At the beginning of our shopping trip I was saying "We could use this for...." But as we travelled through the isles I began to change my perspective and found myself asking instead "What could we do with this?" We brainstormed many different uses for different students that we know, and had discussions about the effectiveness and practicality of each of our ideas both from the student and teacher perspective. Our cart filled up pretty quickly! We were satisfied with the low-tech assistive technology tools that we selected but we were quite sure we missed lots of good things too. The following is a sample of what I came home with.
A magic wand which has three different flash modes for a non-verbal student to answer yes, no or maybe questions.
A Puppet for a student who has fine and gross motor difficulties and needs to practice hand and hand/eye coordination movements (ie. touch the ear, touch the nose, etc.). This could also serve as a tacile object for a student who needs this stimulation.
A self-adhesive hippo for the student who needs to practice fine motor skills for pencil control and grip. This could be stuck to a desktop and the student can trace around its outer edges.
A set of garden gloves with rubberized palms. These could be used for a student who has difficulty grasping objects. The rubber on the palm of the glove allows for easier pick up and grasp of objects.
Velcro to hold items in place for a student who has spastic movements.
A satin sleep mask for a student who requires relaxation strategies. These could be used in conjunction with pressure point relaxation exercises which some students with autism require.
A padded fuzzy pencil case for the student who requires tactile objects. Every child needs a pencil case so carrying this one around or leaving it on a desk would look very natural. The other side of the pencil case is filled with tiny styrofoam balls so the students has two tactile materials in one object.
This is a small sampling of the items I chose while shopping at the local Dollarama. I never much enjoyed going to the dollar store before. I only went if I had something specific I needed. Making sure I find the time to go to the Dollarstore with "seeing" eyes will be a new mission for me!
Water Blaster from the Dollarama
Marney and I selected a water blaster as an assistive technology tool. Our student Tracey is in a wheel chair and has difficulty pointing to items. In our example, the students are working on mapping activities and are expected to locate areas on the map of Canada. Tracey is not able to participate because of she can not get close enough to the map due to restrictions of her wheelchair. Tracey will use the device as a pointer in its extended form and the other students will use the device as a pointer as well, perhaps in its collapsed form. Tracey will not look different when she is using it. These pictures show how the water blaster will be used as a pointer for all students!
The presentations were amazing. So many different ideas, all of which were quick, inexpensive fixes for big issues! Truly an eye-opening experience.
Hi Jeanette, You've mentioned some uses for items that I missed. The idea of "seeing eyes" is good. So often we take a perspective on an item, idea, or person and then fail to waver from that view point. It was fun to look at stuff at the Dollorama and think outside the box. This is something educators need to do more of.
ReplyDeleteExcellent Jeanette! I'm going to check many of these out for our library :)
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