August / September 2009

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Access and participation have long been a struggle to those working with students with special needs. The always burning questions of how to get the students involved in the activity and how to help them use the materials, surround those of us that work in unique educational settings. River Hills School in Cedar Falls, Iowa, is a school for students with mental disabilities.

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Introduction Children with severe and profound disabilities are often excluded from participation in dramatic arts programs. Therefore, we established a dramatic arts program for students diagnosed with complex physical, intellectual, communicative, social, emotional or fragile medical conditions. Many of the students relied on multimodal communication techniques for their receptive and expressive communication needs.

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In 1999, one grocery shopper got to talking with another and gave a business card to her new acquaintance. "That was my lucky day," smiles 16-year-old Blake Peterson. "That shopper was the director of the Courage Center Day Camp in Mankato, and she gave her card to my mom.

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In my previous article, I talked about creating simulated real life experiences using multimedia applications. One of the best and easiest ways to do this is by using digital photos. With so many choices for graphics formats, resolutions, display size and print out size, it can be very confusing! Knowing a little about what works best in building activities gives you an advantage when you go to shoot the photos with your digital cameraI've created a PDF file you can download from my Web site, Annie's Resource Attic www.annbrundigestudio.com, to demystify getting the graphics out of the camera, editing, and using them to build activities.

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Students of all ages with developmental delays, physical disabilities and learning challenges walk into Murphy McBride's classroom seeking assistance with reading and writing. Some students cannot speak or write words; some speak non-stop and have difficulty staying on track. Others cannot organize their thoughts and are poor spellers.

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Being both a developer/vendor of special needs technology and a practitioner, I have a foot in each world. That gives me a unique perspective; I can ask people what is needed, research a solution, then offer it. I'm lucky that most people in our field of AT view me as a resource much more than as a vendor.

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The Anne Carlsen Center (ACC) is opening a contest for artists using adaptive equipment across the world. The Center has created a link through its Web site, www.annecenter.org, that will show electronic versions of paintings, drawings, photography, digital art, video, film and musical compositions made via assistive technology. The project has been named "Accessing the Artist Within.""One of the main reasons we have created this gallery is to showcase the art that students are creating," explains ACC Adaptive Equipment Director Mark Coppin. "We also showcase the pieces of assistive technology that allow the students to create the art." Each artist will also have a biographical section explaining how he or she created their art and what tools were utilized. Ten pieces of art will also be selected to be shown at Closing The Gap, an international adaptive equipment conference held in Minneapolis each October.

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DVD allows clinicians to screen clients in their preferred languageA DVD that uses American Sign Language and English-based sign language to test for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in adults who are deaf and hard-of-hearing is now available.Researchers at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology developed the test in response to the estimated incidence of ADHD in the deaf and hard-of-hearing population being as high as 38 percent. Accurate diagnosis of ADHD is important so that appropriate treatment or accommodation can be provided. But existing tests printed in English are not valid for many individuals who typically depend on sign language for accurate communication and whose first language is often not English.

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HumanWare is now shipping the new SmartView Versa and Versa+ handheld electronic magnifiers. These two new additions to HumanWare's low vision product line have large 4.3" wide screens, 5x to 15x magnification and multiple enhanced contrast modes to make reading easier.The SmartView Versa and Versa + were instant hits when they were unveiled at the CSUN conference last March. In fact, several clients had already placed their orders and were waiting for them to become available.People suffering from low vision due to macular degeneration, glaucoma, Diabetic Retinopathy or another eye condition can use the SmartView Versa to magnify words and images.

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New screen reader software application provides blind and visually impaired customers with a solution to access BlackBerry smartphonesHumanWare is pleased to introduce its newest software solution called Orator for BlackBerry Smartphones to the blind community. Access to information through mobile devices is key in today's business world and the use of smartphones has become the predominant way of communication for business professionals and management. With over 21 million subscribers in 150 countries, the BlackBerry Smartphones have grown in popularity to become the smartphone of choice to stay in touch with work, family, friends and important information while on the go.

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A new generation of tools for independenceNow you can use the popular iPod Touch loaded with all of the videos from Conover's innovative Functional Skills System to teach and reinforce critical functional life, social, math, literacy and work skills necessary for independence. Use this mobile technology to take your classroom into the community!The Conover Company offers the iPod Touch preloaded with all 3200+ videos from their popular Functional Skills System. They also offer an Author's package, which gives users the ability to create, edit and download their own custom instructional videos, making the content relevant to each learner's needs and abilities.

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Advancements could improve the quality of life of injured veteransA recent study by Kessler Foundation Research Center published in Brain Injury, the official journal of the International Brain Injury Association, uncovered the possible cause of cognitive fatigue in patients suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Cognitive fatigue has been shown to be one of the most challenging symptoms following TBI, greatly affecting everyday life activities, such as work and school. The study also addressed the difficult task of measuring cognitive fatigue through the use of functional MRI (fMRI), an advanced imaging technology.

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Altimate Medical designed the new EasyStand Bantam to offer an infinite number of positioning possibilities into one pediatric stander. These position possibilities are especially beneficial for children with flexible or fixed contractures because they can start standing supine with hip/knee flexion or an anterior tilt sitting position, then move to their upright ability.By combining sit-to-stand and supine standing, the Bantam stander can position a child in six main positions. Standing positions in the Bantam include upright standing, supine standing and supine standing with knee/hip flexion.

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MacSpeech, Inc. has announced the release and immediate availability of MacSpeech Dictate Medical, the medical professional's speech recognition solution for the Macintosh. Designed specifically for the medical and dental professional and their support staff, MacSpeech Dictate Medical empowers dictating text directly into applications and practice management systems, and issuing numerous commands by voice, on the Macintosh.

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StudyX makes learning fun; students, teachers can customize optionsTeachers looking for a tool to help their students master subjects can find some needed support with StudyX. The software can be customized to tackle a range of subjects, such as foreign languages, vocabulary words, science, history, medical and more. The program has been used by students of all ages - from elementary to graduate levels.Compatible with nearly any Windows format, the study software generates digital files similar to flash cards, and allows users to quickly add questions and answers.

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The Plustek BookReader V100 reads scanned text to create independence for individuals who are visually impaired Nan Hawthorne, a successful historical novelist, was born with Stargardt's Disease, a form of macular degeneration that causes the deterioration of a person's vision over time. Nan has been partially blind her entire life; now with 20/1200 vision, she has learned to live with the disease but has had to constantly rely on others for help when reading and researching. In fact, to accomplish this, she had to go through the laborious effort of mailing every research book she needed to a third party service that converts the lengthy tomes into spoken word in order for her to complete her research - a frustrating and time consuming endeavor.

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