This is an interesting article about a school district in Ohio that is using Ipads with students with developmental disabilities. We were particularly struck by the way they’re using it to appeal to students by engaging all of their senses and providing reinforcement.
Tag Archives: teaching tools
The MotivAider
The MotivAider is consistently one of our top sellers here at Different Roads to Learning. It’s a versatile and helpful tool that can be used for anything from prompting a child to engage in play to toilet training. The MotivAider vibrates at timed intervals to prompt an individual to engage in a specific behavior. This is an interesting article about how it is specifically used with children with ADD. Have any of you used the MotivAider as a way to teach or change certain behaviors? How have you used it and for what? We’d love to hear your experiences.
Weekly Rethink Autism Tip: Generalize Skills from the Classroom to Everyday Life
This week’s free autism tip covers an important topic that helps enable your child to adapt to his/her daily surroundings. One of Rethink Autism’s special education professionals guides you through teaching your child how to apply what he/she has learned in a classroom setting to necessary skills utilized in everyday life. This tip is an effective tool to help your child develop these transferable skills.
iPad and Autism?
As a home-based Early Intervention provider traveling to various locations throughout New York City each day, I find my iPhone to be invaluable. It is quite possibly the best “business” expense of my career. It lurks in my bag as a secret weapon of motivation and reinforcement where once a gaggle of heavy and semi-effective toys resided.
With the huge presence that technology has in our lives today it is only inevitable that some gadgets make their way into therapeutic endeavors. While there are negative effects to being plugged in all of the time, it’s hard for me to ignore those moments where technology allows a child to learn something that had been previously difficult or the amazing instances of joint attention that can be facilitated by using these apps. Without a doubt, I’m sold on the fact that the new gadgets with touch screens will continue to be an invaluable tool moving forward in my work with children. However, I can’t silence the little contradictory voice in my head telling me that teaching happens in real life, not on a screen.
Therefore, I use my iPhone in therapy sessions with children sparingly. I am the one setting limits on usage and modeling durations of time that are reasonable and appropriate. Approximately 90% of the apps I use are educational and present great opportunities for the generalization of skills taught using DTT or NET methods. I have also downloaded social skills training videos that have facilitated preparation for things like going to get a haircut. Even though that tiny voice still lurks in the back of my head, the more I read and hear, I am beginning to think that the consensus of people in this community is mainly positive.
I am most excited about programs such as Proloquo2Go, which use the iPad as a more portable and user-friendly augmentative communication device. Not unlike the endless list of apps, the uses are never-ending as well, as outlined in a great article in the SF weekly from August 11, 2010. The iPad and various apps are helping therapists and parents teach children how to draw, write, communicate, read, spell, count, and increase independence through visual schedules.
Using technology hasn’t compromised what or how much I am able to teach. It has enhanced my sessions. How do you feel about it?
“It’s not me, it’s the Timer.”
The timer is one of everyone’s favorite tools for structuring time and activities for children with autism. It can be incorporated into all parts of daily living.
It was once explained to me that a parent could blame the timer for everything that has to do with transitions.
“It’s not me, it’s the Timer.”
“I know you want to stay in the playground but the timer said it’s time to go home.” Or perhaps, “The timer thinks you might have to go to the potty again.” My favorite at Christmas is, “The timer will tell you when you can open another present.” At our house, the timer was the higher authority. The timer is a fair arbitrator. It didn’t respond to whining or behaviors and it very coolly and serenely had to be obeyed.
It works! You just have to remember to put it in place and use it before you enter the big struggle of wills.
It’s just a simple kitchen timer….BUT we needed one that could count down and count up, it had to have a magnet so it could be easily found on the refrigerator and a clip/stand so one of us could wear it or place it close to us at the table if we were working.
Along the way, we found the Time Timer, invented by a mom of mainstream kids who needed a visual for transitions to stop her kids from asking, “Are we there yet?” The Time Timer is a visual depiction of time elapsing. Kids on the spectrum have a tangible way to see time passing as the red dial disappears.
There are all kinds of timers, and implementing them into any aspect of the day can significantly help in cutting back problem behaviors and anxiety over what is happening next.
– Julie Azuma