Day Two

I have seen a clip of a video of Tyler before but not the whole video. Even the clip that I had seen was very powerful. Tyler is an exceptional person who radiates warmth, love and happiness.
My top three AHA! moments from this video would have to be as follows:
1) Tyler's parents as advocates - right from the start of the video you see how involved his parents are in ensuring that Tyler is not missing out on any opportunities. They are right there beside him and out finding new ways to help improve his daily life (video game control is a wonderful example of that).
2) Inclusion - Tyler is included in everything from day 1. I know we only saw a snapshot of his life story in the video there. However, you can see how much his family, friends and those surrounding him are supporting him and finding ways to adapt situations to include him.
3) Amount of technology that is available to him - Tyler is a higher need, so I suspect support would be delivered much faster than other students waiting for AT. At the same time, I have experienced how difficult it is to ensure that a student has their own personal device, whether it be an iPad or a Chromebook, to best support their learning and enable them to demonstrate their understanding to the best of their ability. I'm so impressed by the team that worked with Tyler throughout his school years and the amount of technology that was available to him to ensure that he was as successful as he was. What a beautiful and inspiring story to highlight the power of assistive technology!

Important points to remember about Assistive Technology:
*AT is about enhancing performance of individuals with disabilities and providing independent access to a task
*It is a process
*Grounded in Program Planning at the school level

UDL - huge variety of apps for ways to present information, ways to show what you know, increase engagement and motivation of students

One thing that came up during the PPT presentation on communication that I was taken aback by though I don't think I should have been overly surprised by, was the fact that a non verbal student will likely continue on into Grade 7 and beyond without SLP services. I am happy to report that both of my students who have had SLP services from P-6 will still be getting services next year in Grade 7 and I do hope that this continues for them. They both have different degrees of difficulty with speech, however the need for support is still there.

Three "things" required for effective communication
1) communication partner
2) common language (written, verbal, etc...)
3) joint engagement/attention

Some of the ways to communicate include:


Another reason that makes the iPad more accessible over other devices is that the iPad is the ONLY device with switch scanning access option.

Proloquo2go:
Exploring this app as a group to start was very beneficial as I find it to be very multi-layered. I look forward to tomorrow when we have time to delve deeper into the app and assignment #1 with our partners. This is another new app for me and while it would be rare that I would use it in my current position, it is quite possible that it is an app that I would use down the road in my career.