Videos

Communication is a two-way process; therefore, successful implementation of an AAC device depends as much on the skills of the person using AAC as it does on those of the communication partners. This session will provide an overview of the characteristics, roles, and responsibilities of communication partners working with people who use AAC, with a focus on aided language input. Shared reading will be discussed as a vehicle for learning to use aided language input to support device implementation and facilitate language learning. Participants will have the opportunity to put it to practice through a hands-on activity.

The focus of this webinar will be taking an “in-depth” look at various aspects of access, including scanning, eye gaze, equipment, activity, classrooms, school days, and an individual student functioning within a group and alone independently. As a whole, this process is akin to a journey. Students are often expected to perform and demonstrate their consistency of use of AAC and AT, but the fact that education also offers the opportunity to learn should not get lost in the shuffle. Creating opportunities for students within their environments can be daunting, but we cannot forget creating opportunities within which children learn is the school experience. This session will help us recognize the BIG PICTURE and create those opportunities.

Assistive Technology (AT) is an essential component of success for transition-age students with complex needs. Students who have the opportunity to experience and use a variety of tools in school for such tasks as communication, organization, navigation, and recall are more likely to transition successfully to adult life. This session will provide participants with a fresh perspective on the role of AT in transition as well as provide guiding questions and suggestions for addressing AT during multiple points throughout IEP development.

This session will explore comprehensive emergent literacy instruction and assistive technology options for students with complex instructional needs. Emergent literacy is the foundation upon which conventional literacy skills develop, but the nature of complex disabilities creates barriers to participation in early literacy experiences. Students with significant disabilities stagnate in their literacy growth unless school teams systematically create access to comprehensive instruction. This session will demonstrate how school teams can analyze the nature of a student’s disabilities to create access (both with assistive technology and with changes to their instruction) to participation in shared reading, listening comprehension, alphabet instruction, phonological awareness, word study, and writing for all students.

This "hands-on" lab will be a continuation of the morning workshop titled Configuring and Teaching AT Tools for Complex Computer Access. Knowing how to integrate systems is critical to creating more efficient and independent learning environments for students with complex bodies. The most commonly available powered chairs, with computers and on-screen keyboards, will be available to allow participants to work with the remote programmers, joysticks, and alternative head array access for use with the computer, using "Bluetooth" access, as well as wireless and hard-wired access. The presenters will focus on mouse emulation, directed mouse access, as well as scanning in this session. In this "lab" experience, the presenters will focus on both configuring the equipment and teaching its use.

This session will focus on the knowledge and skill needed by assistive technology decision makers supporting students with complex needs, in order to consider, introduce, and teach use of specialized equipment that will allow these students to participate and achieve. The presenters will share what powered systems are currently available and how the programmable electronics and hardware integrate with augmentative systems and computer access, including how we can teach more efficient scanning, mouse emulation, and directed or direct selection with on-screen keyboarding, using case studies.

This webinar’s focus will be on the analysis and applications of the configuration(s) needed of the actual access equipment, its relationship to the user and other equipment, and control of the equipment to be accessed. Discussion will demonstrate how to evaluate features of the equipment to be accessed, analyze the access of that equipment, and determine how the software is organized and configured, as well as how it may change for each student.

When supporting young children and students in their learning with the use of assistive technology, it is critical that switch use is understood, available, and readily implemented. Switch use and its applications need to be encouraged by all members of the student’s support team, including teachers, paraprofessionals, occupational therapists, speech therapists, physical therapists, and all other learning support staff. This workshop will focus on the switches themselves, what is currently available, how they work, how they are used, and how decisions of implementation need to occur, with shared successful strategies of assessment and use. This workshop is truly for those adults who are beginning their journey in AT support, and for all other adults who work with students who need or will need to use switches and assistive technology, especially for augmentative communication, computer access, task participation, and powered mobility. This workshop will contain many examples of real students and their journeys with their use of AT and switch use.

When supporting young children and students in their learning with the use of assistive technology, it is critical that switch use is understood, available, and readily implemented. Switch use and its applications need to be encouraged by all members of the student’s support team, including teachers, paraprofessionals, occupational therapists, speech therapists, physical therapists, and all other learning support staff. This workshop will focus on the switches themselves, what is currently available, how they work, how they are used, and how decisions of implementation need to occur, with shared successful strategies of assessment and use. This workshop is truly for those adults who are beginning their journey in AT support, and for all other adults who work with students who need or will need to use switches and assistive technology, especially for augmentative communication, computer access, task participation, and powered mobility. This workshop will contain many examples of real students and their journeys with their use of AT and switch use.

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