Assistive Technology

HL
by Hailey Leibman4 views·Updated Nov 9, 2023
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  1. Hello, my name is Haley
  2. Leibman
  3. and today I'm going to be discussing assistive technology
  4. in the context of um education.
  5. So first of all,
  6. what is assistive technology um and its relationship with accommodations.
  7. So accommodations provide changes to educational curriculum for students
  8. that may need extra help in specific areas.
  9. Accommodations are
  10. widely available and commonly used with assistive technology. Um
  11. As
  12. some of these examples can include speech to text special lighting, visual cues, um
  13. different seating, all of these are assistive
  14. or accommodations in terms of assistive technology. Um assistive technology
  15. is used to help students who need
  16. extra help in certain areas to help progress their learning skills.
  17. Um
  18. Now we'll discuss devices and services.
  19. These are the two interdependent aspects that make up assistive technology
  20. devices are the equipment and technology needed. So it could be ipads
  21. um speech to text features, certain applications
  22. um and then services include the support
  23. um or services
  24. necessary to use devices. So
  25. teacher trainings, parent trainings um
  26. meetings with the student,
  27. anything to help support the use of the assistive technology.
  28. So now we're going to take a little bit to look at um an example of a
  29. high school sophomore
  30. um
  31. and her experience with
  32. assistive technology.
  33. So Jade is a high school sophomore and she struggles academically.
  34. Um
  35. This has been going on since elementary school. She has a
  36. learning disability and a DH D which
  37. causes her trouble when processing information,
  38. retaining and recalling information as well as
  39. selecting monitoring and using strategies.
  40. Um So, although she's very smart,
  41. uh she does have trouble getting her thoughts on paper in a cohesive manner.
  42. Um
  43. And even with tutoring sessions, homework,
  44. nothing is seeming to fix this issue. So her IEP team
  45. needs some help determining what to do. Um
  46. And the two options would be remediation and compensation.
  47. Um From my knowledge in assistive technology,
  48. I do believe that Jade needs compensation.
  49. So this would be adaptions to help Jade reach certain skills.
  50. Um In her certain case,
  51. I believe these would be different seating or
  52. frequent breaks as these would help to accommodate the
  53. um A DH D and LD that Shakespeare is experiencing.
  54. Um remediation focuses more on skills and functions like vision.
  55. While compensation focuses on using adaptions to help certain skills
  56. um
  57. using these adoptions,
  58. she just may be able to better express her learning and get
  59. her ideas on paper in that more cohesive manner that the teachers are
  60. looking for.
  61. Um
  62. So some next steps
  63. would be
  64. creating the plan um and implementing the plan.
  65. So within creating the plan, we could look at
  66. identifying individuals, identifying devices and services
  67. and then training and monitoring.
  68. Um for implementing the plan,
  69. we would want to implement assistive technology, not only at school,
  70. but also at home,
  71. we would want to train parents and guardians. Um
  72. and then give Jade and those involved practice with the devices and services.
  73. Um
  74. with assistive technology, there can be some adverse reactions.
  75. So this is what we will talk about next.
  76. Um
  77. Jade ends up getting a speech to text
  78. software that helps her with her learning disability.
  79. But one of the classmates parents complains
  80. um
  81. that it is unfair that Jade gets to use this sophomore while other students
  82. do not.
  83. Um as a teacher,
  84. it is important to educate
  85. families on this and um
  86. let them know about learning
  87. disabilities going on in the classroom and that
  88. this does not allow Jade to
  89. get by in any way
  90. way than the other students, but rather allows it allows um
  91. the gap to be closed between her and the other
  92. students and allows Jade to be competent in her learning
  93. and reach the level that other students are learning
  94. in the same way that they are.
  95. Um So really this would just for me would
  96. be a conversation with myself and that parent.
  97. Um
  98. then moving on
  99. the third piece we're going to look at
  100. today is kind of evaluation of assistive technology.
  101. Um
  102. So we have been given some data before
  103. Jade started using the speech to text software.
  104. And after she started using it,
  105. she started at 55% at week one and then went to
  106. all the way to 85% by week 10.
  107. And this was a measurement of her performance on written assignments.
  108. Um
  109. So overall, we would
  110. collect this data, um plot it on a graph which we did
  111. and then kind of evaluate the data. Um And from this evaluation,
  112. we can say that Jade's
  113. use of assistive technology was effector effective.
  114. Um She is at 85% rather than 55 which shows
  115. she's much closer to mastery than she was before.
  116. Um She is not 100% which is
  117. totally fine. As
  118. many kids are, if they were at 100% we would have nothing to teach them. So 80
  119. 85% is a good place to be.
  120. Um
  121. And then
  122. we would also just want to look at the data pattern,
  123. so continue to monitor it.
  124. Um And kind of see what this pattern is um
  125. indicating and
  126. how the IEP teams should respond.
  127. So
  128. the data pattern that we see shows that she
  129. does significantly better when she has a T.
  130. Um And then she tends to plateau when she gets to the average um
  131. exceeding level.
  132. Um but without a T, she really cannot get past a certain level and that certain level
  133. is not even as high as her lowest level
  134. without
  135. or with assistive technology. So overall, we are seeing that assistive technology
  136. is really allowing her to be confident in her learning
  137. um grow
  138. and just exceed through
  139. boundaries that she was not even capable
  140. of reaching without the assistive technology.
  141. Um
  142. So, to finish it off
  143. this presentation about assistive technology is just an example of how
  144. it can be used in the classroom and
  145. how it can really
  146. sprout someone's growth and learning and help close the gap between our students.
  147. Thank you.