We’re in the mood to play! – 1. AbleGamers Foundation: http://www.ablegamers.com/ 2. Free from Shiny Learning: http://www.shinylearning.co.uk/freegames/ 3. Assistive Gaming: http://www.assistivegaming.com/ 4. Switch Games from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/by/type/switchgames 5. Switch Effect’s Gamebase: http://www.gamebase.info/home.html – Let the (accessible) games begin!
– If you follow our blog, you know that last month we had lots to say on making, teaching, and using Visual Schedules. We ran out of time before we could discuss a question that comes up a lot in our own clinical practice. What role does choice-making play in visual schedules? Here are some of the things we think about when we consider this for the schedules we make and use. We all like to have some say in what we do. Giving the learner an opportunity to make choices in a schedule makes sense when personal autonomy is a priority. Allowing the learner to choose which activities to place on the schedule supports personal autonomy: Having control over what happens in our lives is a big part of happiness for most people. – Here’s how we might do that with a visual schedule for a therapy session. 1.Select... [Read More...]
If March was as busy for you as it was for us, then you may have missed some of these posts. Grading exams, meeting with students, clinical paperwork, grant-writing, teaching, travel, etc. Know wonder we’re tired! Enjoy this bit of catch-up. – The Fives 5 Great Resources for Helping Individuals with Vision and Hearing Loss AAC on the Go: 5 Tips for Traveling with AAC Tech it Up’- 5 Visual Schedule Apps 5 Resources for AAC Data Collection 5 Tips to Make AAC Assessments Run Smoothly 5 References to Support AAC Use – PrAACtical Thinking 1. The Secret to Succeeding At Anything 2. National Quilting Day & Employment 3. AAC and March Madness 4. Games are More Than Fun… Gaming for ALL 5. Hearing the Knock 6. HijAACked! AAC & Anti-Bullying with Stand Tall, Mary Lou Melon! 7. Emergencies and Resources to Help 8. Random Acts of Kindness 9. Do... [Read More...]
Please check out the most recent set of suggestions here. We love getting EVERYONE involved in Autism Awareness Month. We like to take a goal focused approach to our Autism Awareness Month activities by choosing projects that facilitate positive attitudes & discussions. We pass out materials, have contests, go to events, do extra talks, and try and engage EVERYONE we know and even some we do not know. We do a lot of shopping (with small amount of money, but we have to EAT and accessorize). Our families, pets, friends, and students all participate. It is a month filled with purposeful fun. Here are some of the things we will be doing. Please share any activities or projects that you know about. Bake, share, & eat some desserts. Need inspiration?.. try these Puzzle Piece Rice Crispy Treats Join the webinar Autism Explosion by Dr. Coplan will be shown... [Read More...]
There’s nothing more depressing to us than walking into a classroom in the spring and seeing pristine visual schedules. Why? Because it probably means that the students aren’t really using them. We cheer when we see schedules that are rumpled and dog-eared, not shiny. Show me a battered and tattered visual schedule, and I’ll show you one that gets used every day. Sadly, that’s not always the case. – The bridge between having a visual schedule and consistently using it is one that many learners don’t seem to cross. Here are some of our ideas for helping your AAC learners to the other side. – 1. Have a plan to teach the schedule. If you are working one-on-one with a learner, you can easily implement the schedule and get them using it with most-to-least prompting. If you’re working with a group or a classroom, consider staggered implementation. Teaching 12 beginners... [Read More...]
When people think about visual schedules, they tend to think about a classroom schedule with PCS for each major activity of the day. These are great and we look for them whenever we do classroom visits. In this post, we hope to inspire some of you to use other types of visual schedules as well. We haven’t quite worked out the right terms for these (and we welcome your suggestions) but, conceptually we know that there are three main levels of visual schedules. Each level conveys information about what is happening in a specific segment of time. – At the Calendar Level, the schedule represents what’s happening throughout the month and/or week. – At the Schedule Level, we’re representing the events of a particular day, a portion of a day, or a session (or class period). – At the Task Level, the schedule reflects discrete steps of an activity or... [Read More...]
We have been writing a lot about schedules. Schedules can be created by using tools ranging from no-tech to high tech. Here are 5 great visual schedule apps to help with ‘teching’ up the process. We think it is important to let you know that ALL of the app developers provide information about the rationales behind schedules and visual learning which adds to our educated AAC consumers. One of our priorities in ‘blogging’ was to get the information about AAC systems and visual strategies out to more people with the hope that AAC systems will be provided to ALL cpeople who would need it It is great to see app developers prioritizing this as well. **Just 2 notes: for our own personal and business schedules we still use a combination of no-tech to high-tech options) and apps are listed in no particular order Choice Works $14.99 by BeeVisual + designed... [Read More...]
Visual schedules come in all shapes and sizes. The process of deciding which one to use begins with two questions: What is the purpose of this particular visual schedule? How will it be used? Both of these drive the decisions you make about which format to use. If my primary purpose in making the visual schedule is to help a student become more independent in following the steps in a task, and I know the person is going to be seated at a desk while doing this, I may choose a horizontal layout that shows the sequence. Because it is a school-aged child and we are activity working on literacy skills, I consider a stationary format on the desk surface that has the student use a check-off system. Having the student cross out or check off the steps as they are completed, gives authentic practice with writing skills. On the... [Read More...]
Here’s a riddle for you. Read the clues and guess what tool or strategy we’re talking about. Clue #1: It’s used in almost every classroom and therapy room serving students with ASD. Clue #2: The one for Johnny looks almost the same as the one for Jenny. Clue #3: It looks as nice in June as it did in September. If you guessed visual schedules, you’ve just named our March Strategy of the Month. Visual Schedules? But everybody already uses those. Why post about those? — Here’s why. – They’re ubiquitous. And yet when we talk with educators and SLPs about how the children are doing with their schedules, we get a look and a shrug. “Okay, I guess.” To be sure, okay is better than not okay. But visual schedules have so much potential to make lives better for clinicians, educators, and people with AAC needs that okay isn’t... [Read More...]
I was in the mall with my teenage daughter yesterday (because that is her favorite place to go) and we saw a group of adults with developmental disabilities. Some of the group members were in wheelchairs and others walked. It appeared that they were on a ‘field trip’ or community outing. My daughter has been ‘working’ with me since she participated as a ‘typical’ peer for various pragmatic groups while she was in preschool. She has been known to regularly (and not always so quietly) identify people who I must know since “they probably go to my clinic”. This would occur even if we were nowhere close to the geographical location of ‘my’ clinic. She has been known to find people who probably need my services so I can help them ‘talk better’. Although my daughter seems to be doing a lot of identifying without any formal training, I have to... [Read More...]