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ECSE 421 FAMILY & COMMUNITY

HIGHER WIDER DEEPER CHOICE PROPOSALS


Name: Cortney Houston

Date: January 15, 2016

HIGHER WIDER DEEPER PROJECT


The Higher Wider Deeper project is an opportunity for you to further explore an area of interest (specific
to you) as it relates to this course, your personal interests, and your future professional goals
throughout the semester. You will keep a weekly reflection blog that includes a weekly paragraph
statement related to your HWD project. Each week you need to have a credible source to verify your
research.
You will also be given the opportunity to teach what you have learned from this experience to your fellow
classmates during a 22-25 minute lesson. Your experience must consist of three (3) main components:
research (reported on your blog with a final reference page), a presentation discussing your research and
area of interest, and then a handout of what you have learned for your peers. Be creative, have fun and
identify something you are passionate about. It is expected that all components will reflect the highest
levels of professionalism effort. The majority of the materials and content included in your project,
presentation, and handout should be original to you, and any information included from other sources
should give proper credit to avoid plagiarism (this include paraphrasing the work of others).
Topic/Research Question:

Infantile Refsum Disease and sensory impairment teacher

A. Why are you interested? Over Christmas break a young man I grew up with passed away. His
family was in my ward growing up and his mom was my piano teacher. The two boys are both
deaf, blind, have weekend muscles and cognitive impairment. It was not until the boys funeral
that I found how why they were the way they were. As children they were diagnosed with
Infantile Refsum Disease. At the funeral, after listening to his mom speak and his teacher speak, I
felt so prompted that I was supposed to go into some sort of sensory impairment or deaf/blind
program. So I want to take the time now to learn more about the disease, what route I need to take
to be qualified to teach students like those two boys and what sort of help they may need.
B. What experience do you have with this topic? I only have a brief understanding of the disease and
the effects of it. My piano taught me some simple signs and ways to communicate with the boys.
After Kyles funeral I talked to his teacher that he had for several years and asked her about what
she got her bachelors degree and masters degrees in and she told me briefly about the sensory
impairment center that she works at in the Salt Lake Valley.
C. What specifically do you want to learn? I want to learn what sort of schooling I need to get done
in order to work with sensory impairments, how many years it will take, if I can work their
straight out of college with my bachelors and what master program will be most beneficial. I want
to learn more about the disease and more about how I can help children like Kyle and Russell
learn and be a part of society, like any other child.
D. How does this link to a course objective? This links back to the course, by seeing what sort of
education I need to become the sort of resource I want to be for families with children that have
sensory impairments.
E. What project/product could you create after you research? Weekly blog posts of research and
some sort of presentation at the end of the semester.

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