Lesson 4

Job Site Training - slide 6

Example
Diagram of a restroom area

We have been talking for the last couple of minutes about natural cues and other types of supports that we might be able to add into the workplace in order for the customer with the disability to be able his or her job duties independently. Let's stop for a moment and look at a very nice example to see if we can put some of these ideas and concepts into practice instead of just talking about them hypothetically.

For instance, let's look at the diagram that you see here on this particular slide. Actually, this is a real environment here at the VCU student commons that we occasionally take individuals to for individual assessment as well as for practicing job site training with various students like you who come to learn systematic instruction. This is a real work environment that in actuality is a very long, narrow restroom.

The individual who is to clean this restroom does so early in the morning prior to other coworkers being available to seek assistance from. The cart where all of the work supplies are kept is too large to take into the restroom and has to be parked near the entrance. The task might be to see how we use natural cues or to highlight the relevant features of this task so an individual could do the activity independently.

Let's hypothetically say that the individual who is to clean the restroom has intellectual disabilities and really can't distinguish between which area of the restroom has been and which area has not been cleaned as well as which work supplies are needed to complete the task. What might we use about this environment to assist the person in really organizing the work environment?

Obviously, we have a row of sinks that need to be cleaned and a row of toilets that need to be cleaned. If we consider that the cart is at the door, you may have someone who would randomly go into the stalls or sink to be cleaned and not really make sure the whole restroom has been completed by the time period that has been assigned to activity. When I look at this, I think what can I do with the work supplies to assist the person in organizing the activities. One idea might be to actually put the supplies on the cart in the order for which they are used. If we choose to clean the toilets first, that the first work supply that I pick up. If I choose to clean the sink area first, that may be the first work supply on the cart. As that particular task is accomplished, maybe I would put that supply on the second shelf of the cart as a cue for myself that once the supply is on the second shelf, I am finished with that particular part of my job duty.

That doesn't really address how I am going to know that I finished say cleaning all of the toilets. Let's say that I have my work supplies set up on my cart in the order of accomplishments, and I pick up the spray bottle that is to be used for cleaning the toilets. What I could teach the individual who is to complete this activity would be to walk all the way to the far wall away from the door down where it says removable trash on your diagram, and I enter the first stall and clean that toilet. Then I come out and immediately turn to my left and go into the next one. This way I systematically teach the person to walk into the restroom, go all the way to the far wall, clean the first toilet next to the wall and continue on to all the rest. When finished with the toilets, I go back to my cart which signals to me to pick up my next work supply for next part of the cleaning responsibility.

Now let's say that is accomplished, but the person gets confused and doesn't know which work supply to use to clean which particular part of the job duty. In that instance, you may look at the work supply itself. Is there a natural cue related to color? For instance, the pink container cleans the toilets while the blue substance is for cleaning the mirrors. That's another cue that you might look at. If the person doesn't attend to the color and can't remember that he picks up the pink liquid and goes to the far wall and start with the first toilet at the far wall and work his way back to the cart, you could add a cue. You could add a picture of a toilet and apply it to the bottle so when the individual picks up that spray bottle immediately he or she would see the picture of the toilet to provide the cue to indicate that this particular cleaning substance is for.

One thing that we want to touch base on at this particular point is really the idea of fading a cue. In this instance, the person may need the picture of the toilet on the spray bottle. However, gradually, the color of the substance or the natural cue begins to have meaning because they start associating the picture with the color. All of a sudden you may find that the individual no longer needs to rely on the picture. You might see this by the spray bottle being turned around and all that is visible is the color. The picture is not readily available to the person, yet they still pick up the bottle and immediately go to clean the toilet. That might be an indicator that the actual natural cue or relevant feature of that particular work supply has meaning for the individual. In reality, that's the point that you want to get the worker to. You want to get the worker to be able to identify those cues in the environment and to respond to those cues. The worker who is able to do that with a little bit of added manipulation or instruction on your part is going to be the worker that remembers the task when you are gone. That is the most critical piece of information that I could share with you in almost all of what we have talked about. Is there something that you or the coworkers could do to enhance the learning of this person, that would allow an individual with a little bit initial assistance and a plan for fading yourself so that individual can be successful in accomplishing the work task.

There is one more thing that I would like to pick on this environment for is the idea of using place markers. We will talk about this again. Let's say that the person is cleaning the mirrors for example. They have walked all the way to the wall and begun with that first sink and mirror next to the removable trash bin. Let's consider when we are doing a task in what order is the most logical to accomplish this?

Let me use the mirrors and the sink for an example. Let's say we clean sink first and when we clean the mirror we got some of the spray on the sink so we would have to go back and redo part of the task that you had already done. In this instance, it may be logical if you observe the person and see how they accomplish the task to really clean from top to bottom. We do the mirrors first so in case some residue or dirt falls down into the sink then we can get that when we clean the sink rather than having to repeat steps.

Another thing about the place marker is that once I've used my spray bottle to spray on the mirror I could insert into my task analysis a step where instead of just sitting the bottle down on the counter randomly, I could set it right on the next sink in front of that mirror. After I clean this mirror, I look around for my work supply. I see it sitting on the shelf at my next area to be cleaned. This a little trick for sequencing steps in your task analysis together.

Vicki is going to talk more about task analysis development later, but we actually have built in a place marker here. We spray the cleaner on the mirror. Instead of sitting the cleaner down randomly, we put it on the next shelf in front of the next mirror to be cleaned. I have finished the mirror that I am working on. I have sequenced logically and naturally to look for my spray bottle, move on to the next mirror so I can work from one mirror to the next on down the line and back to my cart. Then I pick up my supply to clean the sinks with, walk all the way back to the wall, start with the first sink. Again, set the cleaner into the next sink; finish cleaning; look for my cleaner. There it is on the next sink, and that's the one I go to next, and work my way back to the cart again.

If you were to sit and do this in a brain storming session, you could come up with a number of issues and ideas about how to systematically approach this task so that the person is successful. The concept that we have just talked about can be applied to anything that you are working with the customer to learn. It could be a clerical task, a food service task, or even to something that you are trying to accomplish yourself. Don't get stuck on the fact that we have looked at analyzing this particular work environment for looking at natural cues and adding cues.