Low Tech Assistive Technology for the classroom!

Hi. My name is Renee Garcia and today I'm here to share the three low tech assistive technologies that I've chosen to display for children with Autism.

The first here is a pair of headphones.

We have a lot of these headphones that connect to our computers that we could take off and use in the classroom and place on the student's ears.

We would use this for someone who has difficulty with sensory as far as hearing, is very sensitive to maybe fire alarms, or bells ringing, those kinds of things.

And placing these on the ears of the student would help prevent maybe a setoff for the remainder of the day

and disrupt their complete schedule for the day due to an interruption such as a fire drill.

And usually as teachers we're prepared for those activities that are going on and we can notify our students that that's going to be coming.

These particular headphones only run about $12. They're rather inexpensive. And they are used at gun stores so they do muffle out a lot of sound.

It really reduces the sound. They expand very wide. They're very comfortable and squishy in here.

And then they're expandable at the top to be able to fit multiple different children or sizes of children depending from elementary school up to high school. So they would work for a variety of students.

The next low tech assistive technology is a visual time warning. And using a visual time warning this could be placed on the student's desk every day.

It would be a very explicit forewarning when the activity's going to end, with three visual cards.

So, the first card here would be the green. And the green would be placed on the desk when the activity gets started and the student is ready to go or the computer.

With that the student would know to get working and then as the time is coming to an end the teacher would flip over the next card to the yellow.

Meaning that they are almost done and that would give a visual warning that there's one to two minutes before the activity's going to be finished

so then they have an idea that they're going to need to be finishing up the activity that they're on pretty soon here.

And then next would be the stop sign. The stop sign is a red sign and that would represent that the activity is getting ready to stop

and that they need to go and finish up what they're doing, put their pencils down.

Now the way that this could be utilized with your students in the classroom today it's just placed on a three ring but we could also put magnets on the back

and apply it up to the main board for all students in the classroom. We could put velcro on the back here and and velcro on the desk and attach it that way.

So a variety of ways that that could be utilized.

One of the things that we want to use these visual reminders is when we have activities that don't have clear cut endings,

such as computer games, they're on the computer playing math games or things that they really draw their interest.

They might have difficulty knowing when that's going to come to an end, maybe drawing or even reading if they're really, if that's a high interest for the student.

So, great visual. I've used this in my classroom. It's very successful for students who have difficulty with transitions.

The next is a visual schedule. And our visual schedule today is today's schedule, what's going to be going on in the classroom for today.

So this is similar to PECS, the pictures with a daily routine. They have a graphic to go along with the talk.

So notice today the student will be entering the classroom and expected to go to the desk, get out the journal writing and begin journal writing

and wait for the flag salute.

Then after the flag salute we may be going to calendar time, onto language arts, and then there will be recess break.

And notice that on the first side of our folder it only has six. Well if we flip over the side we'll notice that after recess there are six more activities that are going on through the day.

Kind of breaks down the day very nicely for the student. And they would be able to either take these off or just peel them off and put them into the envelope inside the folder.

So then we go onto math, science, lunch and then returning from lunch would be art, PE and home.

And I made these picture cards just right on the computer with any graphics that I chose and filling in the word.

And it was really easy and inexpensive to make. And the folder can be used a variety of ways.

It can be opened up as a large schedule for the day,

put on a whiteboard or maybe hung from a ribbon or hung somewhere in classroom using velcro.

What we notice when we open the inside is we have the extra activities that are going on where the cards can be taken off and placed inside the envelope.

And also things that the student might need, or when they're done. So here we notice that when I'm done my choices are to read a book, draw, or computer time.

So if the student is non-verbal, then that student can go ahead and pick up the folder picture card, peel it off, raise their hand, show the teacher what they want to do

and that would be a visual tool. And then maybe there are things they might need.

Help, they're feeling sick, they need a break, or need paper, pencil or maybe to go to the restroom.

So depending on how developed their language is, if they're able to verbalize then they may not need these cards but very useful to have in the folder to help them in prompting maybe what they need to do.

And also along in here what we have is a bunch of extra cards that could be used for things that change.

Maybe a library visit, a fire drill would be really important for the student to be prepared and then that way they'd have the headphones from their desks and ready to go

and maybe a timer when that's going to be happening. If there's a cooking activity, maybe assembly, that's a hard transition time and the student

being prepared that assembly's coming that day would make the transition a lot easier.

Maybe there's going to be music, or a surprise activity, or maybe even a visit to the computer lab.

So depending on the activities that are going on. This was based for a elementary student to use in the classroom.

And you would need to work this out if you were working with high school kids. It would have maybe more of a detailed schedule as far as warmup guided instruction

onto individual instruction questions and answers. And maybe they take it out the door their final activity.

So depending on how it's being used for period or for the day, this folder could be utilized.

So, I hope you enjoyed my assistive technologies shown here and wish you a very good day.