Today's class started with groups putting the final touches on their Boardmaker Plus assignments. After many long hours and tedious moments on the weekend, Carl and myself had this project finished with the exception of some pages of our book not reading the text. With Barbara's help this morning, and much to our surprise, we discovered that we really didn't have a problem --just the volume turned down. I guess working until 10 p.m. on a Saturday night is really too late!!

The groups then presented the low tech inventions made from dollar store items. All projects presented were excellent! Creative people who demonstrated some very useful ideas.

I will now share some of our dollar store finds:

Halloween Grabber

This is a Halloween prop with a dinosaur operated pincher head. This off-the-shelf item would be useful for a person with limited mobility and some fine motor limitations. It would extend their reach and provide pincher control with a simpler squeezing action.

Hair Accessories

These hair accessories have a variety of uses such as: fasteners for coats and boots, as a bookmark,and could be attached to book pages for easier turning of pages.

Drawing Board

The drawing board can be used as a writing tool or art tool for a person with dysgraphia and to improve fine motor skills.

Measuring Tapes

Measuring tapes can be used to measure perimeters, circumferences, and lengths of objects in Math classes. It can also be used as a number line. As a number line, the specific increments can be cut and attached to the student's desk, i.e., numbers 1 - 10.

Table Cloth Weights

The table cloth weights would make excellent bookmarks. They have a clip at the top that could be attached to the top back cover of a book and then the hanging beads (approximately 4 inches in length) can be used as a placeholder in the book. Attaching it to the book would avoid losing the bookmark and the size of the beads make it very easy to hold and manipulate.

Clipboard

Rather than attaching individual notebooks to a student's desk with velcro, the clipboard would be attached to the desk with strips of velcro and then the notebook attached to the clipboard. This would help keep books stationary and at the correct angle for writing.

Emery Boards

Emery boards would be used for art and woodworking projects. This would enable students to grasp the emery board rather than handle flexible sheets of sand paper. It also enables students to work on projects requiring finer detail.

Pump and Spray Bottle

These pump and spray bottles can be used for dispensing liquids such as paint, glue, water, milk, etc. The size of the bottles and the pump action would be an asset for many students; in particular, those with motor control limitations.

Bath Scrubbies

Bath scrubbies can be used for sensory input. They might also be used for painting to create different textures or as a painting tool for someone who experiences motor difficulties.

Beaded necklaces

Beaded necklaces can be used for sensory input or as a bookmark.

Mirrored Ball

The mirrored ball can be used for sensory input. It is reflective and shiny. Light aimed towards this ball could create designs on a wall in the room.

Assignment # 3

AT Seekers and Inventors – Carl Paddock & Margaret Buffett

Education 5173 Z4

Background:

Karen is a 13 year old girl who has been diagnosed as moderate to severe cognitively delayed and is on the autism spectrum. Karen has fairly good receptive language; however, she has limited expressive language.

In the school environment she requires a great deal of assistance with organization. In particular, she requires assistance with keeping her school supplies (i.e., pencils, erasers, ruler, paint brushes etc.) organized and accessible. When she uses a standard pencil case or a cup style pencil holder, she finds it difficult to find the particular item that she needs and will usually take everything out of the case or holder. Karen experiences difficulty with keeping her books organized, as well. She has her own collection of High School Musical books, craft and art books, as well as subject related books which she usually has misplaced. She also requires assistance with keeping personal items organized and accessible in her locker. Since she likes to hang out by the locker with her peers, she likes to have personal items such as brushes and combs in her locker; however, she has difficulty finding these items and often loses them. Her difficulty with organizing and keeping track of her materials often causes Karen to be late for class and activities. It also causes her to be stressed and she often gets upset over this.

Karen is a very sociable girl who enjoys being with her peers in the grade 7 classroom. She also likes to hang out with her peers in other school environments such as the cafeteria and by the lockers in the hallway. Karen displays similar interests as her age peers such as watching movies, videos, listening to music, and is particularly interested in High School Musical, Hannah Montanna, and Justin Bieber.

The low-tech assistance technology is designed to give customizable organizational tools that fit directly to the student’s needs. The low tech material used is floral foam blocks which can be shaped to fit the student’s organizational needs. For example, school supply block, book shelf organization, Art supply block, sequencing block, and the locker block. The school supply block would hold items such as pencils, erasers, ruler, sticky notes, and pens. The book shelf organization block is a personalized book shelf to hold various books such as subject related and leisure reading. The art block would hold art supplies such as paint brushes, glue, and scissors. The sequencing block would be used to teach story sequencing or to sequence tasks. The locker block would be used to hold Karen’s hair accessories such as brush, comb, and headbands. These blocks would be attached to her desk, books shelves, and the locker using either magnets or Velcro to keep them stable and accessible.

Making this low-tech assistive technology available to Karen, will enable her to have more time on task as she won’t have to spend time looking for items. It will also enable her to have the correct items needed for specific tasks such as her school supply block.

Karen’s use of these low tech assistive technologies will be monitored closely to see how effective and efficient they are with enhancing her organizational skills. Karen’s progress will be monitored daily by her classroom teachers to see if these devices are minimizing her stress that she has experienced as a result of losing items and not being able to find them when she needed to.

Considerations:

· Many of these items could be made in art class, by all students. This way they could be personalized and used for a wide variety of purposes. This would also help Karen’s differences to blend more easily into the class. In any case, Karen would have the opportunity to customize her own items.

· Karen enjoys a variety of tactile, sensory input. For example, she is often seen playing with soft, fuzzy items such as cotton balls, tennis balls, and textured stickers. This made the selection of floral foam blocks a good choice for Karen.

· In each of the blocks, items can be inserted at an angle which would provide easier access for Karen.

· Each of the blocks can be painted with paint or glue to seal the blocks and make them more durable. This would also take care of any dust issues.

IPP

The following goal is taken from the outcomes in Karen’s Functional curriculum.

Goal: Karen will organize and keep track of her school supplies and personal materials 90% of the time.

Objective: Karen will organize her school supplies in the school supplies block.

Objective: Karen will organize her Art supplies in the Art block.

Objective: Karen will sequence a story with four elements using the sequencing block.

Objective: Karen will sequence a task using the sequencing block.

Objective: Karen will organize her books in the book block.

Objective: Karen will organize her personal items in the locker block.

Strategies: Direct teaching, provide a model to follow, have Karen help design and decorate the blocks, verbal reminders.

Evaluation: Daily checklist, observation, report from subject area teachers, self evaluation.

Materials: Floral foam blocks, glue, Karen’s school supplies and personal items, checklists.

These are bases created with two slots for the positioning of cards and accompanying numbers. They can be used for sequencing, social stories, video story boarding, and organizing elements of any type of writing. Because they are very movable and easily modified, they offer maximum flexibility.

This is a combination school supply organizer and book holder. They can be made separately but we combined them for illustration purposes. They can be coated with glue, painted, and customized in any way that the teacher or student sees fit.

This is an example of an art supply organizer with items positioned on an angle for easy access.

This fish display is an example of how this floral foam block can be easily cut and shaped to any imaginable creative use. It is a segmented fish which holds various characteristics of a fish. This is a possible Science activity.

Summary:

The above pictures illustrate how flexible floral foam blocks can be as a low-tech. assistive material. It can be crafted into a variety of 3-dimensional graphic organizers that would be customizable to any subject area and a wide variety of purposes. We do suggest that the final product be coated with ordinary glue, paint, or polyurathane if the intended use is meant to be long term. It is very cheap so they don't all need to be protected with expensive coatings. Have fun trying new things with them and please send us pictures of your creative ideas.