Volunteer Zone

Focus on Ability

Focus on Ability is a Girl Scout disability awareness project that encourages, supports and educates troop leaders and other Girl Scout volunteers who work with Girl Scouts who have special needs. FOA works to remove barriers that may keep a girl or adult with a disability from becoming a Girl Scout. It provides resources such as interpreters for the deaf, Braille or large print handbooks and helps with adaptive equipment. There are also some scholarship funds available. FOA provides books, videos, and – best of all – mentors who have experience working with children with disabilities.

For more information or to share tips, resources and success stories about Focus on Ability, please contact Margaret Paschal (770) 702-9610 or (800) 771-4046 ext. 7672.

Focus on Ability Module

When Ages And Grades Don’t Match

Now that Girl Scouts of the USA has switched to a grade level placement of girls, what happens when a Girl Scout is “held back” or asked to repeat a grade? For example, if a Girl Scout Brownie must repeat the third grade, does she still bridge to Juniors or does she spend another year as a Brownie? What if a Girl Scout has developmental delays and has repeated more than one grade; although she is now 11-years old she will be in fourth grade another year while all the other girls in her troop will be in sixth grade. Does she stay a Junior with girls two years younger than she, or bridge into Cadettes?

A girl may be retained in a grade because she has an intellectual or developmental delay, but also because of undiagnosed learning disabilities, having to learn a new language, emotional stress from a death or divorce in the family, being bullied at school, or other unknown causes. For that girl, being “retained” in Girl Scouts may add to her problems, while being allowed to progress with her troop may provide encouragement and improved self-esteem. This is especially important when girls have been together through several grades.

Girl Scouts of the USA says that girls with intellectual or developmental delays should be placed in the level closest to their chronological age, so usually a Girl Scout will stay with her troop or be placed in a troop with girls her age, even though they may be in a different grade. Troop organizers, troop leaders and parents should be prepared to be flexible based on what seems best for the individual girl. A nine-year old third grader who would typically be in the fourth grade and has never been a Girl Scout would be fine in a troop of third grade Brownies; a fourteen-year old would not.

Girls who have been together since kindergarten and are now approaching middle school – except for the one Girl Scout with special needs – may find troop life more challenging now that developmental delays are more obvious. The non-disabled girls who were accepting in the past may be more uncomfortable with differences and ask “Does she have to be in our troop?”  Or the girls may be loving and accepting but the adult leaders are beginning to feel stressed out when they think about adapting the Girl Scout Silver Award and teenage activities for a girl who is emotionally and intellectually more like a five-year old.  There are no one-size-fits-all answers!  Leaders who would like to use this Focus On Ability site as a clearing house for questions, suggestions and the exchange of ideas should e-mail ProgramResources@gsgatl.org.       

I Was Wondering About…Hearing Impairments

Sometimes Girl Scouts have a special interest in hearing impairments (or disabilities) such as being deaf or hard of hearing because Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouting in the USA, had a hearing impairment. Juliette lost the hearing in one ear as a teenager because of ear infections. (There were no antibiotics to treat infection in the 1860s and 1870s.) As an adult she lost the hearing in her other ear when a grain of rice – thrown for good luck at her wedding – lodged in her ear and the ear drum was damaged trying to get the rice out. You can read stories about how Juliette got into trouble when she didn’t tell people she couldn’t hear them and also how she used her hearing loss to get her own way!

Today if you have a hearing loss, you may attend a special school, special classes within a regular school, or may be part of a regular classroom. Depending on how severe their hearing loss is, some kids may work with audiologists or speech-language pathologists to help them develop their hearing and speaking skills. Some people with hearing loss may need to use special techniques like these to communicate:

Speechreading, which involves looking closely at a person's lips, facial expressions, and gestures to help figure out spoken words

American Sign Language, or ASL, which is a language of hand movements that allows deaf people to communicate with one another without speaking

Cued Speech and Signed English, which use handshapes to translate what's being said. Both are meant to be used with spoken language to help people understand anything they can't comprehend through lip reading.

What about talking on the phone? Thanks to a telecommunication device (also called a TDD), a conversation can be typed out instead of spoken. The messages appear on a special screen or on a printout. But many people today just text their messages!

You might wonder how a hearing-impaired person could understand a movie or TV show. Closed-captioned TV shows and movies provide text at the bottom of the screen, so people with hearing loss can read along to follow the action.

So hearing-impaired kids can go to school, talk on the phone, and watch a movie. If that sounds a lot like a typical kid's life, you're right!

If you’d like to know more about a girl who grew up with a hearing loss, the problems she faced and the solutions she found, read Kristin’s story at http://kidshealth.org/kid/health_problems/sight/hearing_impairment_kristin.html#. Here’s a sample of Kristin’s advice for other kids:

Problem: Kids who don't have hearing problems sometimes don't know how to treat someone like me who does.

My advice: Try to understand what the hearing impaired person is going through.

If you have difficulty understanding what a hearing impairment is, perhaps you could try on a pair of earplugs. They sell these at the drugstore and there's a kind that molds to the shape of your ear. Once you've put them in your ears, try to communicate with family and friends for a few hours. This may help you to be more patient and understanding to hearing impaired people. It can be frustrating and embarrassing when you don't understand what people are saying the first time.

But there are a few advantages to having a hearing aid. When I am listening to my headphones on an airplane, all that I hear is my music, because I have a special feature on my hearing aid that blocks background noise, like the sound of the jet engine or other people talking. I can also use this feature when I talk on the telephone with a friend, so I hear only the person's voice.
However, there can be some disadvantages, too. For example, when I go into new situations and meet new people, I have to explain about my hearing impairment. I don't want it to get in the way or cause problems. When I went to college, I even bought an alarm clock that vibrates under my pillow, so I didn't disturb my college roommate! If I had used a regular alarm clock, I would have had to turn up the noise really loud.

I think my unusual alarm clock is a cool thing. I like being a little different from everyone else because I know that I am unique in my own way and my friends accept me for that. My advice to all kids is to be your own person. It's OK if you are not exactly like everyone else. In fact, your individuality can make you truly cool.

What If a Girl With a Hearing Impairment Joins Our Troop?

If you’re he troop leader, the first thing you need to do is get more information: is your new Girl Scout deaf, or hard of hearing? Does she use hearing aids? Does she speech-read? Does she only communicate using sign language, or is she verbal? These are all things you can ask the girl’s parents or guardians. It’s OK to say something like, “I’ve never known anyone who is deaf, but I want Girl Scouting to be a positive experience for your daughter. Can you tell me some ways to be sure she is safe and happy at Girl Scouts?”  If your new Girl Scout wears a hearing aid or has a cochlear implant, ask parents to send you basic information about how their daughter should treat or take care of her aid, and a list of activities to avoid. (Don’t get it wet!)

What does your Girl Scout who has a partial hearing loss or is deaf need from you?

If your Girl Scout can hear and understand some or all of your speech, it’s important to speak clearly and at a normal volume and pace.

Never turn your back while speaking to your hearing impaired Girl Scout!

Create some sort of visual signal or cue that your Girl Scout can use if she doesn’t understand what’s happening.

Find out if it’s OK to call on her to answer a question. Be sure she understands you are talking to her and would like an answer.

Be aware of the noise level in your meeting place. Have you Girl Scout with a hearing impairment sit in a place where there is the least amount of noise. Be sure she can see you. 

If you ask the girls to discuss a topic in small groups, be aware there may be a noise problem for the Girl Scout with a hearing aid. Check with her to see how she’s doing.

If you’re playing games or learning a sport, be sure your Girl Scout with a hearing impairment understands the rules ahead of time. Yelling during the game won’t help!

Have a plan in place for fire and other emergency drills. Always use the buddy system.

When teaching games, crafts, other activities, or during a discussion time, provide written information and/or pictures for your Girl Scout with a hearing impairment. Demonstrate. Have lots of visual cues.

Be sure your Girl Scout with a hearing loss understands when you are changing the topic under discussion; when you are getting ready to change activities; when you are getting ready to move to another area. (see below.)

In addition to using the Quiet Sign, flash the room lights on and off to get everyone’s attention. Outdoors, wave a bandana or flag. Hold up yellow, green and red construction paper to signal “Get ready for a change”; “Stop what you are doing;” and “Go!”

Sign Language
Check with parents about any use of sign. Some parents want their child exposed only to oral language. If parents approve, learn – and help the girls in the troop learn – some basic signs (hello, stop, good, yes, no, happy, sad, understand) Also, if the parents approve, learn fingerspelling; charts are in both the Brownie and Junior handbooks as well as online. The Girl Scout Resource Centers have books on sign language, and the Mableton center has two activity kits on sign language.

For the first meeting your Girl Scout who is deaf attends, invite a parent, teacher, aide or friend who signs to come with her. This will help the girl better understand what’s going on and will make you more comfortable as well. Talk to your Girl Scout Membership Specialist about requesting a registered interpreter for the deaf to come to that first meeting if no one else is available to interpret.

If you have questions or need more resources about hearing impairments, please contact Margaret Paschal, Program Resources Coordinator, at (770) 702-9610 or mpaschal@gsgatl.org. Or use the telephone relay system if needed.