Supporting Communication Through The Performing Arts

Catalog description

This course will allow students to acquire skills, knowledge, and experiences about the ways in which performance activities such as improvisation, vocal performance, and dance can promote valued communication and developmental outcomes for individuals with and without developmental and intellectual disabilities. The course is explicitly designed to include students from the Lifelink PSU program who have intellectual disabilities, who learn with and alongside enrolled students. This structure directly emphasizes the interconnections between students with and without disabilities, as well as between the knowledge bases and theoretical approaches brought by specialists in the performing arts and in diverse areas of disability services. The course will emphasize the pluralistic nature of knowledge in the social and behavioral sciences by incorporating the pedagogy and knowledge of experts from the performing arts with the empirical scientific approach taken in diverse disciplines dedicated to disability services and rehabilitation, including but not limited to Communication Sciences and Disorders, Education and Special Education, Psychology, Music Therapy, and Rehabilitation. Students will collaborate to analyze both in the empirical research literature as well as in their classroom experiences with the Lifelink students the specific ways in which various performing arts offer opportunities for growth in self-expression, interpersonal understanding, and other important communication skills.