Children of the Sun Drum Troupe- Centre for Deaf and Hard of Hearing

I chose this video of the Children of the Sun Drum Troupe for my clip on children who are hard of hearing overcoming obstacles, because these children are the first Deaf and Hard of Hearing Drum Troupe on the continent. Their mission is to learn how to play music through African drumming and perform on stage in a variety of venues. They are sponsored by the Centre for Deaf and Hard of Hearing to instill confidence and promote musical self expression, appreciation and creativity while learning the discipline of music.

Working together and travelling together would give these children opportunities for musical self expression, while in a supportive environment.

I really enjoyed the video clip we saw today about all of the assistive technology that children had found the desire and determination to experience in order to achieve their potential in the area of physical activity. A real tear jerker!

I have really enjoyed this course, and have found it really helpful in my field of Learning Centre. I am just doing my Masters of Inclusion this Spring, and taught in a P-2 Learning Centre this past year and loved it !

Other than using Boardmaker for task strips and visual schedules, I have not had to use it to make communication boards, but I am looking forward to using itouches( proloquo to go), as well as Boardmaker Plus Communication boards and books in the future!

Thanks Barb- I will look for you in the Spring for the Assistive Technology Literacy course.

Bev Anthony

July 19th Boardmaker Plus Assignment

Today Terry and I continued work on our Boardmaker Plus dynamic communication boards and switch accessible book. We had finished the book on Grand Pre on Friday and were quite pleased with how it turned out! We finished our communication board today after class- we decided upon greetings, home, school anf friends as our main board. From the school section, we decided upon Math, Science, Social Studies and Language Arts. We were targetting Social Studies/Language Arts as our curriculum focus- with our Grand Pre switch adapted book, so we decided that would be our IPP/ Communication board focus as well.
I really enjoyed watchng and learnng from all the GREAT adapted materials the rest of the class presented today- interesting ideas and a wealth of information! I will never go into the dollar store with the same frame of mind again!

Assignment #3 ATT for Dollar Store Items:

Adaptive Technology for Dollar Store items:
The following are 10 items we saw at Dollarama in New Minas that could be adapted for a student with special needs…
1. Voice activated fly swatter that says, “gotcha”- pointer.
2. Water repellent ipod touch holder- polyester water bottle holder.
3. Gardening tools that could be adapted as mixing tools for baking.
4. Large Elastic Velcro strips- adaptable for many fastening uses.( ie: wheelchair arm usage)
5. Large clothespins- could be used as clips to turn pages on adapted books.
6. Large plastic utensils that could be used for children with fine motor difficulties- pincer grasp.
7. Squeeze balls with inserts for students with sensory issues.
8. Large gardening tools that could be used for leisure/life skills activities- play dough or cookie cutters.
9. Gardening gloves with padded palms for adaptive gripping
10. Large face badminton racquets- adaptive for students with perceptual space issues.

Assignment #3 AT Seekers and Inventors

Assignment #3 AT Seekers and Inventors
Morning Session
Terry Pike
Bev Anthony
Our student is a 10 year old girl in a wheelchair who wants to make play dough/cookies from the recipe her teacher has given to the class. She enjoys baking with her mother, but needs assistance from an adult to boil water and pour, (personality) The task is that she would like to be able to make cookies/play dough, but that the mixing utensils/ cookie cutters are hard for her to manipulate easily, as she has limited mobility with one arm ( simple grasp).
Task A: Using the MPTTT model, we searched the shelves of the dollar store to come up with low tech. assistive technology ( bulb planter- cookie/play dough cutter), as well as a garden trowel ( large mixing spoon to use in large bowl)

Using the kitchen at home as her milieu, she and her mother can use their leisure time to allow her to mix the ingredients with minimal assistance, using her large garden trowel spoon. She can also use the garden seed planter as a cookie cutter, she can create her own jam- jams and kool aid playdough. The timed factor means that she can create her cookies/play dough in about the same amount of time that her peers would need at home with their parents.
Task B: Again using the MPTTT model, we found that our 10 year old girl in the wheelchair wanted to socialize with her friends in her own back yard. It is the summertime, and her friends have chosen water play. Our student wishes to join in with her peers when they choose to use water guns, but she does not know how or have the dexterity to operate a normal dollar store water gun. As our student can only use one arm and a simple grasp, we wanted her to be able to participate in the leisure activity with her peers, from her wheelchair.
At the dollar store we found a large water gun, garden kneeling pad, sponge, long reusable velcro straps, ribbon and a water proof bottle holder(neoprene).
We wanted our student to be able to use her water gun with her dominant hand, but also keep her ipod touch close to her as she is non- verbal, but proficient with one handed ipod manipulation. ( Note: the modified device can be used on a right or left armed rest)
We used the colorful garden rubber kneeling pad as our support frame for the wheelchair arm- comfortable and soft for her arm. The sponge was folded to support the water gun up on an angle for better range and also targeting! The waterproof bottle holder was attached by ribbon to the kneeling pad so she could keep her ipod touch close by- but safe from the water. The Velcro straps are elastic, and firmly attach the kneeling pad to the wheelchair. The straps could also be reusable for other purposes. From her spot in her chair, our student could easily participate with good aim on her water gun, as her arm would be well supported at a comfortable angle.
Using the MPTTT model, we found that our water gun( low tech technology), could be adapted for a 10 year old girl with skill set mentioned above,( personality) would allow her to participate in a leisure social activity with her friends (task), in her own back yard in the summer (milieu). Once adapted by her friends and mother, the time it takes her to use the water gun would be the same as her peers, and with similar accuracy(time).

July 15th Boardmaker Plus Presentation

We first watched an excellent American video- Integration, Meeting the Challenge.
It was very well done and explained how children with high needs are integrated successfully into the regular classroom setting. A big point with these students is that they all had 100% EPA support. A problem in our board is that students that should qualify for full support, because of documentation, are not receiving it due to budget restraints.
The second part of our class involved switches.We answered questions about uses, goals, criteria etc for switches. The difference between simple (touch)and speciality (eye blink) switches was examined also. I learned that there are several different types of switches: single. dual and multiple to name a few. I did not know the difference between a wafer ( joystick) and latched ( goes off after touching) switches.
The main point of today for me was... 2 main reasons for switches:
1. improve performance
2. task improvement

July 14th, Social Stories with IPhone

We had a lot of fun rewriting our social preparation script today. It was more diffcult than we originally thought to word our script appropriately for a 6 or 7 year old!
Luckily we were able to record our video yesterday with Elizabeth's iphone; so today we spent over an hour adapting and changing our script. We were able to cut and paste our video to fit our changing script, as we had allowed for extra footage yesterday. Oops... we forgot to add our annual/specific and strategies on integrating the script and video into our report!! Time to edit...
The second part of today involved looking at Boardmaker Plus. It involved designing and developing a dynamic communication board, as well as a switch acessible book for a single switch user.

July 13th Video Social Preparation Stories

Today was fun! My group of 4 decided to prepare a story for a child with Autism/ADHD and Turettes that I know who has great difficulty going into the Washrooms at school WITHOUT looking under the stalls while he is there. We have adapted this to include Marnie as "Sally". We had fun using Elizabeth's iphone to record our video for tomorrow, and we nailed down our 4 main ideas for our script. Tomorrrow morning we will plan our 4 grids.
With the example we created in class today for the student who is obsessed with the mirror, I liked the use of "quiet mouth" and the reminder to create in the first person and in the present tense.
A couple of comments:
1. I like to use an " OOPS" Preparation story for those frequent times when schedules change in our schools beyond our control!
2. An SLP directed me to Super Dooper publications, which carries many wonderful resourses for children with Autism/ADHD.

Thanks for reading!
Bev