 Well good afternoon everyone and welcome to our May gathering of our professional learning community. Always a pleasure to be able to sit and take a bit of time to listen to Dr. Karen Wolf. Karen typically would be coming to us from Austin Texas but today she is coming to us from Australia and we did a bit of a bit of a test on Monday and it seemed to work work well. Karen was telling Ross when she did the test that she'd be she would be trying she would be getting into the building on Thursday morning to do the session for us here on Wednesday afternoon. So welcome Karen many of you know Karen and the work that she's done around career education and transition and all of that kind of thing. Today she's going to be focusing on building career education awareness starting in with really young children and of course she's she's worked for for many years in this area and contributed to a number of books, co-authored articles, authored articles and all of that kind of thing. So I'm going to quit talking and pass it on to Karen and welcome her from way down under. Thank you very much Roy it's my pleasure to be with all of you today but tomorrow for you but today for me I'm teasing. It is 7 30 in the morning here in Sydney Australia and I'm thrilled that I was able to hear Roy and Ross so well and they assure me that you can hear me so well and I hope that's the case. I'm going to start us off frankly as I often do by sharing with you how to reach me moving forward in case there's something that I say today that we don't have a chance for you to ask me about or if you need any more information about anything that I mentioned to you please do not hesitate to reach out to me. As I am often traveling the best approach to reaching me is to send me a quick email. It's easy but you must spell my name correctly Karen Wolfe K-A-R-E-N-W-O-L-F-F-E at gmail.com. I will definitely get back to you as quickly as I possibly can once I hear from you so please make a note of my email address and let me know if there's anything I can do to help you. I would like to begin by acknowledging that I recognize that you are working with many many different levels of students that all students do not have the same ability and that we need to recognize that as service providers, teachers, counselors, mobility specialists, whatever role you're playing and acknowledge that different students need different amounts of intervention. And so when I think about students I try not to think in terms of mild, moderate, severe, profound. I try to think in terms of amount of ability that the student has innately and how much help from me or intervention the child is going to need. So some of you are familiar with my levels of intervention but let me just share those with you very quickly so that we're all on the same page. So my first level, if you will, of intervention is what I acknowledge as informational level students or children or adults and those individuals need very little help from me. They are short-term intervention kinds of students. When we're talking about early intervention we're often talking about parents and the amount of help they need in order to understand what they are doing within for their children, how much to do, how much not to do, what to do, how to present materials to them. But once we've given them the information, these are the parents who just pick up the reins and get on with it. They don't need ongoing badgering. They don't need us to constantly be encouraging them, cajoling them. They take control and they make things happen. And their children, likewise, if they are operating at this informational level, we teach them a task and the children begin to do that task, apply what they've learned, generalize what they've learned. They are absolutely our favorite students. They are the students who need the least amount of help but give us the most pleasure sometimes just because we see how quickly they have captured what we've taught them and we don't really like to let go of them, but we need to let go of them because they don't need us on an ongoing basis. So these informational students are short-term intervention and then let them go, step back, let them perform. I think the vast majority of students with whom we work and frankly parents at this early childhood level are what we call instructional level people or what I call instructional level people. They have very average needs. They have their average intelligence. They are of average ability. They are average motivated. However you want to think of it, but they need teachers. They need counselors. They need mobility specialists to really give them step by step instruction, see whether they've mastered those steps. If they haven't they need repeats. We need to try them in different ways, different times, different places to make sure that they can generalize over to what they need next. But their needs are finite. Once I've taught them what they need, they are really able to carry on and continue to apply that. They may need some encouragement now and then. I mean all of you have worked with these kids. You know that you teach them a task and if they haven't performed that task in a couple of weeks or a couple of months, you may need to do some quick review with them. But they've got the basic construct. They've got the basic skill. Once we remind them or refresh their memories, they can pick that back up and carry on. Their needs are finite. They are not lifelong needs. We teach them. We teach them how to connect the dots to the next task. We build and build. We scaffold their learning and once they've learned, they can generalize. They're going to grow up and live happily ever after. They don't need us forever. It's finite. I think that about 75% of the students with whom we work are instructional level. I think about 10% only are what I would call informational level. And then I think that last 15% of students who tend to be students with multiple disabilities, multiple needs, ongoing lifelong needs, it's about 15%. These advocacy level students have extensive needs. Those needs never go away. We may be able to teach them some skills for life. But we're not going to teach them everything they need because they're not going to be able to capture all of it. Many times these are students with cognitive impairment that is so complex and pervasive that people with better intelligence, better ability are going to have to problem solve for them, protect them over their lifetimes. These are typically students with complex needs, almost always with some level of fairly severe, frankly, intellectual impairment or cognitive impairment. They may be students with also some severe, if you will, disability that inhibits their ability to perform. So they may be physically impaired and unable to perform, for example, activities of daily living or personal care and are going to need personal support or attending care in order to survive. They may be students who are never going to be able to manage their own money because they don't have that ability. So their needs are not finite. Their needs are not short term. Their needs are lifelong and there will always be a need in their lives for intervention and support external to them. Again, I think that's a very minimal number of students, about 15%. Even those of you who are working with children with multiple disabilities, I believe that for the most part, they can be taught to live independently or interdependently and be successfully employed in the future. That they can develop good, strong relationships outside of their family units, friendships, acquaintances, etc. and not need external supports for life. But there are some students and I acknowledge that who are advocacy level who will need that for life. In terms of career education, I really believe there are five goals for each and every one of us. I'm going to put them all up here on the board so that I don't tangle myself up with pushing buttons. Many of you have heard me speak before and you know that I believe very, very strongly and I have seen evidence, to be honest with you, over my 40 years of work experience about the importance of these five areas or goals that I have for all students with vision impairment in terms of career life success. I call them my career education goals, but I probably should have called them life success goals. And I think the first of those for us is to recognize that we must always convey our high expectations of students, our high expectations of the people with whom we work. And when you are working early childhood, I think that it's important that you not only convey those expectations to the children in terms of how you behave with them, how your behaviors reflect your high expectations, but also that you model for their parents the critical need for those parents to be conveying their high expectations of infants and toddlers and preschoolers as they prepare to enter into school and enter into more competitive kinds of learning and working environments. Children who hear from the beginning of their lives that they are expected to participate, that they are expected to be a part of the family, that the expectation is that they will go to school, that they will go into life and be successful are far more likely to actually do that than children who are pandered to or molly coddled or wrapped in cotton wool and not expected to do for themselves. I've been chatting with parents while I've been down under and I keep saying to them over and over again and I know that I say it all the time to teachers and I would say it to all of you. We must expect these young children who are blind or visually impaired to do what those other toddlers preschool students are doing to pick up their toys to put their toys in a toy box or wherever they're supposed to be safeguarding them to do the things that the other students are doing to wash their faces to wash their hands to put the towel up on the towel rack to pick up their clothes when they are able to do so. All of these expectations that we have of students or children who are non-disabled, we need to work to have the children that we are concerned about performing in the same way as their non-disabled peers. My second point is to encourage socialization to make sure that we are engaging with children, that we are demonstrating for their parents and others in the community, that we are speaking to them, not about them, that we are engaging them with greetings and expecting greetings in return, that we are encouraging them to socialize with us and to socialize with others. I think you do the very best work that you do as teachers in terms of developing what we have always called compensatory skills. You sometimes hear other language, alternative techniques, blindness specific skills. It's all about compensating for the lack of vision. And it's all about making sure that young children are entering into school with the best disability-specific skills that they can master in order to participate and be engaged in active learning within the classroom. I'll talk a little bit more about each of these in just a moment, but let me finish up with sharing with you these last two goals, which is for each and every one of you, all day, every day, to provide realistic feedback, both to the children with whom you are working and to their parents, to help them understand what they are doing well and where they may need to make some improvement. And where they need to make improvement, or you see that the parents need to work with them on improvement in terms of behaviors or activities, to be specific with them about what it is they need to do differently in order to perform to standard, to meet the goals moving forward into the next environment. It's always about feedback that is realistic about what is working well for young people and what is not working so well on how to remediate that for the next environment. And then last but not least, my fifth goal is about promoting opportunities for work. And oftentimes, this is the expectation or the career education goal that causes the most duress for people who are typically working with young children, infants, toddlers, preschoolers. Everybody always says to me, Oh, Karen, aren't you being unrealistic to think that little children should be working? And yet what I would share with you is that little children do, in fact, work because they participate in family activities and family responsibilities, ideally, from the beginning of their lives. And sometimes the work is just being a kid. And sometimes the work is what I referred to earlier, picking up your toys, following the instructions that your parents give you or your teacher gives you participating and working with other children that you know how often we will say to children, you know, going to school is your work for when you are a little kid. And that's that's exactly right. Going off to preschool, preparing for preschool, carrying your lunch or carrying your little backpack. That's work when you are a toddler or when you are a preschooler. I'm not asking you to send children into the mines and start digging ore or digging up streets or plowing fields. I'm asking you to help kids and their parents understand that they need to work these children who are blind or visually impaired when they are young at the same kinds of activities, work related activities that we are asking of other young people who are not disabled. So here are some very specific examples with conveying high expectations, a reminder to each and every one of you to share with parents, other teachers, everyone in their communities that they need to speak to these young, blind and visually impaired people that they can and will grow up to contribute, that people should not be reticent to say what are you going to be when you grow up or you look like you could be a ballerina or you look like you could be a football player or you look like you're a natural. They should say those things so that children recognize that there's this expectation that they will grow up and continue to contribute, that they will be establishing relationships and ultimately families outside of their nuclear families. Wouldn't you like to play with this other child? Wouldn't you like to do this with someone else? Let's go join those other kids. This notion of expecting that kind of behavior is what sets the stage for that behavior to happen. And that ultimately what we're looking for for all kids is that they will grow up and not live independently, although we talk a lot about independence. We want them to be able to perform skills independently, but then to use those skills interdependently to live and work and play in the community. To live and work and play in the community, you have to live interdependently, where you trade off what you're best at doing with other people who perform differently and may perform better than you in some ways. And then you substitute in something that you do really, really well so that they can do the thing you don't do as well. I often give the example of mowing the yard. I can in fact mow my yard, but I prefer not to do that. I prefer to let my husband do that because he's better at it. He likes doing it. I don't like doing it. So interdependently, I live my life by letting him mow the yard. And then I take on something like shopping, which he does not enjoy doing. So I give away mowing to him and I do the shopping because I prefer to shop. He prefers to mow. We contribute to each other's health and well-being by sharing those responsibilities. And I think that's really important to share with families and to share with you. These are the ways that we convey our high expectations of other people. In terms of encouraging socialization, students desperately need to be able to develop interpersonal relationships at various and sundry levels. I've listed them out here for you on this slide. Blind and visually impaired children are going to have to be able to interact with people that they have never met before, strangers in truth. And we need to help young people understand who and where and when and how to make that happen, how you engage with strangers in the public, what you can talk about, what you can't talk about, when you need to continue conversations and when you need to pull back. And it starts when they are very, very young. With hints, say hello, say goodbye, let's wave hello, let's wave goodbye. This is not someone that we know, but I'm going to ask this person directions because I don't know quite where I am. You talk it with these little ones. You don't expect them to do the whole thing. But you articulate for them why you are doing things, what you are doing, and what you are observing in the community. Oh, I see someone across the playground that we know. I think that must be. Let's go find out. Aren't you and then you you model for them the engagement with someone outside of the immediate environment. And I think that for blind and visually impaired children, they need desperately for us to model social skills. But we are so accustomed, particularly those of us who have really good vision, we are so accustomed to people modeling our behavior through visual observation. A reminder, when we are working with blind and visually impaired children, we need to articulate the why we did something, the where for of how we did something. I noticed that she was dressed really nicely today or I noticed that she was smiling at someone else and I thought maybe she knew that person. We just need to talk about it. We need to share with them even before we're sure they're really getting it. The why and where for we're making social decisions. And how we are determining who these people in the environment are. Well, I had to ask the clerk at the store whom I've never met, because that's how I'm going to get that kind of information. I didn't see anyone that I knew. Whereas, Oh, this is someone that I know from church or school or I've seen in the shop before or I've seen this person before. And so that person is a quaintance of mine. It's someone that I know. It's not really a friend of mine. I don't do things with them. I couldn't tell you their whole name. We need to fill it in for these kids. We need to help them understand how we categorize people. This is a friend of mine. I want you to meet this friend of mine. We go to the movies together. We shop together. We invite each other over to homes. This is a friend of mine who came to dinner the other night. Explain how how you differentiate. I mean, so many of these blind and visually impaired kids can't tell you the difference between a friend, an acquaintance, a stranger in a strange world. Please. Chat with the children with whom you are working. It's it doesn't sometimes feel like your work, but it is your work. Your work is to help them understand the world around them. And the social world is very, very difficult and challenging for blind children because they can't pick up on these social nuances that are never articulated. How people look, whether they're smiling and open, whether they are dressed in the same way or differently. These nuances of social body language, facial expression, these are happening casually. As the teacher, as the mobility specialist, as the counselor, we have some responsibility here to paint the picture to fill in the gaps to help them understand what we are seeing. If we are not ourselves, it's fine. What we are hearing and how we are putting that together. How that is helping us understand who is who and how they're making those judgment calls about levels of relationships. Because ultimately, the students that we are concerned about, the children we are concerned about are going to have to be able to make those determinations in order to truly engage and have meaningful interpersonal relationships. They have got to understand reciprocity. And I think this is one of the big challenges for kids with vision because so much is given to them. And many times people don't expect anything back. And sometimes I don't need you to give me anything back. But the children need that if you take and take and take and never give that you as see as an equal a possible partner for social engagement. And so I think it's important as we work with children who are blind to make sure that they see and hear and are engaged when we are sending other people, gifting other people, reimbursing other people for their energy and their time that they give to us so that they begin to learn about reciprocity. And then a final reminder on this slide about learning the nuances of nonverbal communication. It becomes our role as vision professionals, I think many times, to teach children in a structured way about the nuances of nonverbal communication, where we're teaching them hand signals, we're teaching them how to move their bodies through space, we're teaching them about what we see on their faces, and what that expression means in terms of the verbal so that they can learn these nuances of nonverbal communication. In terms of teaching those compensatory skills, I'm going to go through this very quickly. Because I know that you're doing a wonderful job here in terms of teaching young people from as early on as possible, braille reading and writing skills, whether it's a toddler, or whether it's a preschool student, literally learning some of that early braille literacy, letter by letter representations for name, for items, so that they can stay up with and follow what the other preschoolers are doing, and so that they can be prepared, frankly, for moving into kindergarten and grade one with good skills, perhaps even skills, literacy skills above and beyond what their sighted peers may have, so that they can cope with an environment which is going to become more and more and more challenging in terms of reading and writing skills, that you are working on the efficient use of low vision aids or devices, so that those kids who can see, who have functional vision, are able to use that functional vision to work with and master reading and writing tasks. We can introduce those low vision devices or aids and appliances, the more likely we are to see children using them and continuing to use them throughout their academic careers. Early introduction is key to success in terms of getting use out of those low vision devices. I think all of you and I, both, all of us know the importance of orientation and mobility skills, for someone who is blind or has low vision, the ability to get out and to get out and about and to move through space, to explore space, to feel comfortable with space, is an important skill in terms of independence. Early intervention in terms of O&M is a critical life skill. Use of assistive technology, all of us have seen children at two years of age who can push the buttons and Skype their grandparents, it's just phenomenal to me. Little children playing games, scribbling, make sure that the blind and visually impaired kids that you are working with are touching these devices, using these devices, being introduced to iPads and iPhones, at the same time as their siblings with sight are playing with these devices. And we make that happen sometimes through assistive technology, sometimes through mainstream technology, with accessibility built in like all these wonderful iProducts. And then to understand as teachers of students with visual impairment, and mobility specialists that part of your responsibility in my is to literally structure teaching around career education, and living skills, as well as these other blindness specific skills. Those needs are always there. I mentioned providing realistic feedback, these young people need it for knowing what their strengths and weaknesses really are. Because ultimately, the evaluation of people's efforts, whether they are blind or visually impaired or sighted, is going to be made against a defined norm, not simply against their own accomplishments, or perceived level of expertise. We have to take some of that special out of special education, and make sure that kids are treated, and and prepared for working in a world that is not structured for blind and visually impaired people, that we want them to learn and to, to improve against their own standards. And then once they've mastered that, to move on and perform against a standard that is set by their sighted peers. That's what I'm really trying to say here. Promoting work opportunities, all children, all children and youth need to be engaged in doing chores at home, in the community and in school, never hesitate to ask toddlers to take things to the wash machine, or to put silverware on the table, or to pick up something that they've dropped, and think of those as chores that you assign at home, if you are working with them in the home, in the community and at school, and to encourage others in their lives to do the same. They need, well, not so much the ones volunteering for that opportunity to work in volunteer experiences and part-time work after school and summer jobs, that we let them know that that's what these chores are for when they are wee little ones. So what can you do specifically with these preschoolers? And this, this next series of slides gives you some ideas specifically about preschoolers and specific competencies that we need to build with those preschoolers. So try to move a little bit faster here. We're really trying to teach children how to pay attention, how, how to listen, how to attend, how to follow instructions and be responsible. That's one of those big competencies that I'm hoping to see you working on with preschoolers. Learning these basic, basic organizational skills, how to manage their toys, how to manage their clothes, how to get things organized, so that they can play, so that they can jump in with the other kids and play the games and, and learn how to do those things because they are well organized enough to be able to find the toy that they want to play with. It includes here fantasizing about adult roles, because ultimately, these preschoolers are going to move into preschool of these toddlers are going to move into preschool environments, where they are going to be expected to play make-believe, make-believe school, make-believe house, make-believe shopping. And the kids that we are concerned about are often unable to participate. They don't quite know what to do. They they're not used to fantasy. They're not used to fantasizing that they're not used to this kind of play. We need to teach them how to get ready for that kind of play, even if they are not quite sure in the beginning, what it's all about. Teach some of this about engagement in this way, pre-teach them at home where they're you're asking them to get into their muck cupboard and pull out all those pots and pans. You may not have to teach them to do that in the sense that if they're good, we'll teach them. But that's where that gets laid down. I guess that's what I'm trying to share. If I ask the mom to open up that cupboard and let that toddler pull out those pots and pans or pull out those plastic storage containers or whatever, that part of what I'm working on there is not just making a mess, but that this is an organized space. Mom has it in there some way, shape or form, and that we can pull it all out, we play with it, and then we put it all back in there, and we do it in a certain way. When you're playing with those stacking boxes, stacking items, when you're taking small, medium, large, and putting it back in, that's teaching kids organizational skills. And that's where I'm with that. And then I'm trying to get you to that next thing that has to be learned, which is talking about how as a young child, you're going to have the opportunity to move into preschool environments to play at being a teacher, being the dad, being the policeman, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So on this next slide, I'm focusing on some of that attending and listening and some hints for how to make that happen. Using sound, where you call a child by name, you clap, clap, clap to help them localize or music for localization, substituting intact visual cues for deaf or deaf blind children, that you are encouraging children to or this is actually this one about encouraging children to orient toward and attend to other people is really more about that social bonding kind of thing than it is, although it's about attending as well. So this one crosses over, because I'm trying here to get very, very young kids to understand that as a sighted person, I want them to be facing toward me, to be oriented toward me. Decided person, I'm trying to help them understand that I judge whether they are attending to me. Parents will judge whether they are attending to them through orientation. So encouraging children to orient toward and attend to other people with positive reinforcement. Oh, I love to see your face. I love to see that smile. The pat pat pat tickle tickle tickle kind of things you do with babies. I'm smiling to keep them oriented toward you. I encourage you to have to use questions to ask questions of kids to help them with this pain, attention and listening for cues. Where's your music box? Where's your friend? Where is the water fountain? Those those are the where's the water running? Where do you hear your mom? Those kinds of questions push kids to think about listening for what you're asking them to identify and then moving toward it. For children with multiple disabilities, I always encourage you to think about using resonance boards, light boxes, little rooms, other kinds of engaging tools that will help kids with orienting towards other people, thinking about what you're asking about what they're doing, being engaged, seeing the order of things in their spaces. A following directions. Here I'm talking about starting with nursery rhymes and songs, then proceeding on to simple directives where we're thinking about one and two word commands, actually using verbal and tactile cues, hand under hand demonstration. You want them to do describing those specific behaviors for them, giving kids feedback so that they know what the expectation is, how they need to perform in order to be so that we don't have a lot of external noise. You were cutting out a bit there, Karen. Oh, sorry, I just had to close the door, because people were want all that noise to come in here and bother all of you. I'm hoping everybody can hear me. I wanted to remind everyone that with kids with multiple disabilities, we need to give them time to actually do what we're asking them to do. I think it's one of the tracks that fall into sometimes with kids with multiple disabilities, just don't give them enough time to perform. Next, I'm really focusing on teaching children how to be responsible for themselves and their things, the stuff. So here I'm really asking you to ask the children with whom you're working to perform, as I mentioned earlier, the kinds of things that their same age peers are doing, picking up after themselves, taking turns at play, sharing. This is a big one, you know, where you're sharing your toys or sharing your snacks. Frankly, sharing adult attention, because a lot of these kids have adults who attend to them and all the time and want to try to encourage kids all of your attention all the time, but to turn your attention to other kids periodically so that the blind and visually impaired children are under care of others and others have needs and that's important for them to attend to. Yes. Okay. Well, I hope everybody heard me say that I was hoping that you could pre-teach as much as possible. The rules that kids are going to be exposed to when they move into classes, you know, the following the rules, the lining up, the raising your hand, those kinds of rules. I think in preschool, it's not so challenging as it is as you are preparing the kids to move beyond preschool where they're going to have a lot more class rules. I just want to encourage you to do as much pre-teaching as possible with these blind and visually impaired. Great. Well, I'm settled back down in another environment and hopefully this will work for us through the end. My apologies, I had to move for a second there and it obviously goofed everything up. So on this slide, I'm not going to go through the whole thing again. I'm just going to assume that you guys are all following me beautifully by reading. And then this last little tip that I had on this slide was about kids with multiple disabilities, to remind you to provide adapted tools that will support them in terms of learning these organizational skills in particular, and being able to actively participate in their routines. And I just gave you a few examples here, those reach and assist kits and clothing aids and sponge and lotion applicators. I'm sure you're all very, very familiar with these tools. It's just a reminder because I think that we want to make sure that they stay actively involved. And then here I am back again, working still on these organizational skills. I've gotten myself lost, you guys. Teaching children to distinguish between items by touch, smell, taste or use the functional vision to demonstrate that as much as possible to the people in their environment around them, who are going to either continue our routines and continue to help these kids or not. So model how you are helping these children learn to distinguish things, organize things, mark things, etc. Encourage the kids. As I mentioned earlier, I believe, to explore organized areas at home, drawers of silverware, pantries. Of course, you have to make sure they really are organized. But if they are, they're a wonderful opportunity there. If not, bring some of your own organized materials so that the kids can start to put that all together. I like to demonstrate different kinds of storage containers and systems. I know that all of you are wonderful at having at hand lots of gadgets and gadgets and things. Show the kids how you have organized your own things and mark your things in similar ways to the ways you mark their things so that they can see the patterns in labeling and how you use that to find and retrieve items yourself so that they will do the same. And then I realized that with some of these families that they are not necessarily going to have everything marked and labeled and organized in the way that we would like to see it done. So when you can encourage it, take pictures to families to show them how you organized your classrooms, how the preschool, for example, that the child is going to move into is organized. As the teacher, hopefully you've been in there and helped them with labeling things and marking things. Take pictures, take videos. We're so lucky in this 21st century that we have such easy access with our phones to pictures. Show people how to do what it is you're asking them to do. With kids with multiple disabilities, I love those object calendars. And I remind you of all the wonderful tools that are out there, things like lip trays and grip boards and wheelchair desks with pocket organizers, tool cases, all of these kinds of things help kids understand and use things, organizational systems effectively. Teach children how to play and fantasize. Pre-teach games, songs, never hesitate. Movement songs, how to use toys, anything you can teach before the child has to take it into an environment with sighted kids where everything is moving much more quickly. Anything you can pre-teach, pre-teach it. Encourage that active participation in play groups. Work with creative dramatics, coaches, if at all possible. Young children who get to be involved in early play within creative dramatics kind of situations where they're pretending to be this or that or the other. There's boxes of costumes for princesses and Superman and all of that kind of stuff. If you know they're going to go into those kinds of environments and hopefully they are, go there with them before they go in to join the other kids and show them the costumes, show them the props, teach them how to use it. There's some wonderful examples of resources on Pinterest and you can link to it through past literacy on the Perkins website. There's a great article on iPad applications. I've given you all of this in the PowerPoint so I won't go through it all this second but to just remind you because I know we'll run out of time if I don't get on with things here. And I want desperately to cover these resources with you. There are some great books, old books and new books that I encourage each and every one of you to put your hands on. You don't have to have your own copy per se but if you don't borrow it from one of the instructional materials centers or educational library lending centers. The American Foundation for the Blind is publisher on these four that I've listed up here on this page. The fairly new book, 2014 publication, the ECC Essentials book that Carol Allman and Sandy Lewis edited has some wonderful resources. I did a chapter on career education. Sharon Sacks, my friend and colleague did the chapter on social skills. I did a chapter on self determination. There's lots of ideas and lessons and materials for both very, very young children, middle, primary school students, secondary school students. There's lots and lots of material there. Hopefully you have at hand the brand new third edition of the Foundations of Education just published this year in 2017. Kay Holbrook, Shilkemai, who is the Otesa McCarthy up there? That new edition of Foundations of Education is bigger, lots more activities. It includes online activities, includes resources that you can access and download from electronic files, PowerPoints that you can use in doing your in services with other teachers, other service providers who are not familiar with vision and vision impairment, as well as family. Sharon Sacks and I did edit to the book that I hope all of you have seen called Teaching Social Skills to Students with Visual Impairments. We included working with very young children in that book. There are some specific activities and some very fun things to do. And then last but not least, the book that I did called Skills for Success, which I edited a career education handbook for children and youth with some wonderful activities contributed both by early childhood educators, but also activities provided by families to help support other families and with an emphasis on both children without multiple disabilities and for children with multiple disabilities. Of course, some of the internet websites that I would like to mention to you, the Atlantic Provinces website in Canada, a great website. I'm sure you're all using it already, but a reminder that they have some very, very good material and I encourage you to go back to it if you haven't visited in a while. Family Connect, the AFB, American Foundation for the Blind website, has some wonderful material on early childhood, some information that is just wonderfully supportive of families, but also great for all of us as service providers. Perkins School for the Blind, their website includes the organization at the bottom called Wonder Baby. If I had to pick just one website to send you to for early intervention, it would be wonderbaby.org. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. They have those wonderful developmental guidelines up there, just for blind and low vision kids, birth to five, all of that is available for free. Oh, Grotis, to download off of Wonder Baby. Project Aspero, which is the fourth bullet point on this slide, is a website that I did with CNIB and WBU, the World Blind Union, on employment resources, but we focused, as you might well imagine, one entire section on families and service providers, and working with young children is included. There are lots of tip sheets, checklists, resources available to you any time, anywhere. This fifth bullet point is the Royal National Institute of the Blind in the UK. They have an online journal called Insight. I've just finished writing for them a blog on career education that reiterates much of what I have said today, but also has some very specific tips. It will be available very soon. It's supposed to go up this month. I'll send that link over when it comes to me to Roy. I'll ask him to share it with all of you. I hope you'll take a minute to look at it, but also to know that that journal, Insight, has some wonderful materials on how to get kids involved in sport and recreational kinds of activities, how to work with parents, how to engage families with young children into the world of blindness and low vision. Of course, your own Set BC, another website that I hope you all visit routinely. I try to, lots of really good information there as well. And then, last but not least, on this page, because I've already talked about WonderBaby, is TSBVI, which is the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. And I just remind all of you that there is that matrix available, specific to resources for the expanded core curriculum, which will give you some listings of additional resources, but there's also some great material on early intervention, career education, transition services, anything and everything to do with blind and visually impaired kids. It's on that website. I remind you, too, that the people that you know, people on this conference call, people like myself who make these presentations and certainly all the participants on the call, we're good resources for all of you. Please don't ever hesitate to reach out to the people that you know. I always remind you about successful adults who are blind or have low vision themselves who can reference back to you what made a difference in their lives. Reach out to those folks, visit with them, find out how you can support the kids you're working with based on what they know from their own personal experiences. All of us, TBI, comms, vocational rehab counselors, certified vocational rehab therapists, we used to call them rehab teachers, AP trainers, assistive technology trainers and vendors. They all have something to offer, community-based leaders, group members. These are the people that I'm really putting a lot of energy into right now in my own career, trying to reach out and build awareness with these religious, secular, political leaders to help them understand the needs of blind and visually impaired children. And, of course, always those local employers, people working in nonprofits, organizations outside of the schools that will be attended to and used by the kids, hopefully, and their families routinely. I remind you, finally, always think of this next environment as you are planning with children and youth who are blind or have low vision. I think that it's never about just working on one thing right now. Yes, it's about working on one thing right now, but reminding yourself always of that connection to next environment. So when you're working on playing with the pots and pans for fun, you're also working on preparing the kids with organizational skills and independent living skills, life skills that they will use in preschool, kindergarten, primary, secondary, and ultimately in life. Try to remember to connect those dots yourself and to share with the families with whom you are working, the importance of it. And I thank you for all that you are doing. I apologize for the little glitch midway, but if we have a minute I'm happy to take any questions that you might have. Otherwise, let me know. Reach out to me. Well, thank you very much, Karen. That was fabulous. It's always always good to hear you and whether it's things that we may have heard before or new stuff, I think we heard both of those types of things, but it's always a good reminder and it's always great to get really tremendous information from you and hear your perspective on something that's really, really important for the kids that we're working with. So thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of your visit in Australia and with that we will sign off. Take care everyone and we'll see you down the road. Thank you so much. Please do reach out to me, especially if you have any questions that I didn't address. Thanks. Okay, take care Karen. See you.