Early Childhood Special Education and Assistive Technology Blog

By: Kimberly Chouinard,  EC-SEAT Scholar This week started with a bang! It’s hard to believe it still the same week, actually, it is a blend of 2 weeks. On Friday 3/13 the state of NH announced that all schools would be closed and move forward with a remote learning model during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Friday (3/13), my school district sent an email asking staff to work from home on Monday (3/16) and to review options and ideas for beginning a remote learning model for their grade level.  On Monday (3/16) we had the first of many, preschool team Zoom meetings. We collaborated, shared, planned, and came up with a plan to begin to move forward planning for remote learning. 1.     We agreed to create an activity calendar, with four developmental subheadings to work on for both the 3- and 4-year old programs. 2.     We planned how we wanted to explain to parents how to implement these suggested activities at home. 3.     We divided th...

By: Alexa Splagounias, EC-SEAT Scholar Providing proper training and education to preservice teachers in their teacher preparation programs then they will enter the field feeling well prepared to support the needs of all students in the classroom, which will in turn lead to teachers having more positive views on inclusion and improved student learning outcomes. Introduction Inclusion of children with special needs into the general education classroom is becoming more and more prevalent. Roughly sixty percent of students with disabilities spend more than eighty percent of their day in general education classrooms. Further, roughly ninety- six percent of general education teachers have students with special needs in their classroom. Despite the increased prevalence of inclusion within schools and policies to support that, our teacher preparation programs are not reflective of these changes. The school system is ever changing and it is important that our policies and teacher pre...

By: Laura Kazmierczak , EC-SEAT Scholar This past spring, I had the opportunity to do an independent study with Therese Willkomm . Part of my time was to document and record many assistive technology (AT) solutions using everyday materials both recycled and bought in stores (e.g., hardware stores, office supply stores, drug stores).  One of the projects we worked on together was creating tactile overlays for tablets, a fairly simple solution for teachers or caring adults working with children who have low vision or are blind. A tactile overlay is a sensory aid which guides a child's fingers using textured points of reference. We created an instructional video to show one way example of creating this solution using donated overhead film and the Garage Band app . Below you can view the video .  Using overhead film to create tactile graphic overlays

A couple days ago the U.S. Department of Education proposed a new rule "to improve the equity in the the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)," and made it public in a February 23, 2016, press release . You can visit the press release and listen or read the transcript explaining the proposal. The recording provides the voices of many national actors speaking about racial and ethnic disparities in education for students with special needs. I recommend listening to the recording in its entirety as well as the questions fielded at the end. The recording begins with Acting Secretary of Education John King stating: " Today, we are taking a critical step to support students of color with disability, and more broadly, to improve equity in our country. We have a moral and a civil rights obligation to ensure that every student has the opportunity to succeed regardless of background or whether the student has a disability. Our laws exist for the purpose of...