Technology Tuesday

Teaching The Foundation Of Communication

A resident at Imagine!’s 19th St Group Home is working with his DynaVox communication device to learn a new method of accessing his device. The resident presses a switch with his head to interact with his device, and the speaker connected to the switch provides the resident with auditory cues.

As with any new skill, it’s important to master the fundamentals before jumping into something more complex. We worked through a few activities with the resident, and we were able to determine a) what he enjoys, and b) areas where he could use his device to exert more influence in his typical environments.

What you see in the video below is Imagine!’s Assistive Technology Specialist Chris Baumgart demonstrating a cause and effect activity, such as one used by the resident. This is one of the first major building blocks that form the foundation of communication. The activity is simple enough: Any time the resident is watching videos on TV (videos on the internet, DVDs, etc.), the video will play for five minutes. At that point, the video will stop, and the resident will be prompted to press the switch to continue the video. As soon as he does, the video will resume for an additional five minutes. The simplicity of this activity serves to quickly reinforce the relationship for the resident between cause and effect, and requires little additional active support from his staff. Once this building block is mastered, i.e., once the resident is able to keep pressing the switch more quickly, the videos will begin playing for a shorter amount of time, and he will gradually be able to access more choices simply by listening to his auditory speaker.

 

Can’t see the video? Click here.