the wild child

We have created a monster.

A very tricky monster who has worked out it is ‘hilarious’ to give wrong answers to questions being asked.

Thankfully his facial expressions are a clear giveaway when he is mucking around. It’s nice to know he would have been a hopeless ‘verbal liar’ sans brain injury.

The big boys at school have been teaching him all about the importance of an ‘irreverent NO’ when asked to do something.

They are empowering him to be in control, they are empowering him to be ‘silly, funny and tricky’.

It is amazing to watch the excitement and enthusiasm the kids have for Mac’s new ability to communicate. They have embraced the Macaw & yes/no switches with gusto and, subsequently, I think we will end up with a team of ‘programmers’ from the student body for the Macaw.  

I guess it’s one way to ensure suitably inappropriate (but current) utterances will appear.

to the Max!

His eyes lit up when he spotted it.  

“What’s that coloured thing?” he asked.  It was Mac’s Macaw AAC device.

“Its a new talking box to help Mac make some choices and ask questions in class”, I explained to Mac’s friend Max as they came out of class together at the end of the day.

“How?” Max enquired further.

So we showed him.  

Mac pressed the button for it to say “Hi, how are you?”… Max grinned.

Mac pressed the button again and it said “What have you been doing?”…

At that Max rolled his eyes…

“Maccy, you KNOW what we
                       have been doing, pfft!”

 

At least I know the kids will keep us ‘honest’ making sure anything we put on the Macaw is relevant and useful.

I love these guys.

 

 

expectations and adaptations

I love this picture…

Titled “The Journey”, I recently purchased it from Katrien Janin (artist) off her store on Etsy.

She allowed me to use the digitial image in a presentation I recently did on the importance of inclusion from early childhood.

It just works…

You can visit Katrien’s shop on Etsy to see more of her art.

 

CLICK LOGO TO VISIT

yes! no!

The yes/no options with switches are working well – very easy to incorporate.

I know it is only a starting point but this is what I learnt from Mac when I asked him about his day…

• His teacher today was Mrs C and his aide was R.  
• They didn’t make planes but they did make ships.  
• He did some numbers and he knows that seven is bigger than four.  
• He also told me that two plus three (2+3) does not equal four, seven or nine but it does equal five.  
• 23 is bigger than seven and 32 is not bigger than 43.  
• He does not like the yes/no buttons but he does love them.  
• He doesn’t want anything to drink nor does he want anything to eat, but he does want the TV on.  

He was consistently pressing the buttons with his feet and because I tend to watch his face, his expressions as I read them were matching his foot answers.  I know all except whether they did numbers today were appropriate answers.

The benefit of the physical answers with the switches is that it tends to keep you engaged for a little longer regardless of whether the answers are right or wrong.   This is way more than I would ever have managed to drag out of Mac’s cousins when they were his age – but then you don’t tend to ask yes/no questions – maybe we should.

Yesterday in class he was asked by his teacher whether he liked chocolate – she said he used his cheek to quickly hit the yes three times.  Still a chocoholic it seems.

Danny the Navman

My mindset is changing.  I am starting to see more and more new opportunities for Mac to be exposed to more auditory information because of his significant vision impairment.

I have always tried to remember to tell him where we are going in the car – but do forget on a fairly regular basis.

On our recent trip away we borrowed my Dad’s ‘Navman‘ (GPS device) because I was driving in unfamiliar territory (and a city) so I was needing to just concentrate on the roads & traffic.  

I am so impressed by how fantastic these devices are and, as an aside, am sure the divorce rates will decrease significantly if we mandate for one in every car.  

But what I really loved is the feedback this device provides Mac (maybe anyone with a vision impairment).  

Danny (our chosen voice) the Navman tells where we are going and what we are doing.  When he says “in 200 metres turn right” Mac gets the idea we are still going straight ahead for now.  Then, in a short timeframe we generally come to a stop, Danny says “turn right” and Mac is exposed to the vestibular sensation of turning right.  When Danny says “continue on the freeway for 358km” Mac will soon learn we have a fair distance to cover.

I had never anticipated this ‘bonus’ to these GPS devices.  I had always thought I wanted one so I could find accessible toilets in unfamiliar towns, or accessible routes when on foot & wheel – I am not 100% sure if these options are available – I guess they might be on the ‘higher end’ products.

Provided I can tolerate Danny’s ‘yapping’ I could use this on any trip, (school, town, shops etc) and Mac will be exposed to heaps of information I hadn’t anticipated.  It doesn’t even need to be in the front with me on the basic trips we do – it could be back with Mac.  I can use it as a prompter/reminder to teach him about so many different aspects of road use/travel/transport.  And, because it is in the car it will remind me to tell him where we are going and what we are doing.

So, I guess a ‘Navman is in our future’.  Now just to save up…  unless Santa decides to drop one in Mac’s Xmas stocking this year,  hmm I might have to discuss this with Mac.

she said… he said!

Mac has just spent a week of his school holidays with Rosemary Crossley at DEAL communications in Melbourne.

It has probably been one of the more incredible weeks of our life.

We spoke with Rosie some months back to determine who, if anyone, she recommended for us to see. We knew Mac had a yes ‘facial expression’ but we needed help with the next step of getting consistent yes/no options for him. We were starting to get overwhelmed with the next step in technology to better allow him to access more learning and increase his chances/options for communication.

The upshot, she recommended herself, so we trotted off to Melbourne knowing this was the best option for Mac and us. Within two hours Rosie had provided Mac a YES/NO option using two jellybean switches with his feet being the ‘conduit’ for his decisions. His cheeks will work equally as well, but as I was more unfamiliar with him using his feet we concentrated on them this week.

The rest of the week focussed on helping Mac develop a process for auditory step scanning.

Rosie’s piece of technology of choice for Mac is the Macaw 3. It is an older piece of equipment but it’s capabilities are perfectly suited to Mac’s needs… and the best bit, it bounces, it is a sturdy bit of kit.

Mac uses his left foot and a jelly bean switch for auditory scanning where he controls moving through the choices and removes his foot when he reaches the desired answer. The machine then repeats his answer more loudly to show that is what he is wanting to say (as opposed to the quieter scanning volume while he is making his choice).

Some of Mac’s appointments with Rosie went for 4+ hours. He was incredibly tolerant and determined. I know he is a great natured little kid, but it was nice to hear Rosie comment on how much she enjoyed working with him because he just ‘kept on going’. He did ‘nod off’ mid switch at one stage, but it was a fleeting micro-sleep, then we pushed on.

So where to from here…

Our directive from Rosie is that Mac needs to be accessing the same curriculum as the other kids but designed for a ‘blind child who won’t/can’t use braille’. She believes his level of cognition is easily on par with his peers and therefore we need to keep pushing him along the mainstream curriculum that is merely made accessible, not ‘dumbed down’.

This is the first time anyone has suggested to us that Mac may not have a developmental disability.

It is generally assumed based on his physical condition, lack of vision that there is most likely cognitive delays… but it seems, this is not so!

Some of the questions Mac was answering were pretty interesting.

• We now know for sure he is a Sydney Swans (AFL) supporter.
• He thinks I am meaner than Rosie. 
• He’s pretty good with his numbers.
• He knows the wolf didn’t actually eat the three little pigs.
• He knows which letter he needs to turn ‘mat’ into ‘mate’ and ‘hat’ into ‘hate’… although he did suggest we ask him something else when asked to spell ‘dog’ (funny kid).

He did remarkably well on comparative relationships including:

• are watermelons bigger than apples?
• are lemons sweeter than chocolate?
• is night darker than day?
• are parents older than their children?

And even better on the passive relationship with questions including:

• John was hit by Eric, was Eric hit?
• Mary was driven by Alice, was Alice driven?
• Paul was chosen by Steve, was Paul chosen?

These are great insights for school. We will now be able to have a more focussed approach with a much clearer IEP. We now have the opportunity for Mac to be challenged and, subsequently, the ability to collate results and progress more readily.

On reflection I do believe all early intervention and early childhood services need to set goals far higher than they do.  I guess I always suspected they needed to (as did Mac, explains why he disliked it so much) now I KNOW they do.

They all need to set a goal for consistent YES/NO by any method as a basic requirement for every student.   Communication is power, communication is opportunity.  

Any centre, therapist (or even school) who sets a goal below this should be challenged – we all need to play a role in demanding higher expectations for all children… after all the the least dangerous presumption is that of competence, we all know that… now we need to ‘DO THAT’.

Mac’s world has just grown from one with reasonable (primarily because we don’t think small) but limited opportunity to unimaginable, endless opportunity.

This is a wonderful place to be.

60 seconds from PDF to PPT

Need some PDF files converted to Keynote or Powerpoint to use for switch adapted access (or any other reason)… here’s my solution, happy to hear others.

CLICK SNAPSHOT TO OPEN

did you know?

I stumbled across something a few weeks ago… it was one of those, potentially, ‘too good to be true’ finds… so, I kept it to myself until I knew for sure…

But here it is because amazingly, wonderfully, it IS true!

School readers in an electronic format.

Cengage Learning Australia is described as being

a leading provider of learning solutions in the school and higher education markets of Australia and New Zealand. As well as marketing the US school, higher education and library reference product, Cengage publishes a successful range of indigenous products for school and university education.

Our school uses many of their guided reading products – they are highly regarded.

But, here’s the ‘great bit’. Cengage Learning can supply their titles in an electronic format for students with a print disability when you purchase their hard copies.

Here’s the info from their website (click to explore their site).

So, we have submitted our first request of books with many to follow.

Six books in PDF format arrived yesterday and we have converted them into a format to allow for switch accessible eBooks for Mac (the child not the computer – the books can be viewed on any platform).

We will gradually add audio into the books which might be a nice learning experience for the other student to be involved in developing the audio files to insert into the eBooks.

I am surprised I ‘chanced’ on this information in Term 3. This is information the DET intetgration and inclusion officers should be aware of and pass on readily. The teachers admitted they never thought to ask the question but now know what to ask for in the future.  And really, this could (and should) make the difference between schools/teachers choosing one company over another.

For Cengage this is certainly something they should be proud of. From what I can gather they are leading the way and clearly have demonstrated a commitment to accessible education – possibly a campaign to share this information with the schools could be beneficial (if they can cope with the potential demand).

Well done Cengage Learning Australia…

Oh, by the way… I haven’t stopped smiling, I am so impressed by the incredible solution this provides for so many kids.

chucking a sickie?

Mac stayed away from school on Wednesday.  There was a dreadful dust storm and we decided that two days in the dust for someone with potentially ‘titchy lungs’ was not a wise move.

So Mac stayed at home.  We snuck out briefly to get Mac a long overdue haircut.  (If kids didn’t have wear hats at school it would be fine, a good slab of hair product to keep it high and spiky works a treat… but when you have to put the obligatory school hat on your head and then it goes flat and pokes you in the eye.  On weekends he was able to get around with ‘mad’ hair, not so at school)

Thursday the sky was clear and school was on the agenda.  Mac wasn’t enjoying breakfast but we thought he was just tired.  He started to get quite distressed so I picked him up to give him a hug and he was boiling hot… a raging temperature.  So… no school Thursday.

Friday he was still spiking some temps with no other symptoms so yet again, a day at home.  

We did have to call in at the school on Friday afternoon to collect one of the other kids and pop round to her house.  As we wandered over to the playground some of his classmates spotted him.  Out of the classroom ran about eight of the Kindy kids, checking up on their friend, telling him they missed him, checking he wasn’t too sick, and determining just what, in fact, the actual illness was.  Mac was grinning from ear to ear not looking one bit sick.

When bell rang his ‘posse’ of senior friends spotted him, over they ran, checking up on him.  When they asked him if he was sick he gave the most evil smile as if to say ‘nuh, just pretending’.  So they now think he was ‘wagging’ which apparently is pretty cool.

The temps have now turned into sinus and hayfever, most likely a result of the dust.  He is a bit miserable so here’s hoping he is well for Monday.  He misses being at school as much as the kids miss having him there.

a wonderful ‘Prezi’

 

I love nothing better than finding smart software that has the potential to open up Mac’s world (oh, and mine).

Here’s my latest favourite… Prezi.com

A potential alternative to Powerpoint, Keynote, SwitchIt Maker – gotta say… “it’s a good bit of gear”.

I have just re-done Mac’s news about wombats for this practice run.   And I do plan to use it for some of my own presentations next month.

Have a look and see what you think.

I haven’t quite worked out the best way to add audio to it at this stage.  I could just sit tight as I think there will probably be new audio options in Prezi in the future that might be a little more user friendly.

I think Prezi would be a nice option for online books where you can zoom in on parts of the pictures as the audio is playing, or zoom in through the pictures to the next part of the story.

It got me thinking… when I think of e-books I was tending to assume they should be ‘book-like’ in looks and presentation… Prezi is letting me see this need not be the case, they could actually be more interactive and more fluid.

To move through the presentation you just click on the [PLAY] arrow or under the [MORE] button you can put it into AutoPlay.  For Mac, the ultimate addition would be to ensure you could assign a USB switch or mouse click macro to move through the presentation without worrying if the mouse pointer had moved off the play button.

touch tablet

Here’s a good introductory video by “leopardsoup” on YouTube reviewing the ‘just released’ Wacom Bamboo Touch (touch tablet).

This would be a great little option to combine with a head switch (or switches in general) for Mac and others with physical impairments.  

I think it is selling for about $70USD.  I can see great potential for adding it to the computer driving the electronic whiteboard at school and allowing Mac to have some opportunity to move the mouse curser to where he wants without relying on the mouse.  I am assuming it won’t get ‘hot’ like the tablet computer does so could even sit on/near his lap and would allow for the computer screen to be placed in an optimal position (which varies depending on the day with Mac).

Another example of ‘access on main street’ – we love accessible products under $100.  I wonder if something like this could eventually be wireless?

music for all?

one solution….

The SKOOG™

 

 

 

 

Click the thumbnail above to have a look  - very cool.

Their website says

Skoogmusic’s flagship tactile musical interface, The Skoog™, offers accessibility and expressive control over the sound of traditional musical instruments using cutting edge “musical play” technology.

The Skoog™ is ideally suited for use on its own or in groups, by teachers and children with or without musical training. The interface is highly intuitive and can be customised to meet individual needs, offering accessibility, scope for progression, musical depth and learning.

Its’ flexibility, playability and sound quality ensures a rewarding musical experience for all.

I am not sure if it is available in Australia yet, but will certainly keep it in mind for the future (on the ever growing WISH list).

good ‘n bad

There are times when choosing the path to ensure your child is able to access an ‘ordinary, inclusive life’ is plain tough.   I knew there would be times where I would feel like all we do is battle, where you have a permanent ‘brick wall imprint’ on your forehead, where you just feel like no-one ‘gets it’.

Thankfully there is always good things to come of the bad.  

For instance, Mac couldn’t go to school on Friday, there was no aide available for his classroom, everyone was away.  And, it seems, casual ‘Learning Support Officers’ within the district are not kept on a central database (I was surprised at that one…).  It was suggested I could volunteer my time to support Mac at school, but since I had some work deadlines I was trying to meet it didn’t seem fair I should give up my wage and time for “no wage and loss of time”.  So, we stayed home for the day.  I worked, Mac coped (just) and we marveled at just ‘how wrong’ on so many levels the situation was.

So where’s the good in this?  Well, for starters the school now knows they have a problem and (hopefully) will be proactive in solving it (it hasn’t been resolved as at Monday but hopefully on the way to being fixed). 

But the best bit… I have been contacted by a couple of parents who have let me know just how ‘outraged’ their children were at Mac not being at school.  They said the kids just ‘knew in their hearts it was not fair’.

Mac has some fine advocates on his side albeit in the form of 10, 11 and 12 year olds.  

These young people will grow up knowing what’s right and what’s not – in reality… they already do.

sounds to words?

I don’t really know how rational this approach is – I am not sure it is in line with standard ’speech therapy practices’.  The question is… could Mac turn sounds he is capable of making into purposeful words?

Here’s an example of some of the sounds he can make…

  

 

  

    

His cousins love the fact they are HIS WORDS and they can play them to him at any time and encourage him to say them back.  

We think it might be nice to write a ’silly story’ where it can be punctuated by his sounds/words.

He is pretty hard to get on audio though.  He seems to know whenever you turn the voice memo option on the iPhone on.  He can be ‘yabbering away’ until you bring the recorder into the near vicinity – then he just mouths his sounds, won’t make a noise.

He also has a car, go and yar trio of sounds we would like to get on audio.  Go and yar are pretty good sounds to push for with “yar” being “yes” – shame he isn’t Canadian – he’d be sorted.

I do like the fact that having these on his iPod means others at school can hear the sounds he can make and then are more likely to encourage them.  I am working on his current ‘vocab’ sheet for school so they can encourage more verbal output from him.

a masterful maneuver

We should never underestimate the might and will of 5 & 6 year olds.   There is healthy competition for the right to have Mac as your reading partner each morning in class.  Some of the kids certainly ‘outwit, outplay, outlast’ their classmates.  Don’t even think about getting to school too early… the negotiations in the playground are ‘insane’.  

We tend to arrive just as the bell goes (or a little after, oops).  The process is, wheel into class, shift Mac, already sitting in the special tomato soft sitter clipped into his wheelchair, directly onto the soft sitter wheelbase for floor time.  It takes about 10 seconds – pretty quick set up.

The latest development is that two of his more ‘wily’ friends, Grace and Sophia, have cottoned on to the process and worked out a way to ensure Mac sits next to them.

On arrival I find they have already secured the wheelbase into position between them, reading to one another ACROSS the wheelbase, until such time as Mac arrives and is ‘inserted’ between them.

Then, of course, they both commence reading to him, at the same time, regardless of whether they have the same book or not – pretty funny.

The other ‘regular maneuver’ by the kids is that of putting away Mac’s ‘talking box’ (one-step communicator).  The child who packs it up generally places it a spot ONLY THEY know – therefore ensuring their role in helping the next day.

Clever kids!