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Deafblind Program
The Deafblind Program at WRMS has grown from seven children in 1971 to a current enrolment of 39 students. The majority of these students participate in our Monday to Friday residential/school program, although we have several day students who reside at home in Brantford or the surrounding area. STAFFING
Our intervenors come from a variety of educational backgrounds and continue to receive ongoing training through the school year. Most of them have Community College or University backgrounds in a child-related field, or are graduates of the George Brown College Intervenor Training Course. The program for students who are deafblind is organized around the basic concept of a module or unit of three students, one specialist teacher of the deafblind and three intervenors. The staff in each module work with the same three students for the entire school year and work together both in the classroom as well as in the residence settings. The individualized objectives for each student form the basis for the student's program in both the classroom and the residence settings. This provides students with familiar staff and greater consistency in programming and expectations. Intervenor shifts rotate through a three-week cycle (7:00 am to 3:00 pm; 3:00 pm to 11:00 pm; 11:00 pm to 7:00 am). This ensures that each intervenor spends one week out of each three-week cycle period in the classroom with the teacher, which allows them to keep up-to-date with student programming, changing objectives, intervention techniques, communication, and progress made by each student in the module. The intervenors are able to carry over these objectives and techniques into the residence setting to enhance evening programming. While the intervenor is working in the classroom, the teacher is also able to work on continuing to improve the intervenor's knowledge base and intervention techniques with the three students with whom they are working. Modules with students who require feeding or additional coverage, have an overlap intervenor who works from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm from Mondays to Thursdays throughout the year. Teachers are responsible for developing each student's program, and intervenors assist to implement the program in the school, residence, and community settings. Communication between the teacher and the intervenors is easier when all members of the team are working closely together. Regular team meetings are held within each module in order to review progress and plan program implementation. These meetings are essential for maintaining a consistent approach to programming and also provide an excellent format for sharing ideas and for providing ongoing professional development. PROGRAMMINGOur Motto: "Doing WITH, not FOR" Following a comprehensive assessment, an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is designed for each student by their teacher in consultation with his/her parents, according to the student's needs, interests, abilities and present level of functioning. Input is also received from the student (where able), intervenors, physiotherapist, music therapist, and orientation and mobility instructor. Curriculum encompasses all areas of development and includes the following areas: living skills, communication skills, gross and motor skills, cognitive and conceptual development, orientation and mobility skills, social and emotional skills, and perceptual development. A full range of academic programs, including the high school level, is available.
Activity-based programming at WRMS occurs in a variety of situations, including classroom, residence, Active Room, gym, music therapy room, Snoezelen room, woodworking shop, craft room, Snoezelen swimming pool, and a wide variety of work-experience and community settings. The philosophy underlying the Activity-Based Program approach, stresses age and developmentally appropriate activities and problem solving in a Total Communication environment. A variety of adapted communication techniques are used with students, which include signing, tactile communication, fingerspelling, print, speech, concrete cues, pictures, drawings and gestures. TRANSITIONTransition from the residential school program to adulthood is an essential component of our school program. Planning for transition usually begins when the student is approximately 14 years of age, with a Transition Plan which is included in the student's IEP and updated annually. At age 16, our program's Community Liaison Worker along with the Executive Director of the Canadian Deafblind and Rubella Association of Ontario, begin assisting parents to examine options for adult-living programs for individuals with deafblindness, funding for adult intervention services, and planning for the future. Upon reaching age 18, students are offered the opportunity to participate in our Residence Apartment Program, in which programming focuses more on adult-living concepts and work experience options in the school and community. Click here to download a Transition Planning Format, in PDF format. TRANSITION PROGRAM: "Deafblind Mac House"During their final one to two years at school, students have the option of living and learning in our on-campus Deafblind Transition House Program called "Deafblind Mac House." Here, the students focus on maintaining a household, budgeting, increased use of community facilities and services, exploring a wider variety of work placement opportunities and gaining the skills necessary to successfully transfer into an adult-living setting with appropriate intervention. PARENT INVOLVEMENTLearning continues to take place during all of a child's waking hours while he/she is at home, at school, in the residence, or in the community. It is important to develop a team approach with a strong home-school relationship, as parents and siblings have a unique insight relative to their son/daughter or brother/sister. At WRMS, parents are encouraged to contribute information and insight about their child at all times, through constant interactive communication with the teacher and residential staff. Such communication is facilitated by: use of the telephone, emails, videotaping, or video-conferencing; frequent school visits by parents/siblings or by intervenors working in the home; written or pictorial communication between the student (with intervention assistance as necessary) and the family and in-depth anecdotal report cards. Information sharing and training on intervention techniques or adaptive communication techniques for parents, siblings, extended family members, and intervenors working in the home, is an ongoing process as students learn and develop. Parental visits to WRMS are encouraged in order to attend case review meetings, for our Christmas Party and Open House, for the Annual Parents' Association BBQ, to attend School Council meetings, to participate in sign language classes, for workshops, or just to come and observe or participate in school/residence activities with their child. The focus of the program includes the strengths and ideas of all of its members in order to provide each student with the best that we can offer as a "team." A continuous program of formative evaluation is carried out for each student and objectives are modified as indicated by the findings. Comprehensive summaries are maintained on each student's progress. ADMISSIONTo be eligible for admission to the Deafblind Program at WRMS, a pupil must:
CONCLUSIONThe residential school setting provides many advantages to the student with deafblindness and their family. The educational program provides specialized staff, adequate levels of intervention, a carefully developed IEP designed to meet the specific needs of the child, ongoing family input and support, and a wide variety of on-site and off-site activity-based learning locations and opportunities. The residential school is not the only option, but it is one which requires careful consideration when exploring educational options for the deafblind child.
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Blind/Low Vision Program
Residence Program
The Deafblind Program at WRMS was established in September 1971 to meet the needs of an ever increasing number of students in Ontario whom had been identified as having a combined loss of vision and hearing such that neither distance sense could be the primary means of learning. Therefore, these students could not be adequately accommodated in educational programs for the hearing impaired or the visually impaired. Prior to 1970, Ontario children who had been identified as deafblind, received their education at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts USA. 
Teachers in our Deafblind Program are all qualified teachers, certified by the Ontario College of Teachers. They also hold additional qualifications as Specialist Teachers of the Deafblind, and most have qualifications in other areas of specialization as well. A number of our teachers participate as instructors for the Deafblind Specialist Teacher Qualifications courses, which are offered at WRMS each summer through Nipissing University.
The student who is deafblind has a combined loss of two distance senses of vision and hearing such that neither can be the primary means of learning. Students served by the Deafblind Program at WRMS range from those who are profoundly deaf and totally blind to those who have a moderate to severe hearing loss, combined with a visual impairment of varying degrees. In addition to the primary exceptionality of deafblindness, many students also have other physical, neurological or developmental problems.
Students with deafblindness require an activity-based program carried out in a variety of motivational settings. Activity-based programming is essential, as these students cannot be taught life skills, academics, etc. in isolation. They learn these concepts in functional terms through a variety of situations, due to their reduced ability to generalize from one situation to another. Simple concepts are gradually expanded upon once language and meaning have become attached to the activity.