Our final task was to research a video on hearing impairment/deafness and post it to our blog with a little summary. THis did not end up being as easy a feat as I thought. There were lots of videos but most explained about hearing impairments but not many stories about people with hearing impairment. I did find a few videos that I thought had a good message. The video that I chose is actually a hair advertisement but I really liked the message that it gave. I realize it is not "real" but like I said the message is important! This young girl wants to learn how to play the violin but is not given the chance becuase of her impairment. Of course another girl told her she was wasting everyones time! IT turns out this girl is jealous as and doesn't want her to succeed.

the girl wants to know why she is different but the man asks her why does everyone have to be the same? This is another important message. It is OK to be different and everyone should be given the opportunity to accomplish anything that they set their monds to.

Here is another video that I found about a football player who is deaf and how he overcomes his disability and is an mportant part of the team. This video shows how his teammates accept him and make accomodations for him but also treat him like everyone else. They are not looking for special treatment but just to be accepted and given the chance. It is great how they are learning from him just as much as he is learning from them.

I can't believe that I am writing my last blog for this course. The two weeks certainly has flown by quickly. Looking back we took in a lot of information in a very short time frame. At times I think I was a little overwhelmed but it always seems to fall into place in the end. What was really nice is that we dod a lot of things that were new to me and some things that I have used but not in many years so it was a refresher to some degree. I certainly will return to school with some new ideas that I will hopefully be able to use with my students. I will be making my visual schedules before boardmaker expires so I will be all ready for September!

Having been able to spend the last 2 weeks with a great group of people has been an extra bonus. Everyone was so helpful and it was a pleasure to work with everyone. Barb, thank you for all your help and support I truly enjoyed my 2 weeks and this course.

adapting toys

After watching everyone's interesting inventions today I got to thinking how easy it would be to adpat just about anything so that a student would be able to use it independently. everyone had very cool ideas and most were very simple ideas. What I also thought was neat was that there were no duplications of ideas. I am sure ther was some duplication in our blogs but everything that was shown today was unique. It goes to show what a little imagination can do and how creative we can be. This made me start to think how else we can adapt toys for students without paying big bucks. It is amazing what a little velceo or a shower curtain ring can do to assist a student. A shower curtain ring can be attached to a toy so that a student might be able to hold on to it in a firmer grip. We all know that velcro is a wonderful tool. Attaching a little velcro to a toy and to a table can help keep it stabilized and within arms reach. Another simple idea is using a hoola hoop. IF a child has a remote control car it can be placed inside the hoop and that way it can't get away from the child and it is kept in contained space. The link below will give you an article that gives wonderful suggestions for adapting lots of different toys for any child. PLease take a second a read it, there are lots of fabulous ideas.




Click here to download article.

our invention!!

Today we present our inventions that we came up with from shopping at the dollar store. Jill and I had lots of great ideas while we were shopping but it was difficult to come up with something that we had to make ourselves. We decided to make something that could be used as a sensory activity and also like a magic writer. We also tried it 2 different ways to see which one would be best.

TO make this we needed a small can of shaving cream, (preferribly scent free), a large ziplock bag and food coloring. We put the shaving cream in the ziplock bag with the food coloring and mixed it all up. Make sure to take the air out of the bag carefully so the shaving cream doesn't come out also. It is best to also tape the bag shut with the packing tape so the students can't open it.

When it is finished students are able to feel the bag as a sensory activity. Many students need that extra sensory feedback and this is an easy way for them to get that. Students can also use their finger to make letters, shapes and numbers on the bag. This is good for students who have difficult with pen and pencil tasks. Teachers would have to monitor the use so that the student does not put it in thier mouths, or bite the bag. Using gel has the same effect although when I did both I thought the gel worked better and it made a thicker substance.

Boardmaker Plus

I was very excited to try out the new boardmaker plus. I have used the old boardmaker before but just to make pictures for a visual schedule. It has been many years since I made a communication board. I was surprised how many of the steps came back to me fairly fast. I was anxious to try it out to make some boards. I think the most difficult part was getting the registration to work! Once that was done it really was pretty straight forward as long as I followed the tutorial. It is pretty cool how I could connect the boards together. It really was pretty straight forward. Another difficult part was planning what to do for our communication board and our story book. When looking at our plan for the communication board we looked at a lot of the same things that we learned with proloquo2go. We decided to look at the whole communication for the student not just for a particular subject. I have worked on it some today and it seems to be going well. We decided to go with language arts and do a poetry unit. This is what we concentrated on the book. For our dynamic boards we started with the basic board and had it very basic with an I want, greetings, subjects and friends. we thought the first board should be one that gives lots of options for the student to communicate in many ways. I am going to continue with the boards and see where it takes us.

While making the boards I decided on 7 boards. All boards were linked together and would come back to the beginning. I decided that 7 boards was plenty so since the book was a language arts activity I linked the LA page to a new one and the math page as an extra. The social studies and science was not linked to anything for now. I didn't think the student would be able to handle too many layers on this communication board. Getting everything connected together was also another challenge that we had to overcome. Thankfully the tutorial was pretty straight forward and was a lot of help.

Switch Use

Today in class we got to look at the use of switches and how we can use them in our classroom and for everyday use. Remembering back to when I worked at the Developmental Centre we used single switched for many reasons with the children. We often used them to activate an electronic toys, and if we were reading a story with a repetitive phrase we would often use the "big mac" switch and record the repetitive phrase so that the child could participate in the story. We were very lucky to have a part-time OT on staff as well as a part time SLP to help with the decision of what switch would be best and in what position.



I do recall an occasion where we had a student with cerebral palsy who had little control over his arm and leg movements. At the time we were attempting toiletting and he was fairly successful but we needed a device that could be on him at all times and accessible at all times that he could use to notify an adult when he needed to go to the washroom (he was in a wheelchair). This was a hard task as he had little control and we wanted it to be something that was on him at all times. I am really not sure of the final outcome of this as it was a long time ago but we did try him with a little watch that could have a recording and he just had to touch the face. This was one area where he could cross his arms to touch. I think the one problem with this was at the time he was seen by the AT people at the IWK. They only looked at this at the hospital and not in the setting of the centre or home. I think as we have seen several times that assessment should really take place in the environment that the child is most in. I wish I could remember what type of switch or communication device was used for this child.



When deciding on what type a switch will best suit a certain student there are many things to consider before hand. we have to look at the mobility of the student and where best to place the switch (control site). This depends on where exactly they have the most control. It could be the head, knee, hand, elbow, foot etc. Another thing to take in to consideration is how much force they can put on the switch to activate it. Some switches require more pressure than others to activate. A student may only be able to use a light finger touch so the switch has to be appropriate for this. The size and weight are also important. It has to be easily transported so the child can access it anytime.

All this has gotten me thinking about a friend. He is 43 and living in a nursing home. He has MS and it is very sad to see how fast this disease has progressed in such a short time. At this point he only has limited use of his left arm. Occasionally even this arm locks and he can not move either arm. When this happens he is not able to do anything for himself. Because he is not able to get out his computer is his life line, when either arm works he is not able to use his computer and this is very difficult on him. Looking at these switch items I feel that there is hope for him to find an accessible way for him to use his computer. the first obstacle would be to find out who can help him and set up an appointment to look at switch access for when it is needed.

Importance of Social Stories

We have had the opportunity to look at some social stories and how they would benefit some students that we may have in our class. I have had some experience with social stories but not a lot so it was a good refresher on how to write them and what to make sure we include such as the story should be written in the first person. I have only had a opportunity to do social stories in a book format so when the chance to make a video story came up I was quite excited. This would be a new adventure for me. Once we formed our group (Shelley, Jill, sacha and myself) we proceeded to do up our story and decide how we were going to film it. Lucky for me I got to be the actor. It was surprising how quick it was to video. When you don't have to worry about voices doing the actions was a piece of cake. What we didn't realize was how difficult and time consuming the editing part would take. I am sure if we did these often the editing would get easier and quicker but for these first few times it did seem quite confusing. We really had a great time doing the video.

Now it was our turn to come up with a scenerio and make our own video social story. We came up with many ideas but decided to do own for takeing the bus home from school. Again it didn't take long to come up with the differnt clips and what we were going to say. Once we broke the task up in little steps it was quite simple. We arrived this morning with all our props and we mapped out what we would do in each block. the filming took under a half hour and was a lot of fun. You got to wonder what people think as they walk by. The editing didn't get much easier the second time around. Thanks to Shelley's perserverence we got through the little snags and finished just before the end of class.

I do believe that these stories help students work through a situation that may be stressful for them or where they may exhibit some unwanted behaviors. It focuses on the positive behavior that we want to see instead of the negative behavior. The nice thing about the video stories is that the student is able to upload their videos to their iPod touched and watch them frequently (just before the event).

A Shopping We Will Go!

Yesterday Jill and I set out to the dollar store to see what we could find that could be used as low tech assistive devices. I wasn't sure how easy a task this would be but to my surprise it was a fairly simple task. As we roamed the aisles it did not take us long to find many items that would be suitable to use with some of our students to help make their learning more purposeful. The item that we chose to talk about that we found at the store is a clipboard. The clipboard can be used with any students that may need to move away from the table to have a quiet work space. One of my students with ADHD would often take a clipboard and find a quiet corner to work in. Also a clipboard is good to use when the students are required to roam the room or maybe working outside so that they have a solid surface to work on.

For the students who have a difficult time holding on to their pencil or pen a string can be added to the clipboard and the pencil attached so that the student will not loose their pencil.

A cookie sheet is another great tool to use in the classroom. It has a magnetic surface so students can use magnetic letters/numbers or shapes to help in doing spelling and reading activities and it also gives a defined work space for the students.

Flower foam is another item that we found yesterday. We thought it could make a great pencil holder for a child's desk. It could be velcroed down to the table and the pencil, pens, markers etc could be placed in it and they would stand up and be very easily accessible to any students. this would be a great organizational tool for a student with autism or ADHD. Having it right on their desk would be a great visual for them to remember where to place the pencils when they are done.

A mirror is another good tool to use in a classroom. If there is a child who has a hard time with emotions and expressing themselves, having a mirror available for them to see what their face looks like when they are angry and to help control those emotions. Also, mirrors are good tom have when teaching students sounds and what their mouths should look like when making that sound.

These are a few items that we found while on our little shopping excursion. The opportunities are endless and almost anything can be adapted to meet the needs of many of our students. A few other things that we found are

- velcro (used to adapt toys or items)

- bucket and clothespins (using their pincer grasp students have to put the clothespins around the top of the bucket and than take them off and put inside the bucket.

- balloons with flour in them (stress ball)

- velcro baseball mitt (for students who have a hard time closing their hands, the ball will stick to their mitt)

- Fly swatter - great for having children point to things around the room

- large roll of tape (attach to corner of a desk for a student who used a cane. The cane is than off the floor and hanging on the side of the desk)

- velcro bowl (this item is great for a student with cerebral palsy, if they only have use of one arm. they don't have to worry about having to hold on to the bowl)

- magnifying glass ( for student with a visual impairment to help magnify words

- ball cap (for students who are bothered or sensitive to light the cap would block some of that light out.

These are just a few of our items that we found while out shopping. We are looking forward to creating our own technology that would help some students.

Shopping at the iTunes store!

Today I got a chance to do a little shopping (something I love) to look for some apps for one of my students. It was a little frustrating to begin as the wireless did not want to cooperate with us this morning.


J______ is an 11 year old boy with William's Syndrome and Autism. He is very social and enjoys being around many of his friends. He does have quite a bit of language but has a difficult time getting out what he wants to say. To a stranger he can be difficult to understand. J_______also has a lot of echolalia and will repeat many of the phrases that he frequently hears. J_______ has had many behavior challenges that he is presently working on. He is very sensitive to noise and will get upset if someone yells or if he sees someone crying. He will often go up to them and hit or kick them even when he doesn't know them. These behaviors are diminishing lately but they still do exist. J______ has an older brother (13) who he tends to target most of his anger and frustration towards and if he gets upset he will seek him out.

J______ loves to skateboard and scooter and loves to go to the playground. He is fascinated with vacuum's, hair dryers and electric razors and will often carry them around his house. He also loves to watch you tube videos about planes and helicopters and loves to watch Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank engine. He is beginning to print some words although does not like to do this willingly, and is beginning to read very simple repetitive text. J______ also loves to do puzzles and is very good at it. He will even turn them over to the blank side and put them together upside down.

I found many apps that would benefit J______ and fit into his program as stress releasers, and assist in his programming.


ABA Flashcards - Emotions
This would be an excellent app for this student. He has a very difficult time expressing how he is feeling and it results in him showing through hitting or kicking. To work on having him label the different emotions and use them frequently the hope would be that he would express himself instead of hitting. These apps would also benefit him to help broaden his expressive language. There are many different categories that could be used.


Letter Trace
Since J______ is beginning to form letters and use pencil and paper with
support this app will support this goal. He can use his fingers to trace letters and become familiar to how each letter is formed. This app gives both auditory and visual feedback to the child.

Stalls and Spins

I did not purchase this app as it was $29.99 but I know it would be something that J______ would enjoy watching as he loves to watch videos of planes and helicopters flying. I think there is much more to the app but he would probably not benefit from it at this point. This could be a relaxing activity or reward for when he is done his work.

There were also a great app that was a timer. this timer had 4 different settings depending on the activity. it was very visual and would help the student see how much time there is left to an activity. The other app that I thought was good was a social stories app where we could pick different situations and the touch would show what would happen in that situation. This would be good for those situations that he finds most challenging to prepare him for what to expect. this app was $6.99. The possibilities are endless and I am sure there are hundreds more that would be beneficial to this student.

Shopping at the Itunes store

I have been spending a great deal of time shopping for the apps that I feel would best suit the student that I have in mind. I am finding it a little frustrating and I am sure there is an easier way to do this but I haven't found that yet. The problem that I continued to run into is that every time I found an app that I wanted to check out I would click on it and when I tried to return to the main page of apps it took me back to the beginning where I had to once again try to find where I left off. It just seems to make the process that much longer. The positive part is that I have found many apps that should be great, some free and some that are a little pricey. I look forward to downloading a few tomorrow and checking them out.

I have spent quite a few hours looking over the different apps and I think I have found quite a few that would be beneficial to my student. I could never have imagined all the different apps that there are out there and I certainly didn't get a chance to check them all out. I can for see an
iPod touch on my Christmas wish list or I may be borrowing one of my kids touches to try some things out. It certainly opens up a few doors for my future in teaching.

Ipod in our schools

I wasn't sure what to write about today and I started to look at different videos around the Ipod. I came across this one that I thought was very good and also showed other benefits of the Ipod. Most of the students in this class did not directly use them in their everyday work but instead they were used as a communication tool between home and school. Many of the students in this class used some form of sign language to communicate and it is very important that both home and school be using the same signs. The Ipod gave parents an opportunity to see what their child was doing during the day and what they are capable of doing. Parents also benefited in that when they were not sure how to communicate something in sign the interpreter was able to video tape himself doing the signs so that the family could see it rather than try and figure it out from a book. The teachers could also record messages for parents and make it easier than always having to write notes back and forth.

I really liked the idea of video taping the reading of books with the sign language. First they started with taping just the signs with the audio in the background. They than added the book with the signing. This is a great way to incorporate the whole family in reading of stories and the family can pick up new signs that they can use to communicate with their child. It is also a very good way to teach the different vocabulary words for the different subject areas. Anyway,I just thought it was a neat twist to some of the things that we have already been talking about it class and other ways of using the Ipods.

Class #4 - The Process

I am some what mesmerized by the process that needs to be in place to set up a child with a assisstive communicative device. I can only think how many students in my own small school that could benefit from a device particularly the I pod. In our everyday work at school we see so many students who struggle with language, reading and writing and we are sometimes stumped as to how to help them reach their full potential. Listening to Barb tell us the success stories from her school board it is obvious that they have a good system for evaluating students and training them and their support system. I wonder how many students are seen in a year and how many would be on a wait list to be seen.

In the HRSB I know we do have AT specialists but I am not sure how they service the school population. It would be interesting to find out the model that they use. We do have one student who has a communication device that she got this year. The only downfall is that it stays at school and she doesn't benefit from being able to use it at home or over the summer.

In my previous employment I worked at a developmental centre with special needs preschoolers and I was fortunate to do a 3 day AT workshop. This was probably about 12-13 years ago and it is amazing how some of the same equipment that we are talking about now was used back then to some degree. It has obviously advanced but the concepts were there. At our centre we had many children with physical and mental disabilities ranging from visual impairment, cerebral palsy, downe syndrome and developmental delays. Because we were dealing with very young children we mainly used cause and effect switches and some simple communication boards with 1-3 cells. We did also have some experience with intellikeys at a very simple level.

Now that I think of it we had a little boy (he would be in his 20's now) who had cerebral palsy and was in an electric chair. He used board maker and we used to make grids up for different aspects of his day. for example we would have one for the sand box, circle time, meal time and so on. He was able to point but it was somewhat of a slow process as he did not have great control over his fine skills. he also has some speech but to a stranger he would be very difficult to understand. His speech was also very slow. Eventually he went off to school and unfortunately I am not sure what his communication system was after that. It does make you think how technology has changed and how well he would do with one of these devices. I am not sure the Ipod touch would work for him due to his movement but I think an Ipad would be great since it is bigger. I am looking forward to finishing our project tomorrow and seeing how the different groups have designed their cells to suit the student.

For our system we decided to look at the social aspect while Sally learns to use the system. We did school so while designing we looked at all the different social situations she may be in during school time so that she would be able to communicate her wants and needs and to also communicate with her peers. I know it can go many ways so I look forward to seeing how others were thinking and where they thought to begin.

Class #3 - July 7, 2010

Ok, I am going to give this another shot but I have to admit I am a little frustrated at the moment. Earlier this evening I did up my whole blog and went to publish it but ended up loosing it all except the video. I think the mistake I made was that I left it in Html and I lost my written work. I think I am good now. I just clicked publish and it worked so thankfully I have all the kinks worked out.

Today in class we began with talking about the different assessment tools used to help identify the most optimal AT device for a particular person. We looked at the MPTT and the WATI. They seem to be very intense assessments that cover all areas. They look at the user, the environment, the task and the time. For more information on the WATI look at the following link to give you a detailed description.

http://www.wati.org/?pageLoad=content/supports/free/index.php

we also had the opportunity to look at the I pod touches and the program proloquo2go. This looks like an excellent tool to help someone communicate. Having the system in front of me helped make it more meaningful to me adn I was able to lick up very quickly how it works and how to design my own templates. I look forward to having a longer time to try out this program and to design a communication device for a certain child.

Day 2- July 6th

Today's class seemed to fly by very quickly and I was very interested in the many things that Barb had to share with us. At times I did feel a little overwhelmed but also confident that it will all fall into place as we have the opportunity to use some of the different AT that is available. I feel that I am very much a visual learner so until I am holding the device I have a hard time seeing its benefits. I benefit from having it right in front of me as we discuss it's benefits.

Class started with going over our blogs and how to set up the design and add some fancy gadgets. I know with playing around with it for a few days I will have a good handle of how it works. I am having difficulty with embedding videos but I will give it one more try tonight and see if it works.

We got to see another inspiring video of a young boy names Tyler. It was remarkable how many different types of assisstive technology that he has in order for him to participate fully in his class. He is at the top of his class academically and is going into french immersion. It would take a tremendous amount of work to implement a full program for him. I think it does make a difference that he was very fortunate to have early intervention so that programs were put into place early on. I look at some of the students at my own school and even though they have implemented some AT I think there is so much more that could be done for these students. I know one of our students with autism would benefit greatly form the I Pod touch. He has autism and is essentially non verbal but is doing a lot of work that is at grade level (grade 3). Our student in grade 6 who has cerebral palsy has just received an assisstive technology device to help her communicate. It is a computer that is attached to the side of her wheel chair. She only received it this year and because I was in the other end of the building I didn't get a chance to see exactly how it worked. I think I will inquire how it works and how they felt it worked for her. I am not sure if she uses it enough throughout the day to get the full benefit of it or enough practice with it. It stays at the school adn it is used during her day.

An important topic from todays class that was discussed was the 3 important things that we must have to be able to communicate is 1) a communication partner
2) joint language
3) common language
Without these three things it is very difficult to communicate effectively. I think communication is a way for us to relay what we want or need to say, our desires and for companionship. Everyone needs to be able to communicate in some way whether it be through voice, body language, hand signs or a device but without this I could not imagine how lonely it would be for someone who is not given the opportunity to communicate. We have to sometimes look past the voice at other ways to communicate.

Class #1

Today was my first class of my Masters in Inclusive Education. I must say that I am truly looking forward to this class. Our introduction today has certainly caught my attention and is making me really look forward to the class content.

I will take a step back before continuing on about today's class. When I think of AT I think of communication devices but this is far from the truth. Reading the first article before we began classes gave me much to think about. Assisstive Technology can be anything that will help a student (person) function in their everyday lives. It does not have to solely be an electronic device nor does it have to be only for communicating. I am glad I read this article first so that I was able to open my mind to many other support devices.

During our first class we had the privilege of watching a video titled "Autism is a World" by Sue Rubin. This was an amazing video that gave us the prospective of an adult with autism and how she perceives the world and how she feels people perceive her. The fact that she was able to communicate using the keyboard without very little educational training goes to show just how much she took in over the years even though people around her did not see that she had the potential to learn. I would have to wonder how much training it took for her to learn to use this device and the persistence her family and support workers must have had to work toward this goal of communication. It was evident that she had a very strong support network that believed that she was capable of learning. Even watching her in her university classes she didn't look like she was paying attention but could answer the questions asked by the professor.

The other side that we see of Sue is her autistic tendencies that she continues to have. She knows that she looks silly carrying around spoons but it is her security and makes her feel safe. She also has other behaviors that she does to help her relax and regroup (water and spoons). One thing that I found interesting is that her support staff did not try to eliminate these autistic tendencies but allowed her to have times throughout her day to with draw into her world.

The other thing we talked about today was how some students were supported in the classroom using the I pod touch. I would have never thought that this tool could be so useful. We had the opportunity to see different students and how they use the I pod in their everyday use. I think this opens up many new opportunities for students to better communicate with their peers. I can see this being a very useful tool for many students. I look forward to trying out the many different apps to see how it will benefit a wide range of students.