Barbara Laurenson
In the early 1990s, I was teacher in charge of a Special Needs Unit at a boys’ secondary school in Wellington.
The unit consisted of 18 students with a range of intellectual disability, two teachers and several teacher aides. The students’ needs ranged from moderate to very high. Some students were almost entirely mainstreamed, while others spent the majority of their days on special programmes in the unit.
I was on the board of Speech New Zealand at the time.
I discussed with the unit staff the possibility of entering some students for the initial levels of the Oral Communication syllabus.
Several of our students were non-verbal. Two or three used basic sign language to communicate. We decided to involve as many of the students as possible regardless of ability or disability. We asked SNZ if they would widen the scope of the term ‘oral’ to allow the participation of a candidate’s teacher aide/interpreter into the assessment. Ted White, director of SNZ at the time, agreed. In the end, we devised ways for all but three of the students to take part.
The process of preparation required energy, commitment, and creativity from the teachers and aides to problem solve both communication and physical challenges.
Levels of interaction and a range of communication skills broadened. The required drama presentation allowed some students to reveal hitherto unknown talents and an enthusiasm for performance. It was increasingly clear to us all that there was a great deal more to ‘communication’ than just ‘oral.’
There was a palpable buzz in the unit as we prepared to meet the deadline.
Cecily Archer agreed to examine. She was professional, warm and encouraging, not at all fazed by the different levels of spoken language and difficulties of understanding, going both ways.
Such was the high degree of enthusiasm for the assessments that the unit repeated the exercise in subsequent years until the practice sadly lapsed following changes of staff.
