In Beyond Sensory Storytime: Expanding Library Services to Children with Special Needs, Renee Grassi shared some great inclusive customer service strategies. These strategies include:<\/p>\n
– Person First Language<\/p>\n
Person First Language is words or phrases that that puts the person before the disability. For examples of First Person Language, visit www.disabilityisnatural.com.<\/p>\n
– Adjust Your Mindset<\/p>\n
Programs for people with disabilities will not look exactly like your usual program, and that’s okay.<\/p>\n
– Be Patient and Allow Processing Time<\/p>\n
Children with disabilities may have a hard time expressing what they need. By being patient and allowing processing time, we are giving them time to find a way to express themselves.<\/p>\n
– Simple Questions and Offer Choices<\/p>\n
Offer a choice board that features both text and pictures at the service desk so that nonverbal children (and adults!) can communicate.<\/p>\n
– Make Accommodations<\/p>\n
Is the program room too cluttered or too bright? Make accommodations to the best of your ability so that everyone can feel welcome.<\/p>\n
– Offer Visual Supports<\/p>\n
Use both text and picture supports for your program. Have the program plan written down with pictures. Remove the pictures as you complete the task. For example, for a storytime, have a picture of a book, then remove it when you finish the book.<\/p>\n
– Assistive Technology<\/p>\n
There’s a lot of great assistive technology that can be used in programs. For example, a Big Mac Button is a large, easy to press button that can be preloaded with a certain phrase. So if you’re reading Bark, George in storytime, you can preload the button with the phrase, “Bark, George” so that non-verbal children can participate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Beyond Sensory Storytime: Expanding Library Services to Children with Special Needs, Renee Grassi shared some great inclusive customer service strategies. These strategies include: – Person First Language Person First Language is words or phrases that that puts the person before the disability. For examples of First Person Language, visit www.disabilityisnatural.com. – Adjust Your Mindset Programs for people with disabilities will not look exactly like your usual program, and that’s okay. – Be Patient and Allow Processing Time Children with disabilities may have a hard time expressing what they need. By being patient and allowing processing time, we are giving them time to find a way to express themselves. – Simple Questions and Offer Choices Offer a choice board that features both text and pictures at the service desk so that nonverbal children (and adults!) can communicate. – Make Accommodations Is the program room too cluttered or too bright? Make…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[379,151],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-institute-2014","category-live-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}