As a Paediatric Orientation and Mobility Specialist with prior experience as a Teacher of the Blind and Visually Impaired, my experience in working with young learners who have severe low vision, blindness and/or multiple disabilities, always draws me back to Lilli Neilson's Principles of the Active Learning Program to support sensorimotor and concept development.
Dr Lilli Neilson had a unique perspective on vision and multiple disabilities during her 40+ year career. She dedicated her knowledge to the Active Learning principle that “Everyone Can Learn” and traveled the world giving hundreds of lectures and trainings on Active Learning.
Dr. Lilli Nielsen began her career in 1967 as a special education advisor at Refsnaesskolen National Institute for Blind and Partially Sighted Children and Youth in Denmark. With training as a preschool teacher and psychologist, she has conducted significant research on spatial relations in infants who are congenitally blind. Dr. Nielsen has authored several books and articles on educating children with visual impairments and multiple disabilities. Her innovative approach, known as Active Learning, emphasises the importance of active engagement in learning.
Dr. Nielsen asserts that all young children learn best through play and active exploration of their environment. She believes that very young children develop by being active participants, rather than passive recipients of stimulation. To understand how children learn to move their bodies—such as raising their heads, reaching for objects, or sitting up—she advocates observing typical development. These observations reveal how children use their bodies to explore their surroundings and actively engage with others.
For children with visual impairments, the lack of visual input limits their opportunities to develop these skills naturally. Dr. Nielsen encourages adults to thoughtfully design and arrange the child’s environment to facilitate exploration and active participation. By doing so, children with visual impairments can better develop their abilities and have richer learning experiences.
Active Learning simply refers to 'purposeful learning' and is an approach shown to reach learners with the most severe disabilities including cerebral palsy, deaf blindness and developmental delay. The Active Learning Program encourages the role of the adult as a facilitator, providing the environment, making sure toys are accessible to the learner’s hands and feet, and not involved in the act of playing until the end or invited.
10 Basic Principles of Active Learning
LilliWorks provides 10 basic principles of Active Learning which are not the only principles but give readers a good understanding of the program;
1. Every One Can Learn
Lilli has met a very few learners that could not learn – they were dying. Unless impacted by survival, every child and older learner can learn. It is up to the parent, therapist or educator to keep finding the right situation/environment with enough support, responsiveness and interest to engage the learner.
Observe the learner. Understanding what a child can do, what activities they enjoy, and which objects they prefer is crucial. The first step in creating an effective program is to assess the child's existing skills and preferences. Through observation, you can identify the current developmental skills the child possesses. A child’s preferences highlight their underlying strengths, guiding you in selecting appropriate objects and activities. Knowing a child’s repertoire allows you to recognise changes and improvements, ensuring targeted and effective support.
2. Active Learning is Hands Off
Challenged learners often act passive and are treated as passive (everything is done for them). Active Learning involves creating supportive and responsive environments that are tuned to entice a learner to become active. When Lilli realised that blind and disabled learners often resisted any “guided hands” approach, she set about to create environments and situations that would increase a learner’s inclination/ motivation to explore on their own. This means the “teacher” must disengage and not talk nor prompt until the activity is concluded. Kids learn through repetition (see #8)- don’t interrupt them.
3. Auditory and Tactile Primacy
Learners with vision impairments and neurological deficits rely upon hearing as a primary sense. Vision tends to be secondary, owing to control and processing difficulties. Tactile sense is also a prominent sense.
4. Responsive Environment, Short Sessions
The environment should provide excellent auditory and tactile feedback (not just stimulation). Use of the Resonance Board provides key vibratory input. The Essef Board provides optimal reaction to leg movements. The Little Room provides a warm inviting echo and exploration chamber. As Lilli says, “if the child cannot go to the room, the room must come to the child.” Many short sessions are better than one long one, especially when first using an environment.
5. Mix Variety and Constancy, Provide Comparisons
As anyone does, a learner benefits from moderated variety. That is, don’t change everything every time, but provide enough variation so that the environment has interest. Offer the child more activities and objects similar to those they already enjoy. This encourages exploration and helps broaden their knowledge base. Young children with visual impairments should be encouraged to explore not only toys but also everyday objects around the house. Invite comparison by also providing “alike but different” objects. Cycling through a large inventory of objects/toys allows for a rich, constantly interesting environment. Change some of the objects whenever the learner shows habituation to the objects available.
6. Work up to Weight Bearing
Given the discomfort of bearing weight, provide support until the learner has some control, and slowing increase the weight load. The Support Bench and HOPSA Dress are used to control weight on the legs. Start with no weight, toes barely touching.
7. Emotional Development Involves Mastery
It’s that smile of accomplishing something, doing something to their environment, rather than the environment doing it to them that fosters a critical step in emotional development. Related to the Active vs. Passive learning, that “ see what I can do” smile is a crucial goal.
8. Learning is by Repetition – Allow to fail
Kids learn by repetition. They must do something over and over to invoke memory and get the variations to make sense. Therefore, allowing them to have negative results without intervention (e.g. without moving an object into their hand as they miss on a reach) is as important as not interrupting with any cheerleading.
As adults, we often feel compelled to remove materials once a child shows they can use them. However, learning new information relies on relating it to what we already know. For instance, after your first successful drive around the block, you still needed numerous experiences in various environments, on different types of roads, in different vehicles, at different times, and under different conditions to truly master driving.
Similarly, when a child starts to bang one object on another, they need the chance to explore this action with various objects on different surfaces. For example, the sound of banging a metal spoon on the couch differs greatly from banging it on a coffee table or a metal mixing bowl. Children require many repetitions of an action to fully learn and understand. Providing these opportunities is essential for their development.
9. Talk and Reward at the End of Play
At the end of play is the time for the adult input, the language and commentary to describe what the learner was doing, and to positively reinforce their activity. Point at and jiggle the objects and talk about what they did. Ask questions and use short sentences. When a learner is ready and can engage in turn-taking games, then a new level has been achieved.
10. Limit Input, Wait for Response
As a general principle, remember that neurologically impacted learners usually need more time to take in, process and assemble a response. If you ask a question, remain quiet as long as possible before asking something again, and try not to supply their answer without some sign. This is always subject to judgment, as after a while the question may be forgotten. Repeat using the exact same words, so additional processing to understand new input is not needed.
Lastly, Dr Lilli Neilson discusses the importance of encouraging autonomy in children with visual impairments and/ or additional disabilities. It's crucial to allow children to control their own hands. Dr. Lilli Nielsen emphasises the importance of not taking a child's hand and bringing it to materials when interacting with a child who has a visual impairment. Instead, we should develop alternative strategies for presenting objects. For example, gently touch the toy to the child's arm or leg to alert them of its presence, make noise with the object to spark their curiosity, or place several objects close to the child so that any movement will bring them into contact with an object.
Dr. Nielsen has designed several pieces of equipment to help children with visual impairments actively engage with their environment. One such creation is the "Little Room," which consists of a metal frame with three side panels and a Plexiglas ceiling from which a variety of interesting and enjoyable objects are suspended. This setup allows the child to explore and interact with the objects independently, without adult intervention.
The stable placement of the objects in the Little Room enables the child to repeat actions with an object as many times as needed, at short intervals, without dropping or losing it. This immediate repetition helps the child store information gained from these experiences in their memory, fostering a deeper understanding and engagement with their environment.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be diving deep into Lilli Nielsen's Active Learning Program. If there's anything specific you'd like to learn more about, please let me know in the comments!
Jax@Tactilecollective
Active Learning Websites
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