Technology gives kids with special needs the power to learn

For those of you wondering about specialized applications of technology within a special education classroom, we have found an article that outlines ways in which you can help children with a wide range of disibilities.

T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education), June 1988

One word gets mentioned repeatdly whenever educators discuss the role of computers in specail ecuations: "potential."
There's a dual meaning behind; this word. Computers contain potent capabilities that are helpful in teaching children with disabilities. And students, in turn, are able to learn more, thus achieving a greater amount of their natural potential.
Appropriate Hardware
Appropriate technologies are already being used by teachers of learning-disabled children and students with physical or mental handicaps.
Microcomputers outfitted with special assistive devices and kids with motor-skill difficulties. Many of these devices are designed to provide an alternative to the ordinary keyboard. Keyguards, touch tablets and screens, and membrane keyboards are some examples.
For students with more servere physical handicaps, specialized skin-contact buttons, reed or puff switches, headpointers and even eyebrow switches can be used.
One particular product is widely used in spcial education. The Adaptive Firmware Card from Adaptive Peripherals, Inc. of Seattle, Wash., is for Apple IIe and II+ computers. It allows those with physical disabilities to run off-the shelf software via any of 16 input methods.
These methods include scaning, for single-switch users; Morse code, for two-switch users; a slow-down mode; game-paddle emulation; and single-finger or headwand operation.
Certain general types of components and peripherals are also frequently utilized. Voice-recognition and speech-synthesis boards are in this category, as are computer porjectors and computer furniture that can be tailored to the handicapped individual.
The advent of the microchip has also spawned a new generation of communication aids.
For instance, Braille 'n Speak, from Blazie Engineering, is a pocket-sized, battery-operated note-taker with a Braille keyboard and speech output. And Light Talker, by Prentke Romich Co., is a device that uses an optical headpointer, speech synthesis and specail software to allow non-speaking students to "talk."
Appropriate Software
Software provides the other half of the microcomputer equation for special students.
Certain programs made for the general public are naturally adaptable for use in a special-education classroom. Keyboard redefnition packages, "big print" utilities for early readers, and products that incorporate auditory feedback in terms of speech synthesis are some examples.
Other packages come customer designed for special needs. For the visually imparied student there are Braille translators, "talking" programs and utilities that enlarge characters on-screen. Deaf children can use a language package called Alpha Project from Dunamis, Inc. that displays signs from the American Sign Language.
In addition, a number of lessoncreating packages offer a multisensory approach to learning. One example of this kind of program is EZ Pilot for PowerPad, also from Dunamis, Inc. Employing just eight main commands, it reads input from a powerPad touch tablet and can utilize sound, graphics and text in its lessons.
Special-education instructors and administrators have their own specific needs, often revolving around Individual Education Plans (IEPs). Appropriate software can definitely help.
SchoolBase III: Special Education, from K-12 Micro Media Publishing, is one such package Desgined to automate IEP-related tasks, it offers a pre-designed database, a text editor and a report generator that produces the required reports. Other software programs include IEP-specific functions among additional capabilities.
Learning Problems Targeted
Children with mental, physical or learning disabilities have certain kinds of learning problems. They cannot easily transfer skills from one environment to the next (generalization); maintenance (the staying power of acquired knowledge without reinforcement) is slow to occur; and they tend to be stimulus-bound.
Specialized software programs can employ multiple environments to assist with generalization, can vary both the type and rate of reinforcement to catalyze maintenance skills, and can alternate stimuli to prevent students from trapping themselves.
In Today's Classroom
The types of activities enhanced by the used of technology vary accroding to the needs of the students.
Providing physical access to a computer is the first hurdle for some. For example, in Michigan's Wayne County Intermediate School District, Barbara Stuart uses a Dunamis PowerPad to teach cause-and-effect concepts to children with severe mental and physical impairments.
Stuart says the touch tablet makes it easy for the kids to run "sometimes without any prompting at all" --the different software packages she incorporates into her lessons.
Bobette Pidgeon, computer coordinator for the Visually Handicapped Program in the Los Angeles Unified School District, tells how the VersaBraille portable Braille computing system from Telesensory Systems, Inc. is teamed with BEX software so that blind students can perform word processing.
The kids, in elementary and secondary grades, enter text on the Braille keyboard of the VersaBraille which is then connected to a computer. BEX, from Raised Dot Computing, runs on the computer and functions as a transition and translation program.
"It allows the students the independence of producing Braille and print hardcopy," says Pidgeon, "and is used for regular curricula coursework".
Another interesting example is the way John Franks, an instructor at Upper Lake High School in Lakeport, Calif., employs the Caption Master VCR from Instant Replay as part of a reading program for the hearing-impaired. The specialized VCR can record and play back closed-captioned video.
He gets his material from a number of sources. "Sometimes I rent closed-captioned movies," he says, "or I tape programs off TV, whatever grapb my imagination."
Franks feels that captioning helps students associate words with actions and things. "They're not just looking at words on paper -- it adds another dimension. And," he elaborates, "maybe it gives them a new reason to learn how to read."
Building Language Skills
Reading and language skills are often the conndestones to which new technologies are first applied in special education.
Some strategies appear deceptively simple. For instance, Jane Beatty's fourth-grade special-education class at New Dodson Elementary School in Nashville, Tenn., benefits from thje englarged printing offered by the Language Experience Recorder Plus program from Teacher Support Software.
A banner-print mode makes "chart stories" -- summaries of tales she has read aloud to the kids; 20-column printing creates a "big-print book" that she places on an easel so the class can read along with her; and for individual takehome copies, 40-column print is used.
Anita Wheeler, who teaches reading in Grades 2 to 6 at Miller School in Burbank, Calif., provides another good example. Her students have reading levels ranging from pre-primer to Grade 4. Wheeler exploits the speech synthesis feature of Dr. Peet's Talk/Writer software, from Hartley Courseware, Inc., to stimulate her classes.
"We use it for handling sight words," says Wheeler. "The kids type in words, and it reads them back to them. They get tactile, kinetic and auditory feedback."
Writing also gets attention. "The kids write a story," she explains, "and type in into the computer. Dr. Peet's reads it back. If they hear a misprounounced word, they know they've misspelled it, and they can begin to edit their own work.
Additionally, the software has been used to teach ABCs and letter sounds. "The program is so flexible that we are just beginning to explore its possibilities," Wheeler comments.
Flexibility Is Key
Flexibility is cited as one of the main reasons why the Multisensory Authoring Compouter System (MACS) is being incorporated into coursework at the Maryland School for the Blind. Developed at john Hopkins University, MACS creates "talking" lessons that can also include color, graphics, animation and text.
Instructor Margaret Reitz uses MACS lessons to teach partially sighted and motor-skills-impaired non-readers. Sessions start with identifying pictures and move toward matching words with pictures.
"MACS allows me to adjust all the parameters of a lesson so that the kids don't get furstrated," Reitz says. "Some of these kids have been at the same level for years, so this is important.
"A teacher of special education has to have a wide variety of activities. Since most students stay at one level for years, there's the danger of them getting bored," she explains. "MACS is unique in that it allows lots of change, including pictures, reinforcers, etc. Most software lets you change some things, but not everything, as MACS does.
Future Visions
In one way, MACS serves as a role model for future special-education-oriented software. It offers highly effective methods for instruction by means of multiple types of stimuli, feedback and reinforcements; its lessons can be tailored to the individual needs of the student; and it's easy to operate.
The ease-of-use factor is an important consideration in this type of software. Computers can be challenging enough for "ordinary" children to run. People with learning, mental or physical disabilities may not be able to operate them at all without the help of assistive hardware, custom software, or both.
Computers are already ingrained in modern society and modern education. As products for the special-needs population become more available, so will greater access to technology. And with access comes power -- the power to communicate and the power to learn.

Assistive technology is becoming more and more commonplace in classrooms around the country

Science Activities, Fall 2005

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), over 6 million school-aged children currently receive special education services. Nearly every general education classroom includes students with physical and/or learning disabilities, and now there are tools to assist these students.
Assistive technology is any item, piece of equipment, or system of products that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities. These adaptive technology tools now enable all students to become active participants in the general classroom environment. Some of the new technology innovations include:
* speech recognition systems,
* personal reading machines,
* talking calculators,
* video description,
* large print/screen magnification hardware and software,
* assistive listening devices, and
* captioning.
Students with disabilities are also being encouraged to access books and electronic media from laptops, wireless Internet systems, CD-ROMs, and e-books. The U.S. Department of Education allotted over $11 billion in grant funds in 2004 for the development of technology-based programs. Go to www.ed-techonline.com to access a comprehensive Web-based directory of this and other grants geared toward increasing the assistive technological capacity in your school. Additional information and statistics about technology in the classroom are available at www.bridgemultimedia.com.

Technology and Special Education Students

As we embark upon the 21st century, students find themselves immersed in the technology world with the widespread creation and accessibility of video games, computers, and cellular phones. Not only is technology used for fun and personal use, it has become more prevalent in schools. Teachers are expecting their students to use programs such as inspiration and power point to further their comprehension of the topics covered.
In the classroom, technology can be an extremely valuable tools for learners with special needs as well; as it furthers forms of communication and makes curriculum more accessible to all types of learners. What effect does it have on these students and what is the benefit for these children?