Availability for Learning

Young boy sitting in a wheelchair, holding a tambourine on his lap and touching it with both hands. Big smile on his face.

Availability to learn means being emotionally and physically ready to engage with people, absorb information, and pay attention to what is occurring around you. Children and youth who are available to learn are:

Alert
Attentive
Interested
Not over-stimulated

Availability to learn may be positively or negatively influenced by both internal factors (physical and emotional feelings) and external factors (things happening outside of the body). The task of educators and family members is to figure out how to change or modify these factors to help a child become available to learn.

Kimberly Lauger talks about the power of observation for figuring out what may be influencing a child at a given point in time.

Introductory Resources

Slide Presentation
Biobehavioral States (from OHOA Module "Availability to Learn")
Slide Presentation
Helping Students Become Available to Learn (from OHOA Module "Availability for Learning")
Factsheet
Internal and External Factors that Influence Availability to Learn
External Resource
Assessment of Biobehavioral States and Analysis of Related Influences (page 16)
Document
Optimizing Availability for Learning: NCDB Practice Guidepdf|906.5 KB

Learn More

Russell, C. (2020). Supporting Availability for Learning: Student-Centered Biobehavioral Assessment and Intervention for Children and Youth with Deafblindness/Multiple Disabilities. Visual Impairment and Deafblind Education Quarterly, 65(2), 56-72.

Is your child or student available to learn? (Perkins Podcast with Chris Russell)

Assessment of Biobehavioral States: Supporting Availability for Learning for Students with Multiple Disabilities including Deaf-Blindness & Profound Intellectual & Multiple Disabilities (Assessment Tool)

Availability for Learning (OHOA Module)

Reference

Scoggin, K., Christianson, K., Cooper, H., Lauger, K., Knapp, M., Peterson, D., Mogan, M. (2014, September, rev.). Availability for learning. In National Center on Deaf-Blindness, Open Hands, Open Access: Deaf-Blind Intervener Learning Modules. National Center on Deaf-Blindness.

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