Pixon Project

Pixons are symbols representing a variety of language concepts for creating manual communication boards for nonverbal students.  I recently saw Gail Vantatenhove explain this kit and the way that her group of developers came up with the symbols.  By combining "old school" augmentative communication techniques, including color-coding backgrounds of symbols based on language function (verbs-green, nouns-orange, etc.) and organizing pictures in order to create sentences ( it used to be called the Fiitzgerald Key but no one knows that anymore) she reminds us of the importance of language first.  I love all the communication apps that are out there for iPad/iPod Touch........but it is so important to look at the language structure our students need and not just providing basic choice-making.    Using manual Pixon symbols can provide core words for teaching a wide range of communication functions and  help prepare  students for eventual speech generating device use or serve as a bridge to learning language.  I've put Minspeak symbols on low tech devices (Go Talk - Super Talker) to teach multi-meaning icons to students but am loving the Pixon symbols for this purpose - either as a manual board or on speech generating devices.    Her kit comes with two pre-made boards - one designed as a mobile board with pages in a customized portable pouch - and the other one a one-page board with core and extended vocabulary.  You also got 4 CD's that contain numerous pre-made boards and symbols that can be used independently or imported into Boardmaker.
All set to give it a go!

For more information, go to the AAC Institute website Pixon Project informatoin at  http://www.aacinstitute.org/Resources/ProductsandServices/Pixons/PixonSheet.pdf

Lights, Camera, WAIT!!!

Video modeling is an effective, research based strategy for teaching students with autism and other developmental disabilities.  But often people try to put too much stuff into the videos and make them too long.  By trying to address too many behaviors in one video, we confuse the learner and dilute the main skills we are trying to teach. Besides video modeling and self-modeling, I've seen students benefit from video prompting (teaching a skill step-by-step) and video feedback (watching a scenerio play out and evaluating self or others).  Consider what you want the learner to learn from the video and decide which strategy meets your goal.

Video modeling and video self-modeling works best when you keep these tips in mind:

• target 1-2 specific behaviors to address per video
• keep the video clips short
• overall project should be no more than 2 minutes
• storyboard each scene and shoot them separately
• use simple narration to explain activity

There are lots of ways to capture video - cell phones, Flip cameras, video features of digital still cameras, and digital video cameras.  Free editing programs often come with your camera or can be found in in Mac and Windows operating systems.  Tanslating the video format file to put on an iPod  Touch or iPad can be tricky.  My favorite conversion software is called "Free iPod Video Convertor" at http://www.koyote.com/.  You need a program that will convert video to .mp4 - the format used in iPods - if you want to make the video portable.  Of course, it can be burned to a CD and viewed on a DVD player (some kids watch them in their parents' van on the way to outings).

To learn more about creativing videos to use with students with disabilites, check out the all day workshop that I'll be presenting with Liz Farmer, Behavior Consultant, this summer in Indianapolis.  Details coming soon!