Educational Information

Cognitive lessons are meaningful and educated conversations.  They are a respectful invitation to learn, share and eventually discuss ideas.  We are teaching the skills necessary for learning: perception, attention, memory, logical reasoning and purposeful motor movement. Cognitive learning is not about memorizing or repetition, it is about developing an understanding and learning how to learn and communicate. 

Why are cognitive lessons so important with S2C?  With cognitive lessons we are engaging our speller's brain and their body.  The more practice that occurs through lessons the more Indepth and purposeful the conversations will become.  We are evolving presuming competence by teaching knowledge through age-appropriate content and practicing the motor movements while learning and providing shared context.  You are building the scaffold for open discussion.  

Cognitive lessons also provide the structure needed to monitor accuracy as motor skills develop.  The questions we ask from these lessons should cater to the speller's current skills and stamina.  Lessons are one of the best tools for regulation!  When working with a speller and they are dysregulated you should check to make sure you are providing a lesson that is engaging their mind and their body.  Oftentimes the dysregulation is because they are not engaged.  Lessons are supposed to engage the brain with deep cognitive subject matter and engage the body when spelling with purposeful motor movement.  When both the body and the brain are engaged the speller is regulated. 

With S2C we are trying to provide cognitive-motor balance, this is why S2C works.  Due to this balance, we are able to get a higher motor and cognitive demand, we work our way up from spell words to open communication by working up the Cognitive-Motor Seesaw.

Thinking and doing at the same time gives us the biggest neural punch and it's what works best for making the movements automatic. Being challenged with cognitive lessons and the motor movements goes much further with making the motor automatic compared to telling the speller to just spell, spell words.  Obviously, we start there but we do not stay there.   Spellers are using a completely different skill when they have to think about the answer and then translate it on the letter boards. This is what guides them to be able to communicate on the letter boards. 

Communication Regulation Partners are critical in S2C, and their importance has been recognized in AAC.  Many call these people Communication Partners, but the Regulation is key, this is why in S2C they are called Communication Regulation Partners or CRP’s. Our clients with sensory and motor differences require a skilled and active partner to help them achieve purposeful communication.  

The role of a CRP is to teach the necessary motor skills and aid in regulation. They are not just someone who holds the board.  They are the person who helps facilitate communication by holding the boards, tracking the letters, prompting and transcribing the speller's words.   The CRP needs to know their speller and build a trusting relationship with them.  The CRP must first have confidence in themselves to achieve this. They need to be able to identify their spellers' “signs” of possible dysregulation and in themselves.  Our students' availability to learn and regulate can vary daily and from moment to moment.   It is our job to make sure the speller is controlled, balanced, and that they have the ability to manage and adjust.  We also need to be able to keep our emotions in check whether you are overly excited or frustrated.  We need to remain regulated and calm.  We can be successful at this by knowing our spellers and providing them an atmosphere and lesson that best meets their abilities and needs.   

When a speller works with a new CRP, that CRP should start back at the 3 stencil boards, even if that speller is on the laminate or higher.  Doing this is not because the speller is not capable, it is to reduce the cognitive and motor demands to help the CRP and speller find their flow.  That flow and trust is crucial in creating purposeful communication and maintaining regulation.  The CRP and Speller must practice together to find their rhythm, this is natural.  An example that was given to us during the Spelling to Communicate Practitioners training was to think of it as experienced ballroom dancers who have worked together for years, and they have that beautiful trusting flow to their dances.  Now take one of those partners away and replace them with someone else.  Starting out they will not have the rhythm; they will need to practice together to find their own rhythm and flow.  This is the same as new CRP’s and spellers.   We need to ensure we are doing what we can to provide the safest, most trusting, and regulated environment we can make success possible.

Every child needs a champion, let's be that champion!

What is meant by the balance between motor and cognition and why is this important?  Let’s look at the motor cognition balance, in S2C we call it the motor cognitive see-saw.  Language is 100% cognition, and the way we communicate is 100% motor and this is how we get the see-saw.  When it comes to our lessons the cognitive part of the lessons is the questions that are asked.  We have our spell words, knowns, semi-opens, prior knowledge and then open.  If you look at the cognitive hierarchy you would start with the spell words and work your way up to open.  As you move up in the hierarchy the more cognitively challenging each one is.  We presume competence with our spellers and know that they understand these forms of questions, and that they want to learn.  Where the breakdown occurs is learning how to think to answer the questions and move their bodies at the same time.  

With S2C we have that cognitive challenge (spell words moving to open) which is one side of the see-saw and then the motor challenge on the other side, and your motor hierarchy.  Your motor hierarchy starts with the three stencil boards or sensory boards. These boards have only 9 letters per board and the letters are large.  When starting out these are the boards that are used.  On the cognitive side you ask spell words or known questions until the speller is reliably poking the target letters accurately 80-100% of the time.  Their motor movements on the three boards should be automatic with little to no prompting.  Once this accuracy is met we start doing respells, which means that the client is asked a spell a word or known question on the 3 stencils and had the accuracy then was asked to respell on the 26 stencil or sensory board.  This is moving up the motor hierarchy or toggle up.  This is an example of the see-saw, you are reducing your cognitive demand and increasing motor demand.  By reducing the cognitive demand this allows the client to put all of their thought and energy into the motor challenge of switching to the 26 stencil.  The 26 stencil is more challenging due to having 26 targets on one board and the letters are much smaller. Once you are able to move and stay on the 26 stencil then you stay on that board for a while as you move up the cognitive hierarchy.  Which means that once the client is accurate with the spells, then you can switch to known questions.   You want to make gradual increases and keep that see-saw motion going.  Once you have your 80-100% accuracy asking known questions on the 26 stencil then you can move to the semi-open question, then  meet that accuracy on semi-opens and move to the prior knowledge questions.  You want to keep very tight semi-opens and prior knowledge at first, this is part of working up the hierarchy, but when you see accuracy and flow then you can begin doing much broader semi-opens and prior knowledge questions.  When the client becomes proficient with the broader semi-open and prior knowledge you will see them moving into open communication.  

This entire process is the client moving up the cognitive hierarchy.  The process of the cognitive motor see-saw continues by moving the client to the laminate board, which creates harder motor demand, so we will move back down the cognitive hierarchy. The laminate board provides less sensory feedback than the 26 stencil board.  On the 26 stencil the speller is pushing their pencil all the way through the letter and is not trying to focus on the use of one finger to poke.  Them having to focus on the use of one finger is a challenging motor task in itself.  The laminate also does not provide the visual sensory feedback that the client had gone to the right letter.  With the laminate we are adding in punctuation and a place to poke the word done, so there are more targets to poke.  Before moving to the laminate the motor movements on the 26 board need to be automatic with no directional or gestural prompts.  They also must be openly communicating a few sentences at a time before proceeding to the  laminate board.  When they become open you want to make sure there is no gestural or directional prompts, their communication must be 100% their own thougths and feelings.  This is why the heirarchy is so important, it is providing that practice necessary for that pattern of movement to become myelinated.  "Practive Makes Permanence"