Hello and welcome to Visual Gestural Communication. This is Module One - The Basics. This training is presented by the Special Populations Unit from Pennsylvania's Office of Developmental Programs, the Bureau of Supports for Autism and Special Populations. In this training, we’ll provide you with some foundational information to get you started on your journey with Visual Gestural Communication. Once you complete this training, you'll see that several other modules will become available to you as well. We'll talk about some of those other modules, later on in this training. This training was created in collaboration with many different people, including MJ Shahen and Marlene Schechter, two consultants who offered our in-person VGC trainings across the state.

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The main goal of the Special populations Unit is to assure effective communication for everyone. And this, of course, is the main reason behind our offering of this training for Visual Gestural Communication. Our goal is to make sure that everyone does have an effective way to communicate, so that they can express choice and ensure their own health and safety. We like to consider all forms of communication and make sure that we're thinking about the language preferences of the person who is communicating. We offer lots of different trainings and infographics, to support you and your team, and you can find those on our website at myodp.org under training and special populations. Our trainings are accessible; they're usually recorded with a sign language interpreter, or with closed captioning, or both. And we're also available to offer technical assistance on anything communication related. We know that this topic can be very individualized and so we're available to

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support with brainstorming and planning and answering questions and concerns. You can just shoot us an email at RA-PWSpecialPopUnit@pa.gov.

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This first module will focus on three main topics. We’ll define what Visual Gestural Communication, or VGC, actually is. We will show you some examples of what VGC tools that are available to support VGC. Those tools will be gone into in more depth in future modules. So, let's get started!

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So first we want to present you with a couple things to remember as we go through this training. First of all, gestures and behaviors reflect the thoughts that an individual is having. These thoughts are unique to each individual and they can be considered high context, meaning that you have to be familiar with the person's daily environment, with other people in their lives, with their routine in order to decipher the meaning of the gestures and behaviors that people are using. Thus, Visual Gestural Communication is very individualized. It's not like American Sign Language where one sign is used across multiple settings with different people and is easily understood by those people. So, the people who rely on VGC, really they often have no other form of communication, or they're just not very skilled at explaining themselves in a different manner. So that's why we say here that the responsibility is on the listener to decode what their intended message is. They don't have another way to

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communicate, so we have to work hard to figure out what they're trying to say. This can require a lot of analysis, a lot of guessing, and it definitely can also require teamwork.

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So first we want to present you with a couple things to remember as we go through this training. First of all, gestures and behaviors reflect the thoughts that an individual is having. These thoughts are unique to each individual and they can be considered high context, meaning that you have to be familiar with the person's daily environment, with other people in their lives, with their routine in order to decipher the meaning of the gestures and behaviors that people are using. Thus, Visual Gestural Communication is very individualized. It's not like American Sign Language where one sign is used across multiple settings with different people and is easily understood by those people. So, the people who rely on VGC, really they often have no other form of communication, or they're just not very skilled at explaining themselves in a different manner. So that's why we say here that the responsibility is on the listener to decode what their intended message is. They don't have another way to

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communicate, so we have to work hard to figure out what they're trying to say. This can require a lot of analysis, a lot of guessing, and it definitely can also require teamwork.

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Okay, so we promised that we would define Visual Gestural Communication. So, let's get started doing that. I've already mentioned that VGC reflects a person's internal thoughts. They're using gesture and behavior to communicate what they're thinking or feeling and communication is what connects us as human beings. When somebody doesn't have a formal mode of communication, or they don't share a mode of communication with other people, then VGC is a natural response to wanting to communicate those thoughts to other people in our lives. So, it's important to keep that in mind: that people are using VGC to connect and to communicate.

So, this slide, starts to get into some of the meat of what VGC might look like and it gives you a few categories of gestures that you might see when you're communicating with someone who uses VGC. The next slide will show you some visual examples,

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but this slide is just giving you some word descriptions. That first one is deictic gestures and what that just means is pointing at something in your space. So, it requires a physical context, it requires the object or the room or the person to be present and available in order to be pointed to, to communicate about that thing. The second one is natural gestures. These are action-based or you might think of them as kind of like a mime where someone does the thing that really looks exactly like what they're talking about. So maybe running or drinking from a cup, things like that that are pretty easily understood by a wide audience, and we'll show you some more examples of these in a couple minutes.

The next one you'll see on the screen there is home signs or created gestures. These are considered more symbolic because you don't necessarily have the item or the person available in the room. And really what they are is a type of gesture where the meaning is agreed upon by one or more people, but it's only really known to those people who create them. They're called home signs, because there's a history of families creating their own kinds of gestures, their own signs, within their homes. So, you can imagine that this symbolic meaning is not as easy to decipher as the two mentioned previously, deictic and natural gestures. Deictic you’re just pointing at the things, so it's pretty easy to decipher. Natural gestures are more widely understood. So, when we get to these home signs you'll find that you have to be familiar with that person's environment. Like I mentioned before – “high context” - you have to spend enough time with them to start to decode the meaning of those home signs or gestures.

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Next, we have signs. We’re talking here about American Sign Language vocabulary used individually. So not within the full context of the grammar and the structure of the American Sign Language as a formal language, but you might see some individual vocabulary being used by people who use Visual Gestural Communication. These signs would be more easily recognized by someone who's familiar with American Sign Language, or ASL. They also might be modified or adapted in a certain way. So, a person might intend to use the formal ASL sign, but they might change it a little bit in a way that makes it easier for them to produce it based on their physical ability. Or they might change it for some other reason. So, for example, you might sign book, which you'll see later in a video, with flat open hands as the regular ASL sign, but someone who modifies it might use curved hand shapes. So that's just one example of a modification.

The last category you see on your slide are cultural and conventional gestures. These are gestures that you'll see out in the world, but they change from culture to culture or country to country. So, for example, in the US when you nod your head up and down that means yes, but in Japan, that's just a sign of respect and it shows that you're following the conversation. It doesn't necessarily mean yes. So that's just one example of a cultural or conventional gesture.

Okay, now that I've described all of these categories in words, let's look at a couple pictures to show you some examples on the next slide.

VGC includes several types of gestures. We will show you some

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examples of these on the next slide.Diectic is a word that means pointing or showing an item or action in the present environment. It’s meaning is dependent on the context in which it is used.

Natural gestures are action-based. They act out what it looks like to do a certain thing and can usually be easily understood by a wide audience. One example could be the gesture of drinking from a cup. We’ll show you some more examples in a few minutes when we compare ASL and VGC.

Homesigns are more symbolic signs, similar to ASL, but with a meaning only known to the people who created them. They are called “homesigns” because of the history of families creating their own type of vocabulary in their home. Symbolic means that they are not as easy to decipher based on the action, like natural gestures. To understand these, you would have to be familiar with the person’s environment or spend enough time with them to begin to decode the meaning of each sign.

American Sign Language is a formal language with its own vocabulary and grammar structure. Some people who use VGC also know and use some individual vocabulary in ASL. These signs, as opposed to homesigns, would be easily recognized by any person who knows ASL. Adapted or modified signs are when a person intends to use the formal ASL sign, but changes it in a way that makes it easier for them to produce, or for some other reason. For example, rather than signing “book” with flat open palms, maybe their handshape is more curved into a C-shape. Or rather than signing “mother” on the chin, they sign in on the shoulder. There are many ways to modify a sign by

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changing the handshape, movement, placement, palm orientation, or facial grammar. These are called the 5 parameters of a sign.

Some gestures have a cultural or conventional meaning that differs from country to country or place to place. For example, a head nod in the US means, “yes”, while in Japan, it is a sign of respect and shows that you are following the conversation. Another example is that in the US we gesture “come here” by waving toward yourself with your fingers pointing up and palm facing you. In the Dominican Republic, the same gesture is inverted, with fingers pointing down.

All of the items just described can be elements of VGC!

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So here we are, if you remember all those categories from the previous slide, you can see a few examples here. That first one on the top left is an example of a deictic gesture. So, there's a physical boat in sight and the young boy is pointing to the boat to communicate he wants to talk about the boat.

There's an example of a natural gesture over there on the top right, where it's pretty clear someone looks like they're drinking from a cup or a bottle or some kind of, you know, beverage container. It's pretty clear that they're communicating about drinking.

The one in the middle is a picture of an option for a home sign. It's not the ASL sign for wallet, but this particular person keeps his wallet in his back pocket. So even when the wallet’s not present, if he makes that sign with his hand toward his back

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pocket, then we know he's intending to say the word “wallet”.

On the bottom right, you'll see an example of the modified sign for “more”. The typical ASL sign uses two flat-O handshapes, where your fingertips are touching. This is a modified sign where, instead, the person is using one open hand and then a pointer finger. And you can't see the movement because it's just a snapshot, but the pointer finger would point to the palm over and over with that motion that's similar to the sign for “more”. So, that’s a modified sign.

And then the bottom left there, you'll see cultural conventional gesture. So here in the US, we think of that sign as meaning “A-Okay”, “everything's great”. In other countries it means different things. So, for example, in Greece, it's the sign of love - it means kissing. In Buddhist and Hindu traditions that is a symbol for inner perfection. In Japan, it's a symbol for money. In France, it's a symbol meaning “worthless” or “that's not worth anything”. And in some countries, it even has a vulgar or insulting meaning. So that's an example of a cultural gesture. See how the meaning changes depending on where you are?

So once again, you'll see all of these categories to some extent in Visual Gestural Communication. Some people will use all of them, some people will use a few. Once again, it's very individualized, but these are the types of gestures you might come across. And we like to share these with you, because if you're trying to decode what someone's saying, it can help you to think about – “Okay, is this deictic? Are they pointing to something actually in the room? Or maybe this is a modified sign and I need to do some more decoding. Or maybe it's a

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home sign and I can ask someone that's familiar with the individual to help me to figure out what that meaning is.”

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Well, I'm sure all of these categories are very interesting to you, but I bet you're wondering how Visual Gestural Communication can really be applied and used in daily life. So here are just a few of the options where VGC really comes in handy. And we can start with the fact that it can provide a shared communication system, right? We talked about wanting to connect with people. So, if someone is using a gestural communication system, you want to understand what they're trying to say. You can use VGC to identify people which is really important in a daily life. Providing choice is a really great option for Visual Gestural Communication - something that we want to emphasize. It's important when you want to inform someone about what's coming in their day, so they're not surprised. You can use this type of communication to help set up a schedule or inform about the schedule. VGC can be used to ensure health and safety needs for someone, to engage and participate in daily

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activities, and you can also use VGC to build on teaching other communication skills. All of these elements are really important. And it comes down to how we want to support people to have effective communication in their daily lives.

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Now that you know a little bit about what VGC is, let's talk about what VGC is not. So, sometimes people think that Visual Gestural Communication and sign language are the same thing, but we want to emphasize that they really aren't. There is some overlap, as you can see on the diagram on your screen, and we will describe a few of the areas where that overlap occurs as we go through this module, but for the most part we want to help you understand the difference between Visual Gestural Communication and sign language. The most important distinction is that a signed language has specific vocabulary and grammatical rules just like any other spoken language. And a sign language differs from country to country. You can see with Visual Gestural Communication, there may be some signs included, some single vocabulary words, but like I mentioned before, VGC doesn't follow any set grammatical rules from person to person, so it'll be different depending on the

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individual and how they use it.

Now let's take some time to watch a brief video that compares Visual Gestural Communication and American Sign Language side by side, so you'll really be able to see how these two forms of communication can look different from one another. I encourage you to practice along with MJ. Practice what she's doing with her hands and practice copying what she's doing with her face, as well.

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Great! I hope you had a good time practicing along with MJ, and hopefully you're starting to learn more about how you can use Visual Gestural Communication in action. In that previous video, MJ showed you a few examples of what VGC can look like. But as I already mentioned, it's so individualized from person to person. So, I want to take a pause here real briefly to give you the chance to think about and visualize the person, or the individuals if you support more than one person, that you deal with on a daily basis and think about how the strategies that we're about to dive into might need to be adapted specifically for each of them. We included this little guy in the middle, as an icon, to just kind of trigger your thought process as we go through. So, if you see him pop up on any slides that are coming up, it's our way of trying to encourage you to think this thing we're talking about right now might need to be adapted. How can I adapt that for the individual that I support?

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So, I wanted to hop on screen and show you some visual examples of a few more vocabulary words in comparison between American Sign Language and Visual Gestural Communication. Again, think about the individual that you support in particular, and what they would typically use for these words. So, the first one is, eat. Here's the American sign for that. Eat. It's a flat-O handshape. If the person doesn't know that sign or doesn't use it, they may do something more like this that's gestural, or eating a sandwich kind of a gesture. All kinds of options. Maybe just patting a belly - I'm hungry, rubbing a belly, or pointing to the kitchen. Lots of different ways to gesture that meaning.

The second one is sleep. Sleep in sign language. Sleep. Again, maybe you're not using that sign with the individual you support, maybe they're doing something like this, or pointing to

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their bedroom, or just kind of dozing off a little bit. What does the person you support typically use to convey that concept of sleep?

The third one is bathroom. Here's the sign for that. It's a T handshape in American Sign Language. I often see people who use Visual Gestural Communication do a similar motion but maybe with a different handshape. So, you may see something like that. You may see someone just kind of gesturing that they need to use the bathroom physically, again pointing to the room, they may have a picture of a toilet or a bathroom, that's their own bathroom that they can point to. Lots of options there again.

And then the last one is washing hands. So, in sign language it just looks like water running, washing your hands. You could use the same thing in visual gestural sign language maybe, I mean, Visual Gestural Communication. Again, maybe pointing to where the sink is, maybe pointing to a bar of soap and looking at your hands that are dirty, maybe sticky. I'm just showing that my hands are sticky. Lots of options.

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Now that we've set the foundation for you and you got your thinking caps on, and you're working through all of these things, let's jump in and learn some practical application of Visual Gestural Communication basics.

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So here we go. These are the seven basic items we'll be touching on for the majority of the rest of this training. And remember, continue to think about how you might need to individualize or adapt these concepts for the particular person that you support.

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The very first thing we want to learn to do effectively, is to get a person's attention before we initiate any kind of communication. For someone who is Deaf, hard of hearing, or Deaf-Blind, or someone who has autism or intellectual disability, this is going to be really important. So, there's different ways that you can get attention. You can tap someone on the shoulder, especially if it's a Deaf or hard of hearing person. There's a modification for someone who's Deaf-Blind where the tap on the shoulder turns into a sliiiiide down the person's arm until your hand is under their hand and you'll see that in an upcoming video. Another option is to wave. And we're talking about kind of like a small wave to just get someone's attention. Not a big wave in the person's face, but a wave to just say, “hey I'm over here, look my way, I'm going to start to communicate with you.”

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Another option is to flicker the lights, especially for a group. If you have several people in a room that you want to get attention from at the same time, flickering the lights, flipping that switch up and down a couple times is a great option.

Another option that doesn't seem as obvious sometimes to us, would be a light pound on the table or a light stomp on the floor. This is usually a vibration that the person might feel, and that will get them to look up, make eye contact.

Another really great option is to say the person's name, if they can hear you, or you could use a person's name sign if they're Deaf or hard of hearing or Deaf-Blind, and we'll explain more about that in just a moment on the next slide. And really, I've kind of already mentioned this as I'm going through this list, but the point is to make sure you have eye contact, so you're doing these things to get that person's attention. Typically, that means to have eye contact. That may not be the case for the individual you support, but you'll know that best.

And another option, especially for someone who's Deaf-Blind, is mutual touch attention. So, if you're communicating through touch you both want to be touching the same object or item before you begin a communication about that object or item.

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Once you've gotten that person's attention, a great thing to do next is to use their name and your own name as well. The reason why we emphasize this is because it's pretty common for hearing spoken language users to know people's names in their environment and to know their own names as well, but it's not uncommon, unfortunately for VGC users to not have access to this kind of information that we take for granted. So, they might not know all the names of the people that support them on a daily basis. They might not even know the names of their family members or themselves. So, this is something that we can incorporate into our ongoing communication throughout the day, to really supplement and buttress that learning of people's names and build that connection and relationship in that way.

In just a moment we'll be showing you a video that explains some of these things in a more visual manner, obviously you

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want to see what we're talking about. But before we get to that, I just wanted to give you a little bit of a background on these terminologies, the name sign and personal identifier. So, name sign is something that's descriptive of a person. It can be based on a physical characteristic, or a body movement, or a job they have, or just something that they tend to do on a regular basis. So, a good example of that might be someone who tends to twist their hair around their finger. I know you can imagine that with me as I'm talking, twisting my hair around my pointer finger. So, a way that a name sign could be developed is by seeing that person who does that gesture often, and then give them that little twisty circular motion with your finger to mean that's their name.

Often these names are also designated with a letter from the manual alphabet, or the fingerspelling alphabet, from American Sign Language. So sometimes they'll use the first letter of the name of that person, together with a gesture to create a name sign. It's important to mention though that for people with intellectual disabilities or autism, sometimes it's difficult, or other physical disabilities, it's difficult to make those manual letters with your hand. So sometimes it's better to skip using those when you're developing these name signs and personal identifiers.

It's important to note that in typical Deaf culture, only a Deaf person can assign someone a name sign. However, we do know that many people who have hearing loss of some kind and an intellectual disability or autism, need your help often to assign name signs to people, whether you're hearing or Deaf.

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Another thing to note is that it can be difficult for someone with an intellectual disability or autism to understand the indication of identity related to a name sign. And this is why repetition and daily exposure is important, so that they start to make that connection between this particular gesture and that person and recognize, “oh that identifies that person, that's their name”.

Now, I keep saying “name sign” and “personal identifier” because a name sign is particular to what I just described. A personal identifier is a little bit different. Often, we talk about using those with someone who's Deaf-Blind, so it's not necessarily a letter and a motion, but it could be something the person wears often that is tactual, that they can touch, and really recognize from feel. So, you can see the picture that I used in this example. That's actually my mother's wedding ring and it's very unique. And you can see by the way that it looks that you can feel the little nuggets, the little nubs, on her ring pretty easily. So, that's a great example of a personal identifier. Other things could be a person's hair or their glasses or other kinds of jewelry and you'll see some examples of that in the video as well.

As I mentioned earlier, some people don't have that regular access to a person's name in their environment or to their own name. So, to combat that what we do is to use those name signs and personal identifiers daily, on a regular basis, as often as we can. Provide that exposure, so individuals can learn those names and make those connections and build those relationships.

So, it's important for you to use your name sign yourself when

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you introduce yourself in the morning, or when you come on shift, or when you say good evening. Whenever you're coming into contact with that individual, remember to say your name sign and theirs as well, and to use that name sign or personal identifier, especially every time you interact with someone who's Deaf-Blind. Each time you come in contact with them, you want to identify who you are, so they know who they're talking to, so they can also get used to your name sign, and learn who all the people in their environment are. A really great way to reinforce those name signs and learn those identifiers is to use a staff photo gallery and not just staff but anybody who's important in a person's life.

All right, now that we've talked about name signs and personal identifiers a little bit, let's watch a video that explains it a little bit more clearly because you'll be able to see some examples.

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Now that you're becoming an expert on name signs and identifiers, I expect that you and your team and the individuals you support will get together and start to develop these for all of the people in the environment. But what can you actually do with them? You can identify yourself obviously, with your own name sign, each time you interact with someone or meet someone. You can assist the individual you support to repeat that name sign to practice it. You can use that same name sign each time you greet that individual and each time you leave. You can point to that individual and use their name sign often so that they recognize how you are describing them with a name sign. And you can use their name sign each time you ask them a question, ask them for a choice that they might prefer, or any time you give a command.

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As I mentioned, the photo gallery is an excellent way to practice, and also to inform. So, here are some options. These are just a couple examples of what a photo might look like - that first one, I would encourage you to keep the face in there and not cut it off and just show the braids. But for example, that first one, the braids would be the identifier. The second one, the L by the eyes is an identifier. And the third one, that unique hair, patting the hair is an identifier. So those three photos clearly show those. So that's how I would encourage you to set your photos up. Make sure you're reviewing these identifiers or name signs regularly together as supporters and also with that individual.

You can use them to inform about the schedule for the day or the week, who will be there, who will be doing which things. And you can inform about unexpected changes, like when

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someone is sick or someone's on vacation. And then just remember, when the people in the environment change, you want to make sure to remove those photos from the stash. If you want to call it that. So, let's say the person with the braids, used to be working in the home on the weekends and then they resigned and moved on to another job. You want to remove that photo, so that it doesn't cause confusion.

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Moving on from name signs and identifiers, let's talk a little bit about your face. So, facial expressions play a really important part in American Sign Language. They're also super effective when you're using Visual Gestural Communication. It doesn't hurt to throw in some American Sign Language foundational grammar, because if the individual you support is growing in their communication style, then this is something that they can also apply in American Sign Language. So, you, as a support person, using these facial expressions will be super essential for supporting that growth. But it will also make your Visual Gestural Communication more effective.

So, on this slide you can see the difference between two types of questions. The yes and no questions or close-ended questions, your eyebrows are raised up. And then, the open-ended questions or wh-questions, such as who or where or why,

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your eyebrows are down.

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On this slide you can see two more options. Did you know, your eyebrows were so powerful in communication? On the left side you can see just a neutral, natural eyebrow level and that indicates a statement. “I'm drinking.” And then on the right-hand side you can see a command. So, eyebrows not just down but furrowed, where you're showing a firm facial expression.

Now, don't get confused between command and anger. This picture, some people might see it and think, “wow she looks angry”. But in Visual Gestural Communication and American Sign Language, this is indicative of a command. Again, I just want to put out there that you know the individual you support best and so you do want to be careful. If you think that individual will interpret something like this as anger, then you know, just loosen it up a little bit. But it's still important to indicate with your face, whether you're asking a question,

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making a statement, or giving a command.

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Another really neat thing that you can do with Visual Gestural Communication, and also with American Sign Language, is to show different sizes or different durations of time or different amounts, based on how big or small your gesture is or how fast or slow you sign. So, this is a really cool thing that you can learn, and I'm just going to let the next video speak for itself. So, let's watch the video on the next slide.

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Moving on to number five of the seven basics, let's talk briefly about reinforcement and feedback. So, in our daily interactions with the individuals we support, we sometimes want to provide reinforcement saying, “oh yeah, I understand what you're getting at”, or “yes, I really appreciated that behavior that you just did”. So, in that case, there's lots of options. You can see just a few that we provided up here to get you thinking about the individual you support, and what might work specifically for them. So, high five, thumbs up. This one is the way that you clap in ASL, where your hands kind of shake back and forth like jazz hands, or a pat on the back. Those are some options, depending on the person you support.

You may also need to indicate that you don't understand something, or provide some feedback that a behavior shouldn't be occurring in a situation or a setting. And so, here's again,

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some options to think about. There's a hand up on the left like a stop, “stop doing that”. A timeout, where you can use both your hands. Here’s shaking your finger “no”, which may or may not be appropriate for different people. Or you could even do the double thumbs down. And again, what you choose to use is going to depend on what works for that individual you support, and what they understand.

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Another really important basic thing to understand about Visual Gestural Communication is this concept of receptive and expressive communication. So, we want to always remember that VGC goes both ways. It's not only important for an individual to understand what we want from them. But it's important for us to understand what they're trying to communicate as well. You want to make sure that you're spending just as much time learning to decode what that individual is trying to communicate to you as well.

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All right, you've made it to the very last, the seventh basic element that we'll touch on during this module, and that is supplementary tools. So, as I showed at the very beginning of this training, there's a whole toolbox of communication modalities that we can employ to help support communication. Visual Gestural Communication makes use of all of these different things. So, there's lots of tools that you can use to make sure that the communication is as clear as it possibly can be.

With VGC, repetition and overlap is definitely not a bad thing. So sometimes we think, “I've communicated that thing very clearly. I don't need a pictorial calendar,” for example. But you never know what's going to be supportive of general communication for the individual that you're supporting daily.

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So on this slide you'll see just a few options of tools that can be added to supplement Visual Gestural Communication. These may or may not work for the individual you support and there's lots of other ones that you might want to look at, as well. We'll get into those more in future modules. But just to touch quickly on some of these - a photo dictionary or a video dictionary are great ways to document the communication that the individual you support is using - their particular home signs, their particular gestures that they're using. This is a great way to train up new staff or new supporters who are coming into the picture. It's also a great way to compare if that language or communication mode is changing or growing over time for that individual. One example of what this could look like is there on the bottom left of your screen. There's a gentleman and his version of the sign for “finished” or “done”. And that's paired with an example of the typical American Sign Language sign for “finished”.

Sometimes it makes more sense to do the same kind of documentation, but using video. So, making a video dictionary in the same way, and that way you can see the motion of the gestures and the signs that the individual is using. So, these are two really excellent tools with a variety of uses.

Another tool that you could use is a pictorial calendar. You can see one example of a daily pictorial calendar there on the right side of your screen. And this is a great way to reinforce what's happening during the day or during the week. You can also include those photos of important people that we mentioned earlier - that gallery. You can select photos of people who will be engaging in activities at specific times on that calendar with

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the individual. And you'll see this example that's on the screen right now is just for one day. And it pairs a photo of the activity with a picture of the sign. So, this individual is learning the American Sign Language vocabulary to pair with those photos of activities that they're doing in their pictorial calendar. So not only is it showing their schedule, but it's also growing and building that communication modality for the person who's using it. And not to mention staff or supporters are able to use this resource to grow and learn their sign language skills, as well.

A choice board is another great tool. This is an opportunity for the individual to decide what they would like to do, so it can include a multitude of places and things and food and items that that person might be interested in doing or using. And they can go to that board independently or together with a support person and choose what they want to do for activities for the day to add to the calendar, or maybe to choose the food for the menu for that day or that week. So, there's lots of options available for a choice board as well.

And then the last one you see there is actual objects as reference. So, these are not necessarily pictures, cartoons or live, real pictures of things. Maybe they want the actual object to help them communicate more accurately. So, you could have an actual cup from the favorite restaurant that the person likes to go to, or a bag, an empty bag of the chips that they like to eat that they want to get from the store, different things like that.

So again, these are all tools that you'll learn about in future modules, but we just wanted to touch on them briefly here so

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that you were aware that Visual Gestural Communication has the ability to encompass all kinds of different support and supplementary tools in order to get that effective communication across.

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So we're starting to wind down this first module with the basics of Visual Gestural Communication. We've gone through our seven basics now, and we just want to touch on a couple more foundational things to consider as you're building your VGC skills.

So the first one is how to use VGC in a way that reinforces communication and shared meaning. That concept of shared meaning is so important. If you aren't understanding things in the same way, then you can't communicate effectively. And so, one way to go about doing that is to make sure that you're responding to any communication attempts that are occurring.

Sometimes, the person that you're supporting makes a communication attempt, that's very subtle. Or if you're not skilled in VGC, it's not subtle but maybe you missed it because

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you haven't been prepared to pay attention to those communication attempts. So, when a person does make a communication attempt, you want to make sure that you're consistently affirming that you understand, and that you're assigning meaning. Here's an example of what that might look like. “Yeah, I agree with you! That does look fun!” “That does look fun” is a way to assign meanings. So, you're saying, “I see the gestures that you're making. I see the picture that you're pointing to. And I understand that your message means you think that's fun.” And by doing that consistently, the individual you communicate with will begin to recognize, “Wow! We share meaning! They really get me. I can connect with this person, and we can communicate effectively.”

Another way that narrating activities comes into play - I always think of my mom ‘cause she always did this for me when I was growing up, and at the time, it was a little bit annoying I won't lie to you, but looking back, I just recognize what value there was in that. So, she would narrate to me. For example, while she's wiping the table off she would say, “I'm wiping the table, back and forth in this way, in order to keep crumbs from hitting the floor.” She opened up what's happening in her mind to teach me, who was just watching, what was really going on. I wouldn't have known that that was her purpose, unless she told me about it. So, you can do that as well. Rather than just going about your daily activities you can talk about what you're doing, as you're doing it. And what that will do is provide more and more exposure to communication, more exposure to building and growing that communication style as well and just build that connection with the individual you support.

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Another thing that we've found to be very effective is to consider the likes and interests, and the dislikes, as well, of the individual that you support and apply that to how you communicate and when you communicate and how you might decode what the other person is communicating, as well. So, you want to start communication around things that the individual likes and a good way to do that, we have an example up here of a little tool that's just a list of likes and dislikes. This actually came from the Open Hands Open Access training that's provided through the National Deaf-Blind Center. And they go through all of the different senses that a person might be liking and disliking things about. So, tastes and textures around foods that they like and dislike, smells, etc. You can go through all of these things with your team and with the individual you support in order to try to suss out ways and different places and contexts where you might be able to build communication together.

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And as you're thinking about shared communication, developing a plan, implementing some of these topics that we talked about today, we want to encourage you to just visualize what speech and language looks like throughout your day and make a quick comparison. Does the individual I support, who's using Visual Gestural Communication have that same kind of access to those communicative experiences? And if not, what can we do as a team to bring more equality to their daily experience?

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We're wrapping up this module, and we want to leave you with some direction on what you can do now. So, the first thing you can do is to begin with some observation of the individual you support, now that your eye is more attuned to meaningful communicative gestures. Some gestures may be very subtle -they may be below the person's waistline, or they could just involve eye gaze. Now that you have learned a few of these skills, your observation might bring up a few things that you hadn't noticed before.

The second thing that we encourage you to do is to practice. Practice applying the skills that you've learned in this module. Learning requires practice: practice doing it expressively, practice decoding what other people are saying. Practice, practice, practice as much as you can!

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And bring your team into the discussion and planning. I can't tell you how many times I thought I understood what someone was expressing until I discussed it with someone else who had more context than I did and they showed me that I was way off! So, talk to each other, talk to family members, talk to other team members, and learn what your individual uses and needs across settings, and with different people, and then plan together on how you can approach a communication system that's consistent across shifts and settings to help that individual communicate effectively.

And finally, of course, more training is always a good idea. You can watch our other VGC modules on myodp.org and get more in-depth information about creating and using some of those supplementary tools we mentioned, and some other skills related to individuals who are Deaf-Blind.

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You can reach us at either one of the email addresses you see on this screen: RA-PWSpecialPopUnit@pa.gov or RA-ODPDeafServices@pa.gov. We look forward to hearing from you. And we thank you so much for your participation in this training today! We know that it's valuable information and we hope that you feel the same.

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