Introduction of a New AAC Color Coding System

Aac Color Coding

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We Love Our Wireless Doorbell!

We have been using a wireless doorbell for different purposes in my classroom for nearly a decade. Our most common use is a way for staff to summon other staff to give assistance, for example we keep a wireless doorbell in the changing area so that when a student who requires two staff members for a transfer is being changed only one staff has to stay during the change and then she can ring the doorbell to call for someone to help with the transfer back to the wheelchair.

We also use a wireless doorbell as a way for students to call for assistance, placing the "ringer" on the tray of a special needs toilet seat and allowing a student privacy with the ability to ring the bell when finished. Another way we use battery operated wireless doorbells is for students to summon staff in the community, again with the ringer (adapted or unadapted) on the tray the student can "ring the bell" to let us know that he or she needs help. In a smaller store the receiver can be kept with the student and the staff can track down the student by listening for where the ringing comes from. In a larger store the student can use a code to indicate location. One ring is the front of the store, two the back, three by the restroom, etc.

Wireless doorbells will run you $12.00-$30.00 depending on features at your local hardware store and eBay and other websites sell a wide variety of novelty doorbells if you are looking to lighten things up. The "ringer" can easily be adapted by someone with basic soldering skills or Enabling Devices sells a pre-adapted wireless doorbell.

30 Days to Being a Better Blogger - Day 1

Based on Teach42's suggestions for taking a month to improve your blogging I am starting off the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger challenge.

Day 1, Question 1 - Who am I?
Well, my name is Kate Ahern. I am a veteran teacher of learners with significant special needs. I live in New England and how a M.S. in intensive special education. I started this blog without putting my name or anything else about me on it (I was a bit gun shy from some negative blogging experience before this). Eventually I added my first name, later my picture and still later my last name. My address is only listed as New England. My place of employment is not listed anywhere (as this site is not sponsored, endorsed or in other way involved with my employers). I do have a list of my web 2.0 contacts from instant message and email addresses to microblogging and photosites. However, contrary to Teach42 suggestions I do not have a link to my "About Me" Blogger page and I don't plan to add one (one last shred of privacy, I guess.) Teach42 suggests a paragraph about yourself and perhaps you resume, but I will decline on that, two years of posting and I am fairly certain that it is obvious I am a special needs teacher.

Day 1, Question 2 - What is your blog about?
Suggested things to think about one this on include what are you trying to accomplish with your blog? Who are you writing it for? What kinds of articles do you try to post about and how is your perspective different than everybody else’s? Also suggested is looking back on your first dozen or so posts. I started this blog while out on worker's comp for a leg injury, at the time I was feeling very much disliked by most of my colleagues. It might have been some minor paranoia and it might have been true, but I think it is a little bit of both. My perception was that folks thought I was a nerd and know-it-all (a reputation I have had my entire life) so I decided if I blogged about what I knew it would let people come to me to find out what I know instead of me pushing it on people. Overall I think the blog as a way for me to "nerd-out" about intensive special education without being annoying has worked well, especially since some 9,000 people a month seem to come find out about something I know. So on a personal level this blog was for me to share what I know about teaching learners with intensive special needs.

First and foremost, I write this blog for other special education teachers, but I know I have all sorts of general and ESOL teachers who follow along, in addition to parents of learners with disabilities, those in teacher education and those in assisitive technology. I am thrilled that all these people find value in what I write, but my goal is always to help teachers of students with low incidence disabilities better do their jobs. People who know me well would say that, on occassion, I also use this blog to vent, but I hope even when I do that I back up my arguement with research and critical thinking so that it is benefical to others!

I post about everything that comes into play in a teacher of learners with multiple special needs day, from curriculum to scheduling to assisitive technology and more. I hope that my perspectives are different from others in that I research what I write in order to ensure that what I put out their is indeed best practice and that I focus on what is best for students, not what is cool, popular or new out there in the world.

So that is day one, look forward to 29 more days.

Adapted Learning

Sorry there is no real blog entry tonight, I have spent the past several hours messing around on the Adapted Learning beta site. Everyone is really in for a treat when it goes live in a few days! Sign up now!

No Faking

Today we instituted a new classroom rule: No Faking!

We had a class meeting and discussed what faking is, including pretending to sleep, saying you have to go to the bathroom when you really just want to leave the room for a break, acting like you are crying to get your own way.

No faking!

Over the course of the day it became both a mantra and a joke. One young lady found it very amusing when she repeatedly requested the restroom minutes after she returned and instead of telling her that she just went we held up our "No Faking!" sign and said, "Ut-oh, a faker!" Another was not so amused when she pitched a fit because she didn't want to do her work and she was handed the "No Faking!" sign while we ignored the behavior (90 seconds later she was asking for more work, tantrums are pointless without an audience).

During afternoon discussion we talked about our day off on Tuesday for the election and one of the paraprofessionals shared that she had received an e-mail claiming all kinds of lies about one of the candidates. We decided that the world would be much nicer if everyone, especially politicians, lived by our, "No Faking!" rule.

Tomorrow's new rule? Save the drama for your Mama.

1,2,3, Go! Help us learn! (and a comment contest)

We need you!

Do you value what you read here? Help us out.

Do you come to this blog when you have questions? Help us out.

Ever had an aha moment, found something to use in your setting or smiled while visiting here? Help us out.

Only 13 days left to fund Chat, Gossip, Discuss - AAC Products for a Special Needs Classroom $919.00 needed

Only 26 days left to fun Can You Hear Me Now? - Learning Assistance for Kids with Hearing Impairment $272 need

Please, please, please help us out! Both the hearing impair grant and the AAC grant are desperately needed by my students. If this blog is supposedly worth $14,000 because of the quality of information it provides, then I am hoping $1200 can be raised to fill these grants. That's just twelve people giving $100, 24 people giving $50, 48 people giving $25. With 300-700 visitors a day, this CAN happen, but don't assume someone else will make it happen. Please click on the link and help us get our grant.

I have several other grants online as well, but they have no or very little funding yet and I would prefer push these ones through because they have partial funding that will be lost if the grant isn't fully funded by the expiration date. One grant proposal for switches just died partially funded. Very sad.

By the way, would threats work? What if I threatened NO NEW POSTS until the grants are FUNDED! Nah, not my style.

How about this, a contest! I will electronically deliver a set of Boardmaker Boards of your choosing (either in .BM2 or PDF format) to anyone who comments on this entry, preferably commenting to say they donated to a grant above. You can choose from AAC boards or books, dynamic display communication board sets, curriculum materials, behavior materials, anything I have. One winner will be chosen at random in 26 days.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong...

You know what drives me crazy? And what probably drives my students even more crazy? When device companies/device programmers mix symbol sets. Today one of my students needed to apologize to someone for something. Her communication partner was able to help her navigate to the page on her device where the "I'm sorry" message is, but the student would not activate it.

Why? Because it was the Dynasym for "sorry" (which she is not familiar with) not the Mayer-Johnson PCS for "sorry" (which she has used her entire life). I changed the symbol, she apologized and moved on, but the moment stayed with me all day.

The Gateway 5 board set for Dynavox and the InterAACt board set for Dynavox has pre-programmed boards that mix Dynasyms and PCS.

Why? Why would you do that to a kid who has spent a life time learning a certain set of symbols? Sure some kids/adults can generalize, but many others can't. So why set them up like that? Why would you create boards that were likely to make them fail?

Why not offer Gateway 5 and InterAACt with either all Dynasyms or all PCS and let the individual and his or her team choose which one to put on the device? Its not like there isn't a PCS for the words they use a Dynasym on vs. a PCS. One company owns both symbol sets, so it isn't copyright issues. I just don't get it. In the United States (and many, many other countries) the most universal symbol set is PCS by Mayer-Johnson, if its not broke, don't fix it.

How would you like it if suddenly one tenth to half of the words you went to read where in Greek or Korean?