Updated: Free Online Switch Activities

For most current list please click here.

This is an update of the post listing online switch activities for learners with multiple or significant special needs. The activities listed are chosen because they can be used with switches, they are simple and they are enjoyable. The activities listed are free. Some activities may require set up by an assistant before switch use. Although care has been taken not to include switch activities with any violence or graphic images teachers and others still need to check activities for age and general appropriateness before use.

Cause and Effect (and Press to Play):

• Hiyah
• Kneebouncers
• Priory Woods Videos Revamped
• Learning Tools (scroll down)

Single Switch Scanning (sites may include some cause and effect games as well):

•  A Sliding Puzzle for Helen (download)
• Bullseye
• CBBC
• CBeebies
• Cow Jumped Over the Moon
• Jack Be Nimble
• My Switch Games by Scott McKay
• NGfL Switch Coloring
• Papunet
• Priory Woods Kids Only
• SEN/Switcher
• Shiny Learning 
• SwitchedOn Games Bowling
• The Great Fish Race (download only)

Two Switches (unless otherwise noted you music click in the area of the game and then use tab and enter to play):

• Accessible Book Launcher
• Bug Memory
• Fruit Memory
• Space Memory
• Sensory House (tab and enter)

Coming Soon: Go Talk Express 32

By now many of use are familiar with the durability and usefulness of the mid-level AAC devices in the Go Talk family from Attainment Company. The Go Talk One and the Button offer a one message option, while the Go Talk 4+, 9+ and 20+ offer a relatively inexpensive five level static display device (with 4, 9 or 20 buttons plus a core vocabulary row). The Go Talk Pocket offers the same with six buttons in a hand held size.

Coming soon (2/15/10) Attainment Company will be offering the Go Talk Express. It will feature everything we are used to the sturdy case and handle, the overlay storage, five levels, volume control, level lock, level delete and it is green.

However it also features switch access and scanning (see below), over 26 minutes of recording, and an "express mode". The express mode is for sentence chaining (or it could be use to pre-train students for minspeak/Unity if you are crafty about it) allowing users to select a series of icons to make a sentence. Express mode does not have to be used, you can use it the same way you do any Go Talk.

It will retail for $599.00. Here is the brochure.

Scanning Capabilities

• Visual Cueing— four bright LED pipes surround the message keys
• Auditory Cueing— choose between a 1.5 second recorded cue or beeps of varying tones
• Scan Pattern— step, linear, or group scanning available
• Switch Access— single or double switch access with a switch debounce feature
• Number of Messages— scan 4, 8, 16, or 32 messages with a scan levels feature
• Scan by row or column
• Scan every other message
• Choose fast, medium, or slow scanning speed
  

Correction: Tizmos Visual Start Page

I just want to let everyone know that the Tizmos Start Page CAN two switch scan. It is far from perfect, but you can use the tab to move through all selectable objects on a page one at a time and enter to select one. Thus a switch set to "tab" and another to "enter" will do that same thing.

Yay!

A tip is to use some of the accessibility features in your operating system and browsers to make what is being highlighted as you "tab"/scan through the options more obvious. Another tip for scanning is to be sure the link on Tizmos goes directly to a switch accessible page and not to a non-accessible entry page.

Note: this isn't going to work perfectly because some pages that are linked to need different switch settings (i.e. space bar not enter) or there is no way to link past the set up page effectively. Someone will need to be on standby to help.


Maybe someone can let me know a way to refine this or Tizmos or another start site would be interested in adding single switch scanning or more refined step scanning.

You can try my Tizmos Launch Page here or make your own.

Two Switch Scanning

I am moving one of my students (who has a progressive condition) from direct select with a touch screen/key guard to two switch scanning. Two switch scanning is also called dual switch scanning or scan and select. It means using one switch to move the selection from one item to another and another switch to make a choice. In this case the left, red switch is used to move the arrow/cursor and the right, blue switch is used to enter the final choice.

For now the student is using only two different programs for learning this new skill, Stages Levels Five and Six and Boardmaker with Speaking Dynamically Pro with a customized set of boards. The learners speed and accuracy are improving gradually. Above is a picture of our set up, although the switch easel on the left has been replaced with another universal switch mount. This student is my first to use two switch scanning, although I have had dozens of single switch scanners. In this case I have chosen two switch scanning to reduce cognitive load and because the students physical limitations do not allow timing of switch hits. Below are resources I have found helpful in our transition to two switches.

• Why Use Two Switch Scanning? by CALL Centre
• Two Switches for Success by Linda Burkhart
  
• Animation of Two Switch Scanning
• Learning Two Switch Scanning Software by Judy Lynn (Free Trial)