in the age of technology.. rant/vent long

[Ebunny59]

Why must I always have to remind them to use the Eco and the mini
laptop if at all possible?

The aide had indicated to the SLP, that Kendra would do better with
her Eco, if she was more familiar with where the letters were on the
keyboard. SO, the SLP asked the school for Mavis Beacon Typing
tutor. Which of course I have on her Eco, but the school doesn't
use. No on has bothered to ask me about if we had it or not. It cost
like $10 at Walmart. Anyway, the school tech person gave her an
online typing program the school uses. It is pretty cool. But, they
SLPs idea was for Kendra to use a regular Macbook, and I swear she
thought Kendra was going to position her hands on the keyboard
correctly, and actually type like that. It is a good thing I just
happened to go to speech yesterday. It is stuff like this, that
totally ticks me off.

I stopped her, when she whipped out the Macbook, and put it in front
of Kendra, with the site already on the page. I immediately took the
mini laptop out of the bookbag where it stays 24/7 pretty much, unless
I use it at home. Kendra and I quickly paired it up with the Eco.
I jumped on the internet using the schools wireless access, and found
the site. I told her to have Kendra type the letters on the SPELL
page she uses (totally customized, after 5 years). It seriously took
us less than 2 minutes to get it out, pair it up, and get to the
website.

Okay, next thing. The SLP suggested that Kendra put her hands on the
keyboard on the Eco, like they were on the game. I said, the purpose
is to help Kendra learn where the keys are, not how to type like an
adult. Luckily the aide jumped in, and told her Kendra does not have
the strength in her fingers to hit the keys, except her index
fingers. We have discussed maybe splitting the keybaord up color
wise, left and right, so she can use both index fingers. So, then the
SLP kept looking at the display area on the Eco. I told her she needs
to stop doing that, because when you go deleteing stuff,a nd editing
and stuff like that, on the computer, that display area is not going
to have on it what your computer screen or your word processing
document has on it. I told her to follow the cursor on the game.
Well, then the SLP started a little complaint, that the keyboard isn't
set up like a regular keyboard is, because punctuation is on a
seperate page. Told her to remember, Kendra only needs to KNOW how to
get to the punctuation pagelet (which she does), to make it appear on
the screen.

Anyway, my point is, had I not been there, they wouldn't even think of
using the Eco (well the aide might have, but would just go along with
the SLP and the MACbook). i told them, to now aim for a goal of maybe
5 words a minute. When you get up to level 4, stage 12, it will give
you a timed typing test. Then, you get a certificate for how many wpm
and your accruacy level. Pretty cool stuff. I got 32 wpm using the
reguala keybaord. Will try it this weekend to see what I can get
using the Eco.

THEN, the aide tells me to go onto this website they have posted on
the school's educational links, because they actually had a computer
class yesterday! Kendra is having problems with place values, and
there is a game on there to help with that I think. But again, they
used the Macs in the computer lab, which they do have some kind of
adapted mouse for her in there. I think a Big Track or something.
But, why not flip on the mini computer, get onto funbrain.com, and use
her Eco, so she gets to do something fun, useful, and educational with
it? Yes, it might take them 10 mintues intitally to figure out how to
pair it up and use the Eco as a mouse, but REALLY, is 10 minutes this
year going to put them way out schedule with computer lessons, all
year long?

These are online things they are having them use. No reason why they
can't use the mini laptop and the Eco.

Amy

[Claire Gesalman]

I feel your pain. I hope you are able to make some progress.

I have never met a school speech therapist who had a clue about
technology. I told the assistant superintendent who is over special
ed that, as well as that the SLPs don't know how to work on speech
development with AAC users. The problem here is the head of the
speech dept is totally out of it so far as our kids are concerned. If
they don't need/won't benefit from articulation therapy, you can
forget it.

I went to back-to-school night and asked each teacher how they were
using the dynavox....most were not, and school has been in session for
a month.

Claire

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 5:25 AM, Ebunny59 <ebun...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why must I always have to remind them to use the Eco and the mini
> laptop if at all possible?
>
>

[Vicki Clarke]

Hello, my name is Vicki and I was a school SLP for 5 years, and I know
technology ;-) just teasing- but the % of SLPs who know AAC is very low
regardless of their venue. I worked in the schools for 5 years and have had
my own practice for 13 years. Our biggest struggle as a company is finding
SLPs who know AAC. The more I find out about the education in the SLP
master's program, the more discouraged I am.

Hang in there!

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