So often a group home resident is dependent on others for learning skills that will add to their quality of life and increase the group home resident’s independence. Sometimes the staff that is helping a group home resident isn’t familiar with them enough to teach them in a way they understand. For higher functioning residents, they can be taught how to teach others how to teach them. It is empowering to the group home resident and opens up many new learning experiences from new people.
I will use an example of how I had helped a young man who had trouble learning. He didn’t seem to be getting much out of the hours he spent in school. He struggled with a couple basic skills-reading and counting money.
First thing I did is try to figure out “how” he processed information. I observed him doing things he normally does around the house:
- Cooking
- Cleaning (or avoiding cleaning)
- Helping
I saw that the following contributed to him being successful with a task:
- It was broke down in small manageable steps
- He was shown what to do
- There was overseeing, encouragement, and instruction during the task
- He was self-motivated
I built his self-confidence:
- He was interested in who worked each day, so I used the posted schedule and we worked on reading. He got lots of positive reinforcement. I would ask him who worked and he gained confidence because HE had the answer instead of being dependent on the group home staff to tell him.
- With his weekly spending money we would use real money to show equivalents. I had laid next to each other the following: a dollar, four quarters, and 10 dimes and told him it was the same amount. I loved the look in his eyes when he “got it”.
Taught him how to teach
- Referred to the above learning experiences and reminded him how he smart he is.
- Explained to him that he learned best by doing and using what he learned.
- We talked about how not everyone will know how to teach him what he wants to learn, but he can teach people how to teach him.
- I then gave him some suggestions on how to help others to teach him, like “I’m smart and can learn this if you show me how it is done.”
I wasn’t able to work with him long enough to find out if he was learning more at school. I had found it sad that he spent so much time at school and wasn’t getting basic skills for independence even though I saw he had the potential. In the group home he was more interested in learning new things.
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