An Approach for Play and Exploration

Parents can use the Active Learning approach when they engage with their child at home during playtime or routines.

Active Learning is an approach based on the work of Dr. Lilli Nielsen, a developmental psychologist and preschool teacher, who worked for over 43 years with children and adults with multiple disabilities at Refsnaesskolen, the National Institute for Blind and Partially Sighted Children and Youth in Denmark. The approach is not just about a piece of equipment but rather it refers to a total approach for promoting the development of individuals with severe multiple disabilities, including blindness or low vision.

Although active learning takes place in many classrooms for students with special needs, parents can use the approach when they engage with their child at home during playtime or routines.

Dr. Nielsen’s approach is based on the belief that all activity, especially in the earliest stages of development, “wires our brains” and establishes critical foundational concepts and skills necessary for future learning.

Children with multiple disabilities, including blindness and low vision, are at great risk from developing reliance on others to interact with the world around them. Providing opportunities for them to develop new skills, make choices, and become independent learners is critical for their development.

Here are the key points of Active Learning:

Active Participation

The child initiates some actions without prompting (verbal or physical) from the adult. By self-initiated activity, the child is developing neural connections and memories that may not be established by having an adult manipulate their body. Let the child determine when and how to act on an object or make contact and engage with the adult. In whatever way possible allow the child to be an active participant in the world around them. Use the natural movements or responses of the child and turn them into purposeful movement. If the child is not actively participating, change something.

Repetition of Opportunities

Practice makes perfect! This is critical for anyone because repetition creates and strengthens neural connections in the brain. Provide plenty of opportunities (thousands and thousands) for the child to practice a skill so that it becomes part of the individual’s personality.

The more “automatic” a skill becomes the less energy it takes for the child to use that skill and the more likely they will use it in many different situations and environments.

Remember the child must initiate the movement, so co-active movement with the adult may not accomplish the same growth of skills.

Let the child have time to process what they are learning from their movement; this may look like the child is taking a short break. Give the child opportunities to practice a particular skill with a variety of materials. You should have multiples of objects and varieties of the same object to allow the child to generalize learning. Children learn at different rates; some children may take much longer than others to make a skill something that can be automatic.

Developmentally Appropriate

Skills develop in a fairly predictable order. For example, you can’t throw a ball until you have the ability to pick it up. You can’t pick it up until you can coordinate the movement of your fingers. In Active Learning it is important to understand the developmental sequence of skills and provide activities that require skills the child has. This way the child will feel success and use that skill to learn something new. Higher level skills will develop naturally as foundational skills solidify. Always offer activities at the child’s developmental level; you may adapt with materials to make the activity age appropriate. Slowly provide new experience to foster growth. Using hand-over-hand to “show” a child how to do something should be avoided!

Reinforcing to the Individual

None of us will do things that we do not feel benefit us in some way. In other words, we need motivation. This is true for any individual. Our role as adults is to figure out what is motivating for the child. For the sensorimotor learner, we need to determine which of the learning pathways (vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, or movement) provide the most usable information for the child. We also need to make learning fun and interesting!

Limited Distractions

When anyone is trying to learn something new, distractions work against the process. For example, have you ever tried to learn a new computer program and people won’t stop talking or asking you questions? If you are like most people, you probably had a hard time learning what you needed to until they left you alone.

If we interrupt a child’s exploration and experimentation by telling them they are doing a good job or trying to show them what to do, we interrupt the learning. We need to minimize distractions as much as possible for all learners, recognizing that we can probably not eliminate them entirely. This includes making sure a child is not hungry, tired, or wet. That the room is not too hot, too cold, too overstimulating, too under-stimulating. We also need to keep in mind that a child’s tolerance for distractions can vary from day to day or moment to moment.

We must limit our comments to times when the child takes a little break from what they are doing and is paying attention to us. Then make comments pertinent to the child’s activities and keep the language simple. We also need to communicate in ways that are meaningful to the child; this includes gestures, vocalizations, tactual signals, signs, symbols, and simple words. Remember to keep your comments short and simple, highlighting the most critical ideas.

Article adapted from Active Learning Space