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Posted 05.12.08 Students given tools to succeed at school for the disabled Daily Record -- Dec. 2007 At Chambers, tech helps kids soar By Vidya Padmanabhan Originally published in the DAILY RECORD, Monday, December 10, 2007 HANOVER -- Tech pundits tend to fawn over flashy innovations like the BlackBerry, the iPod and the iPhone. At the P.G. Chambers School for children with disabilities, the critics' picks are slightly different. Here, the top 10 list would include: Microsoft Word's color-change feature! Extra-large keyboards! Extra-small keyboards! As the wider world enjoys the fruits of the digital explosion, in unseen but significant ways, technology is helping to improve the lives of millions of people living with disabilities. Assistive technology can be as complex as the system that helped Stephen Hawking communicate with just a twitch of his eyebrows. Or it can be as simple as a colorful keyboard with extra-large keys, the kind Sarah was using on a recent Friday as she worked on math problems given by teacher Linda Cook. Sarah lives with multiple disabilities; she uses a wheelchair and her speech is impaired, as are her sight and manual dexterity. Her BigKeys keyboard, with different-colored letters and distinct placement for the page-navigation keys, helped her to see her work better, while the larger size increased her accuracy, Cook said. This seemed to work, as the wizard icon in the corner of Sarah's screen kept nodding approvingly as she raced through her addition and subtraction problems. The Chambers School was founded in 1954 to help children like Sarah through educational and therapeutic programs. Today, the school provides on- and off-site programs for more 600 children ages 3 to 14 from North Jersey, according to executive director Susan Seamans. School districts pay tuition and some fees to send children with special needs to the school, Seamans said. Other costs are met by government and private grants, as well as private contributions. Always on the lookout for innovations that can help children with disabilities, the school has, in recent years, begun to extensively explore assistive technology, according to Adam Krass, coordinator of assistive technology programs at the school. The technology was not all high-tech, Krass said. Some low-tech options worked better, and often are cheaper, he said. "Sometimes, it's a matter of pure economics," Krass said. "We want to buy just the right amount. For instance, the Alphasmart (a keyboard with a screen, which aids typing) is a $400 device, while a laptop is $800," he said. Krass also mines common applications for assistive technology features, or simply adds on simple, effective increments to those applications, he said. In Microsoft Word, for instance, just changing the white background to yellow made a big difference for children with visual impairment, Krass said. Making font sizes bigger also worked, as did special fonts that he bought and installed on school computers. Programs that read typed matter aloud also were effective, Krass said. Specialized computer-accessing devices, such as roller-balls and touch screens, instead of keyboards and mice, were other examples, he said. This summer, the school began using the Smartboard, an interactive presentation tool, which has proved very useful, according to Krass. On a recent Friday, a 11- to 14 year-old class was reading an illustrated, abridged version of "Gulliver's Travels" on the Smartboard. A scene involving some egg-related silliness in Lilliput was cracking up the students. Krass had scanned the book onto media that could be projected onto the Smartboard. "It's so visual," said teacher Laura Jaarsma. "It's really awesome." Besides, they could flip back to previous pages with just a touch of the screen, as student Tyler leapt up to demonstrate. For one of the students, Nicole, whose movement was restricted to her head, a "jellybean" switch on the headrest of her wheelchair helped her control the Smartboard, Krass said. The same switch eventually could be adapted to help her control any device, such as blenders or lights, he said. "People are like snowflakes; every one is unique," read a banner on a hallway on the way to Linda Cook's class. After a year volunteering at the school, Cook has been a teacher for four years now. Her class is unique in that every one of her nine students has a computer to use, while most other classes have just one each, according to Seamans. Cook said she "begged and borrowed" from relatives and friends to equip all of her students with computers. "It makes a great difference," Cook said. "It makes them independent. As they go forward, they won't need someone with them to take notes." The children were just finishing up a spelling test. Noah was a picture of concentration as he bent over his AlphaSmart, a keyboard with a screen. He was just learning to type, Cook said. So it helped that he didn't have to look up at the screen to see whether he had hit the right key. His forte was math, Cook said. Inspired by "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?" he had gotten started on square roots. He rattled off the answers to problems posed by Cook. "24?" she asked, somewhat sneakily. After a moment's thought, "Either 6 or 4," he shot back. Manny and Robert were working on their handwriting, and used paper and pencil. Vicki worked on her spelling using IntellaKeys, a keyboard that combined a keyboard with buttons that performed the functions of a mouse. A label on the keyboard announced that the keyboard had come from the Wharton School District, which was Vicki's home district. "Oh, brother," Sarah exclaimed. She had gotten "fairness," "kindness" and "respect" right, but "appreciation" was giving her trouble, though she had the "tion" unit. Alex had wrapped up his spelling and moved on to math. His fingers moved swiftly on the compact keyboard that helped him work with his limited range of motion. Soon, he had zoomed on to pay a card game, his reward for quick work. For her reward, Vicki chose a game involving pennies that she had to add up to make $2. For the game, she exchanged her keyboard for a joystick, instead of a mouse. She loved games, and when she went home, would play on WebKinz with Brandon and Patrick, Cook said. Some of the children used laptop computers. "When they go to college, they can take the laptops with them," Cook said. "And they will," she said. "All these children will go to college." |
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