Early Childhood Special Education and Assistive Technology Blog

By: Carrie Portrie, EC-SEAT Project Coordinator in collaboration with Sophia Fowler, early supports and services provider and Jessica Heald, elementary special educator as part of a workshop presented to Early Head Start childcare partnership teachers. Many adults working and caring for young children have access to tablets with built-in cameras that can easily record infant and toddler learning. Using digital tools for observation and documentation can provide creative means for practitioners and families to reflect on infant and toddler growth. Below are tools to create social stories and learning stories on a tablet. Social stories are focused on targeted behaviors for specific interventions. Learning stories originate from New Zealand and are constructed in the oral story tradition or like a picture book illustrating a child’s observed explorations or interactions with peers and the environment. Below are resources and basic steps to begin creating these types of stories. ...

By: Laura Kazmierczak (EC-SEAT Scholar) and Carrie Portrie (EC-SEAT Project Coordinator) When working with individuals and children on an iPad using various apps for learning opportunities or leisure, there may be some parts of the screen that you would like to restrict access to.   This may be for many reasons, but some common reasons from a parents perspective are: You don't want a child to accidentally click on the part of the screen that offers an option to purchase the app.  You don't want them taking pictures, modifying settings, or entering the information page of the app. Educators, clinicians, and professionals can also share in those same reasons, but they may also want to: Use the app as a reward for completing a task and guided access allows them to set a time limit in the app which will restrict total access when the time is up and they are to return to their tasks. Restrict access to parts of the screen for someone with low muscle tone in their ar...

by Laura Kazmierczak , EC-SEAT Scholar Tiggly chef is a free app that combines fun cooking creations and early addition math concepts through cause and effect. The app allows for flexibility with numbers and reinforces the addition process with verbal narration as the items chef identifies are chosen by the student. The app can be used for all children learning early addition math concepts and would be especially beneficial to a child who loves to pretend to cook. The app also provides customization capabilities with the options to create your own recipes, ingredients, and addition problems. With its variations in recipe problems the app eliminates the possibility of simply memorizing problems to get them right and aims for learning through purposeful or meaningful ways. The app requires finger isolation and the ability to drag items into a bowl. You can also drag more than one item at a time to make varying math problems with the ingredients. Once the recipe's math probl...

By: Laura Kazmierczak , EC-SEAT Scholar See Me Talk  (Lite) - This app provides children who are non-verbal or who have minimal language and vocabulary to communicate their needs, wants, feelings, where they want to go, what they want to do, ask questions, make statements, and so much more. Under settings you have the opportunity to select the type of voice you want, create new categories and cards using your own photos or one in the library, edit existing categories and cards, and print the sentences communicated by the user. The way the app is set up is very straightforward and clear making it very user friendly. Once the items are chosen for desired communication you press the the talk icon to the right to hear the sentence. I can see this app being used in the classroom, at home, and anywhere the child may go. I thought that the favorites category would be quite useful in its convenience to a child who may always have a favorite activity or food to eat that they can quickly a...