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 put yours on with autism. The first here is a pair of headphones. We have a lot of these headphones that connect to our computers that we can take off and use in the classroom and place on the students ears. We reduced this for someone who has difficulty with sensory as far as hearing is very sensitive to maybe fire alarms or bells ringing. Those kind of things and placing these on the ears of the student would help prevent maybe a set-off for the remainder of the day and disrupt their complete schedule for the day and due to an interruption such as the fire drill and usually as teachers were prepared For those activities that are going on and we cannotify our students that that's going to be coming, these particular headphones only run about 12 dollars, 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 are very comfortable and squishy in here and and then they're expandable at the top to be able to fit multiple different children, our 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 is 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, we have 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're all done, and that would give a visual warning that there's one to Two minutes before the activity is going to be finished, so then they have an idea that they're going to need to be finishing up the activity that are 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 ahead 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 is 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 velcro on the desk and just attach it that way, so a variety of ways that they 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 there really is that if that's a high interest for the student, so great visual, my views this in my classroom. It'S very successful for students that 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 top 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 ready and wait for the flag salute. Then, after the flag salute, we may be going to calendar time on to language arts and then every recess break, okay and notice that on the first side of our folder, it only has six well. If we flip over the other side, we'll notice that after recess, there are six, more activities, are going on through the day kind of breaks down the day very nicely for the student, and they would be able to either check these off or just peel them off. And put go right here into the envelope inside the folder. So then we call into math science lunch and then returning from lunch would be art PE at home, and I made these picture cards just right on the computer, with any graphics that I chose and filling in the word and was really easy. Inexpensive to make the folder can be used a variety of ways. It can be opened up as a large schedule for the day put on a white board or maybe hung from a ribbon or hunt somewhere in the classroom using velcro. Well, we noticed when we open the inside is we have the extra activities that are going on where the cards can be taken off in place 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 nonverbal, 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 those things they might need help. They'Re feeling sick, they need a break or need paper or pencil or maybe to go the restroom so, depending on how developed their languages, 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 them here? What we have is a bunch of extra parts that could be used for things that change, maybe a library visit, a fire drill would be really important for the student be prepared and then that way, they'd have the headphones on their desk, ready to go, and maybe A timer when that's going to be happening if there was a cooking activity, maybe assembly, that's a hard transition time and the student being prepared that assembly is kind that Dame would make the transition a lot easier. Maybe those going to view music or a surprise activity, or maybe in a visit to computer labs, 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 are working with high school kids, what happened maybe more of a detailed schedule as far as the warm-up guided construction on to individual instruction questions and answers, and maybe they take it out the door, the final activity so depending on how it's being used per Period or for the day this folder could be utilized, so I hope you enjoyed my assistive technologies today and wish you a very good day.