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Saturday, May 15, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
The power of Connectivity for Fun and Learning with Easy-Tech Assisitve Technology
Posting by Catherine Rahey
Excellent Resource Sites
Dr. Laz S.W.I.T.C.H -See What I Can Handle google S.W.I.T.C.H
Communication Device
Little
What can I do to include my students?
AT Facilitates Inclusion: Partical Participation
Four Areas of Focus:
Access
Communication
Environmental Control
Content and Curriculum
Access:
What are the specific needs of the individual?
Switches allows individuals to experience the power of controlling their environment.
-Nearly 50 different switches and computer access tools
-Size, shape, color complexity, etc.
-Wired
-Wireless
-Bluetooth
-Mounting
Switch Grid
www.ablenetink.com
Communication -Generation of AACs
BIGmack 1995
Step-by-Step 1997
ITalk2 2002
Super talker 2003
FLASH 2006
Lingo 2008
Talking BRIX 2010
Google: Compilation of Studies in Silverman, 1989.
Environmental Control:
Garden Project- Japan
Power Link 4 Control Unit
Math Curriculum called Equals
Remarkable Ideas
Music Class
Cooking
Gardening
Excellent Sites:
Pogo Boards AbleNet Edition
Search google net or able net images
www.ablenet.com
Provincial Integration Support Program- British Columbia
Resource: Social Scripting Excellent web site: wwwaacintervention.com
Able Net -Remarkable Ideas
Excellent Blog:
http://kitablenet.blogspot.com/
The Non-Verbal Learner: A community's Perspective
Simone Chalifoux and Eryn Biddiscombe
Apraxia: the harder you try to tell your body to do something the harder it is to do it. Delay in communication between brain and body. "The more people ask me to do the task the more it causes the delay in completing the task" Joe - Rhett Syndrome
Use of a wide variety of AAC strategies:
Mighty Mo
Bathroom pics of Too Hot, OK etc.
Yes/No on wheelchair
Eye gaze
Uses MSN Chat with Mighty Mo
Everything is age appropriate. She likes Twilight, clip etc.
A wonderful presentation on Jo, an 11 year old with Rett syndrome. This presentation demonstrated some creative and effective ways to communicate in the home and community.
5 major challenges for using the device:
- Limited choices on the communication board
- Talking too fast...communication partner is too fast to respond
- Large buttons due to access issues
- Battery Life
- When things aren't available
- Hands not being supported
- Baby talk...she requires age appropriate communication
Other AT:
- magnetic numbers and letters
- card holders
- easels for table top
- adapted books where she matches the text to the picture
- flip chart literacy
- Intellikeys
Encouraging Teachers to Use AAC in the Classroom
Kelly Fonner:
What are your students saying?
When are students more likely to communicate?
What seems to be holding them back from communicating?
We must be planful and strategic when teaching communication...just like when we're teaching reading.
Environmental Communication Teaching Training
Activity-Based Objectives
Environmental Arrangements
Prompt Hierarchy
Communication must be:
- fun
- motivational
- meaningful
- purposeful
- easy
- repetitious
- age appropriate
- cause a response or continuation
- natural to the activity
- given in small units
Focus on the student's interests and develop communication activities based on the interests with students who also have those interests
Communication is not to make a choice...making a choice is only the beginning of the conversation. Demonstrate with other students how to communicate with the device with other children.
Communication strategies come together IN CONTEXT.
Plan for Expressive Communicative Participation
RAISE EXPECTATIONS!
- Students need to know when to communicate
- Teach how to communicate, they need to learn to take turns in the context of the activity i.e. Science, paired reading etc.
- Initiate conversation and you as the teacher.... SHUT UP! Give the student pause time and processing time and response time
- Have more than one style of interaction depending upon the listener or situation
- Use multiple modes of communication
ECT Training Basics
- Activity Based Objectives
- Environmental Arrangments
- Prompt Hierarchy
Use the environment to design the communication activity
Art projects (i.e. one glue, one scissors for class which requires communication among the peers to request the non verbal student to communicate and participate)
Prompt Heirarchy
- Set a purpose to communicate (the purpose is not the AAC device) the purpose is what they are doing, how environment is arranged to communicate, partner)
- Activity, Environment, Partner - when communication breaks down it happens in all of these areas or one or two of these areas.
- When giving prompts to student do not tell them to "push this", "tell me this" you are not giving the student the opportunity to think, you create prompt dependency
- Have the student with AAC become "the teacher" and he/she asks the questions with the device, offer opportunities to choose the student to answer...
Activities have a Social Communicative Context
- Dyadic Interaction
- Joint Action Routines
- Behaviour Regulation
- Instructional Activities
Dyadic: social interaction: arriving, departing, breaks or transitions between class/lunch etc.
Joint Action Routines: common activities, snack time, developing joint attention, common action, clear beginning, middle and ending, Scriptable, Context Specific Vocabulary....COMMUNICATION is more than NOUNS
Behaviour Regulation: What the AAC user says to...direct the actions of the another, have basic daily needs met for hygiene, getting around, physical care, dressing
Instructional Language: how to participate in a discussion etc.
Activities can Target:
- Vocabulary expansion
- Automaticity of symbol locations or sequences
- Language Development
- Multi-modal Communication
- Replacing socially unacceptable communication behaviours
Target Activities:
- Process rather than product oriented
- Represents a class of activities
- More than on selection for activity type can be offered at any given time
- HAVE to have communication activities that are repeated daily and weekly with classroom staff
Choose a routine, revamp an activity with a communication thought behind it
Record Discrepancies between current and desired performance
Define Existing or new communication requirements and work towards those goals
Requirements for an Activity
- how is it initiated
- where does it begin
- what is the transition from the previous activity
- who begins it
- how is it begun
- what is said or done
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Math & Students with Significant Disabilities
- Reading
- Counting
- One-to-one correspondence
- Number recognition
- Matching
- Tallying
- Computation
- Comparisons
- Graphing/Charting
- Measuring
- Problem solving
- Time skills
- Money skills
- Manipulating objects
- Writing
- Drawing
Writing
The purpose of writing instruction is to...
- teach students to represent their thoughts and ideas in print or symbolic form
- allows students to explore written language
- some students learn to read through writing
- technology allows children to see, hear, produce and process print
FINDING A PENCIL FOR EVERY LEARNER...
- eyegaze frame
- symbol board
- stamps
- stickers
- slant board
- recording voice
- dictation
- keyboard
- pencil grips
- pixwriter
- clicker grids etc.etc.
Implementing the pencil or writing utensil
- model writing
- free writing experiences
- writing current events
- driting - draw and write
- Don't expect or demand conventions such as perfect spelling, words, sentences etc.
- This is about exposure to letters, written communication, motivation/participation
Every student will have a voice
Every student will have a book
Every student will have a pencil
Developing Literacy with Highest Needs High School Students
- Use the favourite songs of students
- Download lyrics from internet
- Input into Kurzweil
- Have student read along with the students as song "plays" back in Kurzweil (use highlighting as reading
- Have them repeat the song a number of times
- Eventually fade the text to speech
- The student will eventually read the text back without the text to speech support (even reading one word is considered successful)
SLOW down the text to speech but not too much to ensure they do not lose the connection to what is going on
Students who can't speak:
Use the sequencer to reproduce the chorus
Writing:
- Brainstorm ideas for book
- Graphic organizers, Inspiration or Kurzweil GO with image support
- Students who couldn't spell voice records into the GO their notes according to the picture
- Encourage correct spelling in the Clipart section to get the desired image
- Use word banks as needed (students wrote the words out and the students copied the word into WORD to create Picture and word banks)
- Go to PPT
- Students with developmental delay is paired up with a student with LD to produce a book in PPT on a topic of their choice
- Once the 5 slide story is complete the narration is used to create an audiobook and they can now present it to the class
- Students printed out the stories and read them to each other....without the computer!
SIMPLE, easy to use and accessible AT supporting students with significant disabilities
Tasks of Reading
- recognition (words, pictures, objects)
- phonics decoding
- vocabulary building
- listening
- speaking
- thinking
- comprehension
- independent reading
Where ever a student is in the cognitive spectrum they can be participating in the reading process
Reading Curriculum targeted to Students with Intellectual Disabilities
AbleNet - MeVille to WeVille
Attainment - Early Literacy Skill Builders
The student should have access to his/her AAC device ALL DAY LONG!
Enhancing access to book activities for students with highest needs:
- turn book pages
- large print books
- tactile graphics
- highlight key concepts/vocabulary
- make the book interactive
- student start/stops the reading
- spinners
- reading guides
Reading Activities for students with severe disabilities
- pictorial/word or tactle / word schedules
- menus and receipes
- read chosen book with volunteer
- listen to info on tape
- reread stories/report with pictures/words/tactile
- read photograph album of family or school outings
- text to pictures software
Access to books ideas:
- physical access support to turn pages: sponges clipped between pages
- switch access to book in ppt
- reading centres
- books on tape - listening centre
NO ONE RISES TO LOW EXPECTATIONS! Les Brown
AT can Assist Students with Significant Disabilities to...
- Complete and/or develop functional skills
- Access curriculum / information
- Become a more efficient learner including less adult supported, more competent etc.
- Bypass lack of skills and still access the information
Components of Effective Teaching Strategies
- Provide overview of what is being taugt as well as cueing scaffolding terms
- verbal and pictorial cues and STOP talking when using picture schedule/cues
- connect new information to prior knowledge
Explore Potentials with Many Ways of Being Smart: allow alternate ways of presenting information and allow the students to demonstrate their knowledge in different ways
TEACHERS: Do you know your learning style?
Teachers tend to their learning style and if that doesn't match the student's then the student will have difficulty accessing, understanding and demonstrating the task and knowledge.
STUDENTS CHANGE AND YOU WANT TO INFLUENCE THE DIRECTION.
AT: increase, maintain or improve functional capabilities of individual
Educational and IT: increase, maintain or improve learning outcomes
There are MANY different types of AT i.e. Mobility, Seating and Positioning, Assistive Listening, Assistive Writing, AAC, Access Technology
Session 1: Providing Meaningful Curricular Experiences through AT for Students with Significant Disabilities
Kelly Fonner: MS Education and Assistive Technology Consultant
Notes from the edge:)
Environmental Communication Teaching Training making AAC practical in the classroom. How to use what you have. You have to have a plan! How can you make sustained change and collect information, monitor progress and gauge change.
"I can't fault you on what you don't know,
but once you do know if you don't do it
...Shame On You!"
Assistive Technology is still a very young field.
Objectives for the Session
Determine Levels of Support and Participation for Students with Disaiblities
Explore AT across the Ares of the Curriculum
Guidance to Strategies for making decisions about AT interventions
AT conferences should not be a shopping trip for "stuff" but a shopping trip for IDEAS.
TONE FOR THE DAY
Meaningful Activities
Connected to Curriculum
EVERY Student Learns
Research shows the worksheets result in a negative impact on learning! Develop a schedule that is meaningful. Adding technology to a nothing curriculum does nothing! Help people get a context & know that EVERY STUDENT LEARNS. We must figure out HOW they are learning. Are you extra smart to figure out how they demonstrate their learning.
Participation Plan Levels Beukelman & Mirenda
Academic, Social, Regular Classroom, Independence
Academic (What you're doing): Competitive, Active, Involved, None
Regular Classroom (Where you're doing it): Full, Selective, None
Social: Influential with peers? Are they active socially? Involved but with a core group of friends, None (social but not at school)
Independence: No Assistance, With Setup, Fully Assisted
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