Expanding the Circle

After numerous discussions with one of my library patrons who's a Physical therapist, I felt inspired to create an outreach program for kids with physical disabilities. Most of the children at the local Thames Valley Children's Center had never stepped foot in a library, and I wanted to make it a welcome place for them. Coincidentally, two of the center's speech pathologists were also interested in starting a program for disabled children. So we joined forces to design a storytime specifically tailored for these kids.

During our three months of planning I encountered many techniques for adapting activities for children who are either deaf, blind, autistic, or have cerebral palsy. For example, I had no idea what augmentative communication systems (ACS) were, and I soon learned about the computers, amplifiers, manual boards, and other accessories that are used by the physically disabled. Once we were ready to roll out the program, I posted it on our Web site, sent out leaflets, and contacted special education teachers at local schools.

One of our immediate goals was to encourage interaction and communication through songs and stories. For every 90-minute weekly session at the library, we planned numerous activities involving storytelling, music, and crafts. I selected books with repeated lines and strong visuals, such as Denise Fleming's In the Small, Small Pond (Holt, 1995) and Keith Faulkner's The Wide-Mouthed Frog (Dial, 1996). We also created a multisensory environment that included puppets, felt cutouts of animals and various shapes to help visualize stories as they were being told, as well as props like a wading pool, a gardening area with soil and seeds, and a picnic area. We added activities that could be done at home and provided personalized booklists tailored to each child's interests.

One great way to get physically disabled kids engaged in reading is to create icons that refer to key words in each book. These symbols are then attached with velcro to a board. Children without the ability to speak participate in storytelling by engaging in "eye gaze," or by giving an answer by staring at an icon. We also added symbols that allowed children to point to or stare at phrases like "turn the page," "read more," and "that's funny." Parents, nurses, or caregivers must attend our programs.

Last summer, we were fortunate to have a high school student who uses a computer voice-output device join our program. He was a wonderful mentor to the younger children, and every week he read them a story through his preprogrammed device. He also spoke to caregivers about advocacy and pointed out the impact our program has on the development of these kids.

Each of our sessions is evaluated and reviewed, and the best strategies are continued into the next week. One child in particular has left an indelible image: a nine-year-old boy with cerebral palsy took a long time to become engaged. But after being repeatedly exposed to the eye-gaze method and our puppets, he started to respond by lifting his arms in excitement. One week, the local children's center videotaped our program to help train their own therapists who work with schools and libraries.

So far, the groundwork has been laid—lesson plans have been tested and revised, and the standard ACS symbols and computer programs have been created for all books and activities. Having professionals guide you while building this program is extremely helpful—they can help identify special needs and teach you how to interact with kids with special needs. But once it's in place, any librarian can easily run it alone.

After two years and several programs, the feedback has been excellent. None of the participating families had used our library before, but they all left with library cards and an awareness of what the library offers. We're planning to continue our outreach program and hope it will inspire the other 16 libraries in our system to start similar ones. Our ultimate goal is to integrate the program into our regular storytimes.