<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Hi again,<BR>
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Well, people think that Deafblind are totally blind. But my student has never expressed language or anything until just recently when I started signwriting with her. The signwriting seemed to bring it out of her, or something, it was like a light bulb and everything just "clicked." When I did my student teaching in Colorado, I'll never forget this one teacher I worked with told me...in order for kids to learn language you have to give it to them, so that's what I did. Everything in my room has signwriting and all her old vocabulary. But I do a mixture of her old symbols and signwriting, because I've been out of practice for a year. I'm also working with another student who can hear, but is mute, and moderately retarded. Laura, my Deafblind student has never written anything by herself before, and now she is starting to, and also connecting the handshapes to signs she knows, so this makes me more motivated to give her more language.<BR>
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I will try to document my experiences more. I'm keeping a journal, and will keep you all informed. All of the posts really are helpful and I read them everyday.<BR>
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Have a great week:)<BR>
SMiles<BR>
Nancy Cole</FONT></HTML>