“Following directions” is a skill area often assessed by both teachers of the deaf and SLPs. This is one of the many areas where several fields of special education services may overlap, and for good reason! Being able to follow directions is an essential school and life skill for all students. Students receiving any type of special education services are likely to be assessed or have a goal for following directions sometime in their educational journey - even if the words “following directions” aren’t necessarily used.
There are so many ways that following directions can be addressed or measured. It’s important to consider that working on following directions can help with the other skill areas listed below, but can also be affected by them. They are all interconnected, and sometimes it can be difficult to determine where to start and what skills to address first. The important thing is to keep an open and analytical mind as to which facets of “following directions” are contributing to a student’s strengths and which are contributing to their challenges.
Let’s look at 3 (out of many) skill areas that contribute to following directions.
1) Following routines:
A child’s ability to follow routines could be affected by one or more of the following: difficulties in reading social interactions, behavioral concerns that need to be addressed, auditory and/or visual processing, or executive functioning skills (including organization of events or actions).
For example, a child with a hearing loss and difficulties with executive functioning may need training and supports in both auditory processing and organization in order to successfully follow classroom routines.
2) Auditory memory:
Part of a student’s toolbox of auditory processing skills is auditory memory. Edublox says, “Auditory memory involves taking in information that is presented orally, processing that information, storing it in one’s mind, and then recalling what one has heard. Basically, it involves the skills of attending, listening, processing, storing, and recalling.”
Additionally, in order to follow a set of directions that are presented to a child verbally, the child must be able to remember what was said long enough to use that information to follow the instructions given. This can be especially difficult for children with hearing loss or who have Auditory Processing Disorder. Sometimes, these students may appear to have attention or behavioral “issues”, but there could be other factors contributing to their difficulty in following instructions.
3) Sequencing of actions:
Being able to reasonably sequence a set of tasks or instructions is another factor to consider in a child’s ability to follow directions. Again, there are many reasons why sequencing may be challenging for a student (i.e. auditory processing, executive functioning, ADHD, language barriers, and so much more).
If a student cannot retain the order of a set of instructions or gets confused during the sequence of tasks, it may appear to be an issue of following directions.
How to support students who face challenges with following directions:
Some ways to help students be successful in their classrooms would be to provide visual references and repetition when providing directions. While it is important for students to develop the above skills to the best of their ability, we also don’t want to see them missing out on important directions or classroom experiences while they are working on building their toolbox of skills.
Upcoming on the blog:
In upcoming blog posts, we will further discuss how special educators and service providers can support classroom teachers when students are building their toolbox for following directions. Stay tuned and make sure you subscribe to the newsletter to stay up-to-date on blog post releases!