Special Needs Telephones

Many of our students have IEP goals to use a telephone, but face practical issues in accessing the phone itself. Here are some links to a variety of phones designed for those with special needs

The phone to the left is one of two cell phones being offered with switch access. The first is the ClickToGo by Quintet and the second is the NoHandsCom by ETO Engineering. There is also a cellphone accessibility computer program that can make cell phones easier to use for those with disabilities. Another product, Dock and Talk lets you use any regular phone as your cellphone, but it is a bit bulky and designed for at-home use.

Jitterbug makes a large button cell phone and Easy 5 is a phone that has only six buttons allowing the user to dial any of five pre-programmed numbers, Easy 5 is now only available overseas, but should be arriving here soon.

Available now is the simplified Firefly and the LG Migo phone for children, the LG Migo may be a better choice because it is more age appropriate looking (left). Similar to the Migo is the Wherify, which has built in GPS tracking. All three of these phones allows only calls to pre-programmed numbers on the phone.

In the realm of traditional analogue phones we have more choices for those with disabilities. A couple of phones are available that allow the user to dial by photograph, including the Ameriphone P-300 and P-400.

The Ameriphone ER Phone is a picture dial phone as well as an emergency phone with a body worn remote control that dials pre-programmed emergency numbers if pressed. Clear Sounds makes a similar product without the picture dialing, but with a large keypad.

Ameriphone also makes switch operated, large button and amplified phones. Another switch operated phone available is from Tash used infrared to control a telephone and more. Voice activated phones are another option, such as this one by Ablephone.

For students with hearing impairments you made need to consider amplified phones or TTY. Students who are blind or visually impaired may benefit from large button or braille phones. A new braille text messenger from Samsung has just won the 2006 IDEA prize.

Occupational Therapy Now has an article on choosing accessible phones. Now matter what you chose, you will want to shop around for the best prices.

Keyboard Bangers

"Keyboard Bangers" is a category of software designed for infants and toddlers who bang on the keyboard while sitting on mom or dad's lap. Keyboard Bangers have some interesting applications in the intensive special needs room as well. Used with a switch, touchscreen, alternative keyboard or a regular keyboard Keyboard Bangers are an excellent cause and effect teaching tools. Some versions of the software have letters pressed create and image and sound effect that match that sound. I once had a student so enthralled with the sound effects from a keyboard banger that I would record the sounds onto a Big Mac switch so he could play them on the bus or at home when he was upset. Many Keyboard Banger games are available for free download. Here is a listing of a few.

Compu-Tot-Games

Baby2Computer

Sarah's Mostly Harmless Keybangers

Baby Banger (scroll down a bit)

Babimils

Larry's Animals and Things (scroll down a little)

Baby One

Toddler Keys

Baby Keys

and here is a program available for Palm OS - Baby Blink.

Free Single Switch Media Player

This is cool! It is a free single switch accessible media player! Now your students can DJ music from the computer! It should run on most systems except Mac/Linux and you will need Windows Media Player 9 or better.

AAC Device Pet Peeves

In the past three years I have worked with at least five different high tech dynamic display AAC devices. All of the devices I reference below were purchased in the past three or so years (the speech therapist on my team is very over worked). Here are some of my pet peeves of working with the devices:

1. some very recently purchased devices use obsolete or inadequate operating systems - i.e. Windows 98
   
2. frequent need to reboot, soft reset or other method of restarting the system, especially when programming - wasting valuable time
   
3. some are very difficult to back up to a secondary location, leading to a possible loss of hours of work
4. incomplete symbol systems without an easy means for the user or programmer to extend or add to the symbol set
5. broken promises from device vendors regarding training and support
6. a few devices have low parent/para friendliness factor - programmer tends to need high level of training
   
7. repairs are expensive - shipping alone can blow your budget
8. repairs take too long leaving the user with no means of communication
9. repairs are needed FAR too frequently
   
10. difficult to block users from programming controls (we've resorted to pad locks on the cases of some devices and we still haven't totally stopped the problems)
11. glare problems
    
12. poorly designed wheelchair mounting systems causing very expensive devices to fall over or off the mount - the best wheelchair mount in my classroom is made from spare parts I scraped together
    
13. carrying case is not included, leaving us to improvise with egg crate foam pads and donated tote bags
    
14. short battery life - some can't even make it a full school day
15. irreplaceable parts lead to some devices being junked (and users being without devices) long before the five year insurance limit for new devices is up
    

Site of the Day -JTalk/This Way of Life

Jtalk is another piece of free AAC software, I haven't tried it, but maybe at somepoint I will download it and Pvoice, the only two free systems of AAC software I know about. Quite unfortunately there are not any pictures of Jtalk to share.

Jtalk or rather This Way of Life the website of Jtalk's designer is not site of the day because of the software (in spite of my life for both all things AAC and all things freeware/opensource) it was chosen because of a list of the Top Ten Most Wanted AAC Features.

The Top Ten list is supposed to be for AAC designers, producers and vendors. It would also serve as a great checklist during the evaluation and trial period of acquiring a device for a student. The top five items, durable, reliable, portable, and long battery life are defiantly questions I always ask. Further down on the list are some ideas I have rarely seen on AAC devices, but would love to see in the future. This list might help with that final decision when it is down to two or three very similar devices.

Switch Idea of the Day

I have never seen or thought of this before, but this child appears to be blowing up a balloon using a single switch (a big red) and an environmental control unit like a Powerlink. I found this picture during a Google images search. The website is in Japanese, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousands words!

On second thought maybe he is doing something else entirely and the balloon is just there. Either way, barring any latex allergies or pica problems, every kid should get a chance to blow up balloons until they pop.

Dealing with Difficult Parents

I have been hired to run a few professional development workshops for a neighboring school district, one of them on "Dealing with Difficult Parents". I thought it might be nice if I shared some of the preliminary web links I came up with as I research the topic and plan my workshop here:

Preventing and Resolving Parent-Teacher Differences (this one has references!)
Today's School: Dealing with Difficult Parents (wordy, but good)
Education World: Dealing with Difficult Parents (a bit of a book commercial, but some worthy advice)
Getting Along with the Grown-Ups (more for general ed.)
Seven Types of Difficult People (not actually for schools, but worth it)