When doing the ABLLS, saying you get tunnel-vision is an understatement! You get so focused on organizing materials (need ABLLS resources – check out our ABLLS Resource Kit) and getting everything finished that when it is over you are left wondering (at least I was!) what to do with all these colored-in columns. It’s important to tackle the curricular planning aspect of the ABLLS in the same systematic way you conducted the actual assessment.
- Go through everything and really look at the data and see what the student excelled in and what skills they lacked.
- Write a brief summary of each section. I know, this sounds like a lot, however you can keep these as concise as you want. When I did mine, I made sure that it covered the basics. This will make writing future IEPs much easier and quicker!
- Make some programs based on the students’ deficits. Create a master list of goals and potential skill to build on. Then create a curriculum map for each student to organize everything by school semester. Additionally we used it to define the goal, who would instruct the program and at what times the program would be run.
When you’re deciding what programs to run first, there are a couple of things you should consider:
1) Choose ones that are based on skills the student already has. An example is if they can complete 3 block designs but not designs with more than 6 blocks, start running a program with block designs that contain four blocks and work your way up to 6.
2) Choose programs that are the most functional! This to me is the most important. We want to teach our students things that will have the most impact on their lives! Instead of teaching them to tie shoes, maybe focusing on personal information (i.e., name, address, phone number, etc.) is more of a priority.
3) Choose things that will seamlessly fit in with your current classroom schedules. Don’t kill yourself setting up 13 different programs times each day. Have an “initiating greetings” program during circle time or a puzzle program during teacher time.
4) Try to get several students all on one program. This will save you so much time AND there is that social interaction component that is so important to our kids!
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