As many of you may know, my class has a variety of levels and learners.
This is a comprehensive list of items that are used to develop transition plans beginning very early in a child's life i.e. Family Support, Medical Issues, Response to Interaction with Objects, Communication system etc. Should be updated yearly as the child develops. This also fits well with the C...
Free Online Activities for Learners with Significant Special Needs This is an update of the post listing online switch activities for learners with multiple or significant special needs. Switch Activities The activities listed are chosen because they can be used with switches, they are simple and they are enjoyable. The activities listed are free. Some activities may require set up by an assistant before switch use. Although care has been taken not to include switch activities with any violence or graphic images teachers and others still need to check activities for age and general appropriateness before use. Cause and Effect (and Press to Play): About 1-5 (download) Bugs, Transportation and Musical Monkey (set switch to tab) Help Kidz Learn (now primarily a subscription site) Hiyah Kneebouncers Priory Woods Videos Revamped Learning Tools (scroll down) Owlie Boo (any of the activities under "Pressing Keys" with switch set to space bar or enter) Rock Paper Scissors NGFL Snap Matching Activity (teacher must set up, but arrow over the "Snap" button) Silly Books (look for the "click through books" and set mouse arrow over "next") Special Bites Single Switch Scanning/Timed Single Switch Response (sites may include some cause and effect games as well): A Sliding Puzzle for Helen (download) Bullseye CBBC CBeebies Cow Jumped Over the Moon ePlayground (four completely accessible games) Help Kidz Learn (now primarily a subscription site) Jack Be Nimble My Switch Games by Scott McKay NGfL Switch Coloring Papunet Priory Woods Kids Only SEN/Switcher Shiny Learning Special Bites SwitchedOn Games Bowling Switch Recycle Sort Switch Music Tar Heel Typer (online switch keyboard) The Great Fish Race (download only) Universal Access Games Two Switches (unless otherwise noted you must click in the area of the game and then use tab and enter to play): Accessible Book Launcher Bug Memory Fruit Memory Space Memory Sensory House Special Bites Tar Heel Typer (online switch keyboard) Touch Screen, Mouse and Mouse Emulators (i.e. head tracking and eye gaze devices) Transportation Monkey Music Singing Horses Infinite Wheel Mega Sparkles Insane Bubblewrap Touch Circles
Resources and ideas for teachers and caregivers of learners with severe, profound, intensive, significant, complex or multiple special needs.
Things to Do With a Switch and a Battery Interrupter (Just insert the metal disc of the interrupter between the battery head and the receiver and plug in a switch, does not generally work with anything that recharges. Also, when using a battery adapted it will just turn the item on an off making things like a stapler or pencil sharpener "partner" activities. You may need to tape, glue or velcro down the devices built in power switch if you want it to be an independent activity. Many of these items are available at dollar, discount and salvage stores as well as flea markets. It generally costs less to adapt them yourself. Save your school budget for things you can't pick up for cheap.) 1. cut with battery operated scissors (pre-adapted) 2. have a race with toys that walk accessed through the switch (pre-adapted) 3. use walking switch toys to knock down block tower 4. use an adapted remote control car to knock down towers 5. put paint on the wheels of the adapted remote control car and drive over paper to make a painting 6. use a battery run electric razor and remove the pills from sweaters 7. turn on and off a hand held massager to give massages or to shake a box filled with paint covered marbles 8. turn on and off a flashlight (point it under your face and tell ghost stories, hit another switch to play ghost stories) 9. turn on and off battery operated holiday lights decorating your wheelchair 10. blow bubbles on your adapted battery run bubble blower 11. staple things 12. turn on and off a mini-tv 13. stir a drink 14. sift flour 15. be in charge of the pencil sharpener 16. dry your nails 17. open mail 18. sharpen the crayons 19. vacuum up bugs or dust bunnies 20. scare the pants off someone 21. make something spin in circles 22. cool off 23. spray a mix of water and food coloring over a stencil to paint 24. take a bubble bath 25. make spin art Using a Switch and an Electric Power Adapter (The Powerlink from Ablenet and the Electra from Tash with both interrupt the power to electric {plug in} devices and can be set to direct, timed or latch {first hit turns on, second turns off}. Oh, don't use it with high power items like microwaves!) 26. cool off with a plug in fan, attach streamers and watch them blow 27. make sailboats, place in a long underbed storage box of water, set up fans with switches, use fans to make wind, race the boats 28. turn on and off the lights in a haunted house 29. be the D.J. 30. use hair dryers to dry paintings 31. go apple picking then use a juicer with a switch to make juice 32. make ice cream shakes, use food coloring to make a color to go with your holiday theme, sell them for two dollars 33. use a food processor to mix up the ingredients to make recycled paper, use your fans to dry it 34. grind up oreos in a grinder or food processor to make "dirt" 35. turn on holiday lights or a holiday fiber optic tree 36. run a foot massager 37. use the switch and the overhead projector to shine a light onto a friend and trace silhouettes 38. make a funky sixties or seventies space by running lava lamps, a liquid projector, and groovy music all by switches 39. run a fog lamp to make the room spooky or mist-i-cal 40. turn on the black lights with all of your glow in the dark stuff around, make your own planetarium 41. use that sewing machine and make some curtains (or aprons...) 42. plug in one red light and one green light - now the switch user runs gym class 43. shave people's heads for a dollar during spirit week Things to do with specially adapted devices and a switch: 44-48. use a pouring cup to pour cooking ingredients, art supplies like glitter, to pour sand in the sand box, to measure for science experiments to to dump water over your friends head 49. Use and iScan to run your iPod 50. change the tv channels 51. listen to CDs 52. be a bookworm 55. spin 56. be a high roller 57. ring my bell or bells 58. bowl 59. scoot 60. joke
Resources and ideas for teachers and caregivers of learners with severe, profound, intensive, significant, complex or multiple special needs.
The Yes/No was a series of blog entries written in 2012. The six part series works through ways to indicate yes and no and then many ways to teach and reinforce yes and no responses. Of course, ther
A discussion of what severa and profound disabilities are and ways they can be taught in schools.
This article takes a look at the growing demand for political correctness in the terminology used for people with disabilities—the good and the bad.
Resources and ideas for teachers and caregivers of learners with severe, profound, intensive, significant, complex or multiple special needs.
Cooking is a favorite activity in many life skills and severe special needs classrooms. Here are some links to websites with picture recipes. Boardmaker Share Bry Back Manor Cooking in the Classroom (scroll all the way down) Making Learning Fun Nellie Edge Non-Reader Recipes Picture Cookbook Gallery Rebus Recipes Speaking of Speech Students with Differences Picture Recipes Symbol World VisualRecipes.Com Voice4U Recipes Widget - Food Tastes Better Outdoors Resource Pack Single Picture Recipes Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes Jim's Apple Pie Not Yo' Nana's Fishsticks Satsuma Orange Juice Strawberry Banana Smoothie
Alzahraa Ghareeb Clinical presentation of Pendred syndrome
Flashback Fridays is a new feature that will bring back blog entries that readers found useful, inspiring or that provoked conversation in years past. This is a re-post from September 2008 by guest blogger Rose Marie. Since this entry was first posted I have had two students who are very good eye gaze communicators and have really learned how to become a better communication partner for them. One of my favorite tips is to use photo mats to make eye gaze boards, I like to make them and laminate them so the symbols are always in the same place and motor automaticity is built. My current student who is an eye gaze communicator can eye gaze to the correct corner of one of the laminated boards in less than a second because the icons on the board and their locations have been memorized. Another tip for students who may hyperfocus on your face instead of the icons or the board is to hold the board in front of the student in then bring your face into the center of the board slowly (it helps to be seated on a rolling stool). Enjoy Rose Marie's re-post! 1) Just because the concept of eye gaze is simple, reading eye gaze is not necessarily easy. We need practice and experience to become competent partners. Not all kids use the same techniques, in part because the end goal for each child may not look the same (see #2). 2) Eye gaze response procedures should keep in mind technologies to be used in the child's future. If a child will be using a dwell-click with head mouse or eye gaze software, for example, then it is important that they learn to hold their gaze to a choice for a specific length of time. Children who will not be advancing to a head mouse or eye gaze may find it beneficial to confirm their choices with eye contact to the communication partner, especially if they are socially motivated. 3) Similarly, if head mouse use is in the child's future, helping them learn to turn their head along with their eyes will support that technology. This can roughly be considered "nose pointing," although the child is merely directing the nose toward the choice, rather than touching it with the nose. If head mousing is not in the child's future or if you plan to go with eye gaze not head mouse, it's fine to hold the head still and cast long sideways glances with the eyes. 4) Motor ability must be considered. The length of dwell to a choice should be reasonable...five seconds (a standard dwell time expectation in too many IEP goals, sad to say) is WAY (WAY!!!) too long for most children, both in terms of head stability and attention span. Try it...five seconds is an ETERNITY and it slows conversation down to a pathetic pace. At our house, .90 seconds is a good dwell time and doesn't interfere with the flow of communication. 5) Positioning yourself as a receiver is very important. You must be able to see the child's eyes clearly. However, some children fixate on the face of the reader, so you need to be flexible. Head-on (180*) will work for students who do not fixate on faces, but for children who are hyper-fixated on faces, an angle just over 90* may be more appropriate. You learn from the child what they need as far as positioning in relation to the partner. 6) Children with hyper-fixation to faces may benefit from loose symbols held side-by-side in front of the reader's face, then slowly moved apart. The child's eyes will (hopefully!) follow the intended choice as they move. 7) Boards intended for finger-pointing tend to have symbols spaced too closely for all but the most skillful eye gaze readers (and users). Loose symbols allow you to distance the choices at optimal points from the user. These can be held in the hands or affixed to velcro-sensitive boards (I personally like 3"-wide strips of indoor/outdoor carpet mounted to mat board, 15-18" long. Post-It makes poster board that can be cut into strips that holds symbols temporarily as well). 8) Not all days are necessarily the same. Some "off" days may require few choices spaced at farther distances, while other "on" days may allow a child to handle many choices placed closer together. 9) Along these lines of "off" and "on" days, if the child suffers neurological swings, it is imperative to tailor our expectations to the child's ability at the time. This may sound basic, but it is a point often overlooked in our hurry to take data. 10) Some children do very well with fixed frames. These are nice because they free the partner's hands and can often hold many choices. There are directions for some wonderful PVC frames online. There are also commercial e-Tran frames of Plexiglass (Cogain and others). Again, you must keep in mind the child's preferences and tendencies to fixate... 11) The goal of eye gaze communication is COMMUNICATION! It is NOT testing! Kids pick up on the fact that they are being heard or being tested, so make sure you honor what they tell you!!! This is probably the single most important point in all the discussion of eye gaze. For some reason, we tend to doubt eye gaze responses. This is because of our OWN insecurity in reading the answer correctly. If we honor a child's response, they learn to trust us as communication partners. If they indicated what they intended, we validate their answer. If they answered in error, we STILL validate their answer and demonstrate that we honor what they say. The children learn they must change their strategy to communicate the accurate answer and that they must find ways to negotiate to get what they had meant to tell us. 12) When you are unclear of a child's answer, DON'T repeat the same question. Ask it a different way. Try asking it in a way that would require they show a different answer ("Do you need more time?" becomes "Are you all done then?"). Show respect by letting the child know that you are the one having difficulty understanding; it is not the child's fault. 13) Try to keep the same placement of symbols offered for choices. This allows the child to develop motor automaticity. You may start to see eyes heading to a location before a symbol is even offered; this definitely suggests the child has achieved motor automaticity. 14) Not all children need to demonstrate "scanning of all the options" before making a selection. Motor automaticity may come to play, as well as peripheral vision skills. This does not mean kids aren't expected to know what all the choices are, but it does mean that "scanning" them may not look quite like we expect. An example is this: A teacher offered my child yes/something different/no in the same order each time (hurray! Way to build motor automaticity!) but would not accept the answer until she had gazed at each choice first. This is both unnecessary, slows communication, and discounts motor automaticity). 15) As soon as possible, eye gazers need to have introduced an option to indicate that what they want to say is not among the choices. This can be most anything ("something else," "not here," "different idea," whatever works for you and the child), but it is not fair to force a child into choosing only between choices they don't really want. Otherwise, the only option we give them is to NOT choose...and then we've set them up to be labeled as "non-communicative." There are usual communication strategies that we can't forget: motivating topics, making the child responsible for sharing information that they alone would know (highly motivating!), respecting the answer, GENUINE conversation... I hope this helps. Again, it's just what I've learned from walking in the trenches. Rose-Marie
For most current list please click here. This is an update of the post listing online switch activities for learners with multiple or significant special needs. The activities listed are chosen because they can be used with switches, they are simple and they are enjoyable. The activities listed are free. Some activities may require set up by an assistant before switch use. Although care has been taken not to include switch activities with any violence or graphic images teachers and others still need to check activities for age and general appropriateness before use. Cause and Effect (and Press to Play): Hiyah Kneebouncers Priory Woods Videos Revamped Learning Tools (scroll down) Single Switch Scanning or Timing Required (sites may include some cause and effect games as well): A Sliding Puzzle for Helen (download) Bullseye CBBC CBeebies Cow Jumped Over the Moon EleJumper Flabby Physics Jack Be Nimble My Switch Games by Scott McKay NGfL Switch Coloring Papunet Priory Woods Kids Only SEN/Switcher Shiny Learning SwitchedOn Games Bowling The Great Fish Race (download only) Two Switches (unless otherwise noted you music click in the area of the game and then use tab and enter to play): Accessible Book Launcher Bug Memory Fruit Memory Space Memory Sensory House (tab and enter)
Mad LibsMad Libs, the classic fill-in-the-blank game, is a fantastic way to work on parts of speech. You can do this game using store-bought Mad Libs, Mad Libs or similar type activities from the int
Alzahraa Ghareeb Pendred Syndrome
Get the PDF of this here.
A discussion of what severa and profound disabilities are and ways they can be taught in schools.
Cochlear Implants A cochlear implant is a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who has severe to profound hearing loss. The implant consists of an external portion that sits behind the ear and a second portion that is surgically placed under the skin (see figure). …
Resources and ideas for teachers and caregivers of learners with severe, profound, intensive, significant, complex or multiple special needs.
Working with girls and women who have Rett Syndrome can be a unique and wonderful experience. Rett Syndrome is a neurological condition that effects only girls (with a few, rare exceptions). Althoug
MDEA 2014 Finalists: Implant and Tissue-Replacement Products
Resources and ideas for teachers and caregivers of learners with severe, profound, intensive, significant, complex or multiple special needs.
You heard me right! Thoughts are things… but beware, for these thoughts can soon become a nightmare for people under stress. We learn that by transforming thoughts into positive energy, we can banish…
The symptoms of amnesia are: 1. Difficulty recalling information 2. Difficulty in learning new information 3. Confusion or disorientation
Explore the spiritual meanings behind menstrual problems and how integrating spiritual practices can support your well-being.
The easiest way to follow your favorite blogs
Transition Planning Portfolio is created to support students within the Severe to Profound or Mild Moderate disabilities Special Education education classes. So within this resource there are 10 different resources that were created seemed to be most useful to my students. They included: All About Me, Home Address Important contacts, My Goals, My Likes/Dislikes, My Interests, My Strengths, My Work Skills, Work History and Volunteer History Log Also within the resource I have included teacher information and help sheets so that you can make sure that you have the information that could greatly help with your students transition. This packet also includes the worksheets from "My Strengths and Interests" as well
Resources and ideas for teachers and caregivers of learners with severe, profound, intensive, significant, complex or multiple special needs.
End stage alcoholism is a severe form of alcohol addiction. Signs of End stage alcoholism: 1. Liver damage 2. Anxiety, restlessness 3. Hallucinations
Imagine a study guide actually made for teachers! Because we know your life is busy, we created a study guide that isn't like other books out there. With Cirrus Test Prep's unofficial Praxis Special Education Core Knowledge and Applications (5354) Study Guide: Praxis II Special Education Exam Prep for Mild to Moderate (5543), & Severe to Profound Applications (5545) you get a quick but full review of everything tested on your certification exam. FREE online resources are also included with your study guide! Imagine having FREE practice questions, online flash cards, study \"cheat\" sheets, and 35 test tips available anytime, anywhere on your cell phone or tablet. Cirrus Test Prep's resources will give you the push you need to pass your test the first time.ETS was not involved in the creation or production of this product, is not in any way affiliated with Cirrus Test Prep, and does not sponsor or endorse this product.Cirrus Test Prep's Praxis Special Education Core Knowledge and Applications (5354) Study Guide includes a full REVIEW of: Online Resources Introduction ONE: Student Growth and Development TWO: Disability Categories THREE: Planning and the Learning Environment FOUR: Instruction FIVE: Assessment SIX: Transition SEVEN: Professional Responsibilities EIGHT: 5354 Practice Test NINE: 5543 Practice Test TEN: 5545 Practice Test ...as well as 3 FULL practice tests.
Cooking is a favorite activity in many life skills and severe special needs classrooms. Here are some links to websites with picture recipes. Online Adapted Learning search for recipe Boardmaker Recipes Bry Back Manor Cooking in the Classroom (scroll all the way down) Making Learning Fun Nellie Edge Non-Reader Recipes Recipes to Reading ($) Speaking of Speech Symbol World Tinsnips VisualRecipes.ComMake Your Own Custom Picture Recipes Books ($) A Picture Cookbook Visual Recipes for the Non-Reader
Although not a formally recognized mental health disorder,1 shopping addiction refers to a pattern of maladaptive shopping in which someone continues to shop despite physical, cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal consequences. Shopping addiction is treatable, and there are many treatment options available for those seeking help.
A discussion of what severa and profound disabilities are and ways they can be taught in schools.
