Wii in Special Education

We started our Wii project this month at one of my highschools. It has been amazing to watch! The students, who have moderate or severe cognitive disabilities (some physical disabilities also) have taken the Wii challenge and are cleaning up. Each student made their individual "mii" character - a cartoon likeness of him or herself complete with appropriate glasses, hair, etc. This was a great way to learn how to use the Wii remote to access items. We are playing this game as a part of our students' adapted physical education class. Some of the kids have played the game before, but most have not. The first day we introduced playing tennis, one of our students with severe autism who is minimally verbal got the highest score! Another student(who has cerebral palsy, is nonverbal, and has limited arm movement) was able to return several serves and got 15 points. By hooking the Wii to a projector and showing it on the wall of the gym we make the image lifesize. It is also incredible to see the patience that the students have when they are waiting for a turn - these are students who have great difficulty transitioning between tasks. We are watching for the reactions of the students who have severe physical and cognitive deficts. Even though they made need hand over hand assistance, the kids are smiling and visually attending to the action. We are investigating adapting the Wii remote for switch use to give these students more options. More updates later!

There's an App for that...

The iPod Touch and iPhone are amazing assistive technology tools. There are many free applications as well as ones that cost as little as $10.00 all the way to $150.00 that can be use for communication and visual schedules. Proloquo2Go is a full-feature AAC software available for approximatley $150.00. It has a large library of symbols, natural sounding speech, functions of language for sentence construction, and typing view for typing paragraphs. On the other end, there is iConverse, a $10.00 program that lets you load your own photos (or screen shots of Boardmaker symbols) and assign text to the symbol that can be spoken aloud. The speech is more robotic sounding and there is less flexibility for programming, but it is $10.00 and it is a nice beginning step. Or, this is a great option for someone who needs visual prompts or schedules or a portable communication system so they dont' have to carry a larger device around in the community. I'm using this as an evaluation tool for my students before investing in additional applications. One of the snags I've run into with the iTunes store is their complete unwillingness to deal with tax exempt purchases. Public schools are tax exempt; however after lenghty discussion with many people at iTunes (from phone calls to online chats and emails)it is apparent that they don't understand or want to provide their products to tax exempt organizations. My last interaction with them ended with the statement "our products are designed for personal end use only". - I guess that means they don't want to sell to businesses, agencies, schools? Be creative and find a way around it, it's worth it.

How Many Crayons Are In Your Box?

I like the smell of crayons. No matter how old I am I always have an urge to buy a box of new crayons at the beginning of the school year. And not just the 24 colors - but the great big box with the built-in sharpener. I remember if you had that box as a kid, you were livin' large. These were essential tools in early elementary. While I didn't run out and buy crayons this year, I have been very fortunate to be able to add to my essential tools by purchasing new assistive technology equipment with the Education Stimulus Funds made available to public schools. This has included many useful items that will benefit students of all ages and abilities. There are so many items out there it can be overwhelming to choose. Parents and professionals alike often ask advice on what to purchase. For schools interested in AAC, I suggest looking at www.aactechconnect.com. Debby McBride, CCC/SLP, and her group offer a variety of tools for matching devices with features students need. They list all the major devices and comparison charts. Now, I think I may have to run out and look for crayons...I wonder if they make crayon-scented candles?