Articles

= Articles = = = [|Young African American Children with Disabilities and Augmentative and Alternative Communication Disorders ​] This article is all about Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems and African Americans. It talks about how so much needs to be addressed before one brings a system into the household. African Americans are on the rise with AAC system use. The article goes into how the African American family works. African American families tend to have more people than just the biological parents raising the children. Extended families tend to help raise. Church plays a huge role in the life of an African American child. Another thing that needs to be addressed that was mentioned in the article is the mistrust African Americans have towards non-African people. They do not trust because of racism that still exists in some households. AAC systems are only meant to help the children with disabilities. Because of culturally diverse backgrounds, one must first know how to communicate to different families to help chidlren with disabilities. I would use this information in my classroom as a resource to realize that different families from different backgrounds may react differently with AAC systems. I never knew that some African Americans still feel mistrust towards other cultures and I will need to make sure that my students and their families know that They can trust m.

[|Allowing the Voices of Parents to Help Shape Teaching and Learning] This article is about three different cases. The first case is about a little girl who has seven other sibilings. She is the only deaf one though in her family. The case shows that her parents have their priorities straight because they involve her in everything, but also make sure that she is efficient in other areas. Her parents believe that if she becomes a good reader then she can do anything else. This was shown in the case to be true. The second case is about Portugese speaking parents of disabled children. The schools saw the parents are ill-informed and not being able to help their disabled children because of the language barrier. The parents,however, said they are involved with their disabled children and that they are blessings form God. The case shows that the school and the parents may have different aspirations for the student and that the school needs to know what the parents want for their child. The last case is similar to the second one. It is about the beliefs of parents of disabled children from different culures. This article is good for me to see that I should know that families do try to help their children and that I need an open communication with them to know what is being done and what needs to be done. It shows different diverse backgrounds may show it differently, but they are helping their disabled children.

[|Home Environment and Family Resources to Support Literacy Interaction: Examples From Families of Children With Disabilities]

This article goes further than the actual literacy development within a family. It goes into the resources that are provided which are normally looked passed. It looks at the time, space, roles, responsibilities, relationships, cultures and routines. The researcher went into homes and took tours, interviewed, and just watched the families. It was seen that the families which read to their disabled children two to three times a week had different resources listed above than those who read daily. The families that read daily to their children tend to have a scheduled routine which was done the same way everyday. The roles in the families were different too. The reader changed in the families that read two to three times a week where normally either parents read to the child in the daily reading home. it came to the conclusion that interventions can be made from this research so that all families get more reading time in with their disabled and all children. I could use this information in my classroom by sending home a questionnaire home at the beginning of the year to see how often the students are being read to. Then I can send home some ideas about the resources listed above so that the families can improve the reading in their households. It will also help me to provide all the unmentioned resources to my students in the classroom.