Storytelling Special Needs And Disabilities

This wide-ranging book shows teachers and other educational professionals how to engage in highly creative approaches to the use of story, which can be centred around myths and legends, personal stories, life stories or stories created by children themselves, and highlights how storytelling can open new worlds for children with or without special educational needs.

Now in a fully revised and updated second edition, this innovative and wide-ranging book shows how storytelling can open new worlds for individuals with special educational needs and disabilities. Providing a highly accessible combination of theory and practice, the contributors to this book define their own approaches to inclusive storytelling, describing the principles and theory that underpin their practice, whilst never losing sight of the joy at the heart of their work. Topics include therapeutic storytelling; language and communication; interactive and multi-sensory storytelling; and technology. Each chapter includes top tips, and signposts further training for practitioners who want to start using stories in their own work, making this book a crucial and comprehensive guide to storytelling practice with diverse learners. This new edition: · has been fully updated to reflect the way in which this field of storytelling has grown and developed · uses a broad range of chapters, structured in a way that guides the reader through the conceptualisation of a storytelling approach towards its practical application · includes an additional chapter, sharing the lived experiences of storytellers who identify as having a disability. Full of inspiring ideas to be used with people of all ages and with a range of needs, this book will be an invaluable tool for education professionals, as well as therapists, youth workers, counsellors and theatre practitioners working in special education.

This book supplies stories, essays, lesson plans and specialized storytelling strategies to help teachers "level the playing field" for all learners and better serve children with special needs. More than 57 percent of the over 6 million American children with disabilities are in inclusive (i.e., general) classrooms; "self-contained" classrooms serve children whose disabilities are either more severe or disruptive. As much as 20 percent of the children in an inclusive classroom are identified as "disabled," with the highest percentage of these having learning disabilities. While most classrooms have at least one child with a disability, teachers often have little or no training in educating and caring for these children. The need for resources that support educators working with children with disabilities or social/emotional difficulties is clear. This book fills this critical need, supplying school and public librarians, classroom and special area teachers, and storytelling teaching artists with storytelling strategies for reaching and teaching children with special needs in inclusive classrooms, self-contained classrooms, and public and school libraries. These full-text stories, essays, and lesson plans from experienced storytelling teaching artists provide educators with a wide range of adaptable storytelling and teaching strategies for specific disabilities and enable storytellers to discover news ways to perform their storytelling magic. The book also offers compelling real-life anecdotes that demonstrate the impact of these strategies in inclusive and self-contained classrooms; presents an introduction to the skills of storytelling, why they are useful, and how to use them; and includes suggested modifications for a wide range of disabilities as well as detailed resource lists.

Interactive storytelling, where the story is spoken or chanted, began as a way to include individuals with severe and profound learning disabilities in larger group activities, whether children at school or adults in day services. The stories are performed in call-and-response - one person calls out a line and the rest of the group respond either by calling back the same line or by calling out a pre-arranged response - and require no previous experience in drama or storytelling. They can be performed anywhere, by anyone. Various stories are explored, ranging from folktales and pantomime to poetry, the works of Charles Dickens, Shakespeare and stories from the Old Testament. Each extract details the full call-and-response for performing the story. This approach to storytelling can be used by teachers and group facilitators in a variety of settings and with any group of children or adults, irrespective of their level of disability. This hands-on manual will enable teachers, therapists, parents and anyone working with children or adults in community settings to use performance and recital to bring stories, drama and poetry to life for people of all abilities. 'This book is a useful resource...is simply written...is especially appropriate for people working with children and adults with speech, language and communication difficulties.' - Child Language Teaching and Therapy.

Katie has Down Syndrome, but that's not what makes her so special. Find out what makes Katie unique. This title focuses on sight words, decoding, and retelling.

Disabled young people will be proud to see themselves reflected in this hopeful, compelling, and insightful essay collection, adapted for young adults from the critically acclaimed adult book, Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century that "sheds light on the experience of life as an individual with disabilities, as told by none other than authors with these life experiences." --Chicago Tribune, "Best books published in summer 2020" (Vintage/Knopf Doubleday edition). The seventeen eye-opening essays in Disability Visibility, all written by disabled people, offer keen insight into the complex and rich disability experience, examining life's ableism and inequality, its challenges and losses, and celebrating its wisdom, passion, and joy. The accounts in this collection ask readers to think about disabled people not as individuals who need to be “fixed,” but as members of a community with its own history, culture, and movements. They offer diverse perspectives that speak to past, present, and future generations. It is essential reading for all.

Personal stories are the way we develop a sense of who we are, make sense of our experiences and make and sustain relationships. Research shows that people with severe communication difficulties - such as severe and profound learning disabilities, autism and language impairments - find it hard to recall and share the stories of their lives. This handbook draws on fifteen years of research and practice into personal storytelling in adult services and educational settings. Storysharing is a unique, innovative and highly effective approach to enabling the most severely disabled individuals to participate in telling their own stories.

This book provides stories that promote disability awareness among children aged 4-11 about universal issues such as fear, loss, feeling 'different', bullying, friendship and emotional growth. They provide a safe environment for young children to discuss painful emotions and a tool for understanding the experiences of disabled children.