors to always utilize this information in a manner that is respectful and in the best interest of their child, student or loved one.

How to Make Creative Writing Work for Individuals With Special Needs
by Lisa Simmons

Being able to express yourself is a basic human need. Every one needs to have a voice -- a physical voice or simply a way to express their inner thoughts, feelings, and comments on life. Unfortunately, individuals with physical or cognitive challenges are often left out of creative writing activities because others assume they have nothing to say or it's too difficult to make the activity accessible.

If you are encouraging someone with special needs in their creative writing - view writing as an adventure, for both you and your student.

Here are some tips:

• Model the steps of writing many times in a consistent manner.
• Use prewriting activities (brainstorming, mapping, or graphic planners)
• Present each step of your writing instruction in a clear and well-organized way.
• Use a multi-modal format that allows your student to see what you are doing, hear what you are saying, and do what you are doing.
• For most special needs students, working with others through the initial stages of writing can often be helpful.
• Use tip sheets or checklists to help your student stay on track. Checklists can be a standard one of essential elements for the activity or a unique list developed by the student of ideas they want to include in their finished product.
• Use technology to support complex areas like editing and grammar or to manage physical limitations.

Word Prediction programs can help students transfer ideas to paper more quickly.

Speech Recognition programs allow students to just speak and have their computer accurately turn their voice into text.

What about the student who uses augmentative communication?

Writing With Symbols 2000 is a creative tool for teachers and parents that takes advantage of more 7500 Rebus symbols and pictures to allow non-verbal individuals to create:

• Picture stories
• Picture strips to use with reading books and everyday class curriculum
• Picture directions for guidance.
• Picture recipes for independence.
• Picture schedules to promote organization.
• Custom wordlists for specific vocabularies.
• Social stories.

Tools to simplify the creative writing process:

You can help alleviate student frustration by allowing them to use keyboard devices to type writing assignments. Instead of worrying about the physical act of writing the words, the student can focus on the ideas he/she is trying to convey. Popular products include:

Alpha Smart

Co:Writer

Let's Write! A Ready-to-Use Activities Program for Learners with Special Needs
This is a well-organized guide for resource teachers working with students on reading and writing. It's a step-by-step reference and easy-to-use tool for busy teachers.

My Word Book: Words and Tools for Writing and Spelling
Developed by a special education teacher this book is an easy-to-use, customizable tool developed to help students write more independently. It can help students to:

• Write independently at school, home, and in the community
• Improve spelling skills
• Build and retain vocabulary
• Learn common word usage

As with anything, the more you do creative writing -- the easier it gets. This is true for individuals with special needs as well. They need to be exposed to writing in a variety of settings; and be given the technology, strategies, and guidance to be successful at finding THEIR unique voice.

All My Best,

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