AT supports students’ active participation
By Kelly Ligon, M.Ed., and Mona Pruett, M.S., OTR
We all know that active participation is necessary for learning to take place. But how can we guarantee that students with significant disabilities will be able to participate in classroom activities and lessons? One of the first things we must consider is the essential information of the learning topic and how that knowledge can be demonstrated by individual students based on their strengths (Downing, 2002). Assistive technology tools would be useful to modify or adapt the lesson and materials to meet the individual needs of the student. AT can be the tool that opens the door to learning for many students with significant disabilities. In addition to allowing students to participate with their peers, AT provides access to the general education curriculum.
When making decisions regarding what AT to use and when to use it, determine the action verb in the lesson. By matching the action verb with an adaptation or modification, the student will be a more active participant in the learning process (Erickson & Clendon, 2005). This article will provide examples of AT that are matched to action verbs contained in some of the Aligned Standards of Learning (ASOL).
The action verb “identify” occurs frequently throughout the ASOL. Students are asked to identify common signs and logos; the front cover, back cover and title page of a book; beginning sounds of a word; letters, words and sentences; and the ordinal position of objects. The term “identify” means the student will indicate his/her understanding of a topic. Many AT solutions exist for helping students with communicating knowledge. Students can use a programmed voice output communication aid (VOCA) to identify their understanding. VOCAs can vary in the number of selections from one to multiple. In this instance, if a student were asked to identify the beginning consonant sounds of a single-syllable word (ASOL E-R3c), a GoTalk 4+ could be programmed with phrases such as “That begins with the ‘mm’ sound” and “That begins with the ‘c’ sound.” The buttons on the GoTalk could also be labeled with a picture of an object beginning with the matching sound (e.g., milk, cat). The teacher might present words to the whole class, and the student would be able to participate in the activity by responding using the GoTalk.
Consider constructing an eye-gaze commun-ication board for a student to look toward the picture or object to identify his/her response. Another low-cost, quick alternative to modifying the term “identify” is to use symbols or pictures quickly drawn on sticky notes and ask the student to look or reach toward his/her response.
A different action verb frequently used in the ASOL is “retell.” To demonstrate reading comprehension, students are asked to “retell familiar stories using a beginning, middle and end” (ASOL E-R4b). There are many software programs on the market that allow the student to enter preprogrammed selections of text into a document. These software programs have the capability to repeat the text back to the student, and most programs are easily accessed through a switch added to a computer, a touch window or an interactive whiteboard. Examples of these programs include Classroom Suite and Clicker 5. Students can also retell a story or event by using Microsoft Photo Story. Photo Story is available as a free download from the Microsoft Web site. In this program, digital pictures of a science experiment, for example, can be imported into the program and placed in sequential order. The student can narrate the parts of the experiment by using a microphone attached to the computer. The end result is a low-cost movie of the experiment retold by the student. If computer software is not available, another option is to place pictures of the story on a felt or magnetic board. The pictures can be manipulated by the student into sequential order to retell a story or event.
Some older students might be working on ASOL in the community on their job site. Many of our students need these opportunities to generalize skills to different environments. For example, if the student had to inventory items in a small retail shop, an action verb often used in math is “write.” For example, “When given a set of 10 or fewer items, the student will write the numeral to tell how many are in the set” (ASOL M-NS2). The task on the job is to document the number of items in various categories. The student might complete this in different ways. Some alternatives to traditional pencil and paper are available and many of them make the task much quicker. A student worker could input the information on a template available on a computer. The template could be a list of pictured items; the student counts how many are on the shelf and then uses the keyboard to input the total number next to the pictured item. Another strategy is for the student to use number stamps to write the total next to each item of inventory list printed on paper. Students might be paired together; one student might count the items and select the number listed on his VOCA and the other student can use traditional means to write the number on the inventory list. The possibilities are endless.
It’s important to always remember to look at the essential elements of the job or the ASOL, not the limitations of the student, to determine successful accommodations and active participation (The Job Accommodation Process, 2005).
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