This study reconsidered educational materials by analyzing educators' opinions regarding handmade manipulative materials (HMMs) for children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities in Japan. Instead of concurring with the view that educational materials are static and inert products, the author adopted an agential realist perspective…

This conference presentation examines concept development for congenitally blind students. It presents current research on best-practice for teaching this population. Examples of strategies to reinforce understanding of body concepts, spatial awareness, and positional language, while promoting mirroring, self regulation, and purposeful movement to…

The article describes the process of teaching abacus to moderately retarded blind students as a means of developing concepts of numbers, addition and subtraction, and money values. (Author)

This article explains a movement-based approach to the development of language in children with deaf-blindness. This approach uses the salient features of individuals or objects to stimulate use of language in the immediate environment, and later to refer to persons or concepts in a more abstract fashion. It stresses the use of structure and a…

This brief paper offers suggestions for parents and teachers working together to develop meaningful communication skills in deaf multihandicapped children. An intervention program developed by Jan VanDijk is described. This program involves the use of environmental engineering to teach language concepts with materials such as a calendar box with…