Interveners and Classroom Teachers
You might be thinking that's great for mom and a
baby or child, but what about school? As a
teacher, I have to meet the needs of all my students. This is where an intervener for a student
who is deafblind can be so helpful and, in my
view, essential. As has been defined by Alsop
and colleagues, the intervener's role involves
three primary elements: developing a trusting relationship; helping the child gain access to information communication and social relationships;
and using appropriate deafblind intervention
strategies (Alsop, et. al, 2012). Importantly, interveners provide the proximity to respond to the
child's subtle cues and fade away as the child
gains competence in certain areas. As a teacher,
you will also be an intervener as you work directly
with your student with deafblindness. You will
need to develop a trusting relationship and learn
what you do with the environment, your actions,
and your expectations that trigger your student to
come out and engage with your lesson and what
things trigger him/her to shut down into the box or
flare up outside of it.
Further exploration of these concepts and a Box
of Deafblindness team activity can be found as a
part of the Open Hands, Open Access Deaf-Blind
Intervener Learning Modules which were created
through a collaborative network activity that was
led by the National Consortium on DeafBlindness. Please visit http://
moodle.nationaldb.org/ or http://nationaldb.org/
for more information on how to access this resource.
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