I did a home visit today with one of my students to prep for a family training on the student's AAC device tomorrow. While I was there I programmed her Dynavox to run her DVD player (which took about 15 minutes, the miracles of technology).
This student has varying levels of accuracy with her aim (she direct selects with a keyguard) so I made the DVD player page have two button - power and play/pause. (Well technically it has seven buttons, the permanent top four buttons, a Master Page button and the two unique, very large DVD commands.)
As we finished with the Dynavox set-up her personal care attendant (PCA) arrived. I left her Dynavox on the DVD page on her wheelchair mount and started having a conversation with the (PCA) about what other environmental controls and that vocabulary may be helpful. My student, obviously bored with our conversation, reached out and restarted her DVD player from her Dynavox.
This floored the PCA and, frankly, I was a little surprised too. This student doesn't frequently initiate with her device so it was a little thrilling to have her so blatantly reach out and get what she wanted.
The joys of technology!
Technology empowers students. Can you connect the Dynavox to the television remote control too? How about the radio? It would be interesting to see how your student responds to ability to make more of her own choices.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Dynavox can emulate any command on any infrared remote control - stereo, TV, garage door opener.
ReplyDeleteWe have had her set up to runt he clssroom TV/VCR for while and she never really seemed interested. Her home TV remote was lost and her CD Player didn't have remote. Today I will set up X-10 controllers for her lamp and radio, and we will see how she responds.
-Kate