Assistive Technology and

Learning Disabilities

Karen Janowski

Simmons College

3/08

Assistive Technology Consideration Brief Someone knowledgeable on IEP team

Four Possibilities

Current Interventions Working – no need for AT

AT already in place Consider New AT Team needs additional information to make

a decision

How do we learn?

Inspiration

What does it mean to learn?

Active Process (What do students do on own time?

Summer Break!) Acquire knowledge Retain knowledge Apply it to life situations Use strategies

Where is the Breakdown?

http://flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/276131991/

Task Analysis

What skills are needed for this task? What is the point of this academic task?

copying

Guiding Principles

Nothing a child does requires more energy than sitting still.

Denckla as reported by Mel Levine at a Conference, 1999

Guiding Principles

Free, appropriate education Mistake Tolerant vs. Mistake Tolerant Teach strategies Accommodation vs. Remediation/Instruction Independence vs. dependence

(upon adults) Universal design

Written Expression

Written Output

What skills are required?

To achieve competency as a writer:

Sustained Mental Effort Selective Attention Graphomotor Function

Visual recall Motor Automaticity Regulation

To achieve competency as a writer:

Ideation – IDEAS!! Brainstorming/Topic Selection Research Elaboration

To achieve competency as a writer:

Memory Motor Memory Active Working Memory

To achieve competency as a writer:

Expressive Language Vocabulary Word Retrieval

To achieve competency as a writer:

Organization Narrative Generation Planfulness/Previewing Step approach Revision

Mel Levine’s Work

To achieve competency as a writer:

Spelling Skills Richard Wanderman says “Spelling is the spoiler

of thought.”

Research Findings

Elementary school children spend 31% to 60% of their school day on fine motor tasks including handwriting.

McHale & Cermak, 1992

Research Findings

Studies show teachers grade papers with better handwriting higher.

Only difference was quality of writing.

Research Findings

Students are less hesitant to reevaluate and edit their written work produced on a computer.

(Graham and MacArthur, 1988, Jones, 1996

Productivity increases (Mayer-Nichols, 1996)

Quality increases (Jones, 1996)

Difficulties with writing

Writing Mechanics – physical, spelling and grammar

Writing Process – generating & organizing text, planning and editing.

Inspiration

Kurzweil

Solo

Writing with Symbols

Read and Write Gold

WordQ

Fable Vision – Essay Express

Clicker 5

Classroom Suite (you will explore this more in the next class)

Written Expression continued

Voice recognition software

What does it feel like to struggle at school?

(Google – PBS Misunderstood Minds)

Speech Recognition

Why?

What does the research

say?

LD 4th – 6th graders produced essays significantly faster than typing or handwriting. (De La Paz 1999)

Stories written with SR were longer, more complex, and contained fewer grammatical errors compared to other methods.

(Graham,1999)

Research shows marked improvement.

(Graham, 1999)

Motivation to write increases

(Graham & al, 1998)

Significant improvement writing

(Lewis, 1998, MacArthur, 1998)

Has remedial effects

Significant improvements in reading comprehension, spelling and word recognition over a control group

Improvements with working memory with continuous speech programs.

(Higgins & Raskind, 2000)

Identified characteristics of “Ideal” VR candidate

Ability to use computer

Limited traditional writing skills

High need

Ability to tolerate frustration

Motivated

Perception – that they can benefit and they have time to learn it

Disadvantages

Training

Hardware Requirements

Different cognitive Demands

Skilled personnel aren’t available to provide support

Dedicated space or computer

Written expression software

Text to Speech

Word prediction

Speech recognition

Writing strategies software (Essay Express, Stationery Studio)

Writing Support Software (Clicker 5, Write Online, ICS,Kurzweil, Inspiration, Draft:Builder)

Reading

Brain Rules by John Medina

The Power of Reading by Stephen Krashen

Readicide: How Schools are Killing Readingand What You Can do About It by Kelly Gallagher

Tools help us become Architects for Change

‘We’re not reading and writing across and down the page anymore.We’re reading and writing in three dimensions – across, down and out, the out being hyperlinks.

It’s a whole different kind of literacy; it's a whole different kind of writing; it’s a whole different kind of reading.

It’s a type of literacy that can’t be done anywhere else but on the web.

James Yap Director of instructional technology

Ramapo Central School District, Hillburn, NYT.H.E Jounal, april 2009 p. 24

It’s a different world for our students

What does the research say?

National Reading Panel

The Big Five

Intact phonemic awareness and not intelligence is the best predictor of reading skills.

Shaywitz, 2003

Successful intervention

Identifies the weakness in getting to the sounds of words

Successful intervention

Identifies the strengths in thinking and reasoning

Successful intervention

Then provides early help for the weakness (remediation)

Successful intervention

Finally, provides accommodation to help access the strengths

(“Sea of Strengths Model,” Shaywitz, 2003)

Summary Table for the FCRR Reports

What WorksClearinghouse

Tools for Developing

Reading Skills

Why should we provide it?

Allows individualized instruction

Customizable

Allows for repetition

Computer is forgiving (are adults?)

Provides record keeping

Focuses on:

Phonological awareness

Sight words

Vocabulary

Soliloquoy Reading Assistant Read Naturally Simons Sounds it Out Lexia Edmark Earobics Reading A-Z

Technology for Reading Support

Start-to-Finish Books

Thinking Reader

Solo: ReadOutloud

Technology for Reading Accommodation

Interactive

Accessible

TechMatrix.Org

UDL Tech Toolkit

http://UDLTechToolkit.wikispaces.com

It’s a different world for our students