Assistive technology (AT) is a part of my everyday life at work. I have several students that use it and I evaluate other students who may benefit from it. I also teach students, paraprofessionals, teachers, and parents how to use AT.
AT, like many other things, falls on a spectrum. This spectrum goes from low tech to high tech. It might be easy and pretty to just throw the latest and greatest technology at our students that need a solution, but that's not always the best thing. Let's think about what that means. Say a student is having trouble holding a pencil and can't write legibly with a standard #2 pencil. With the spectrum, we would start with low tech solutions and work our way up to high tech solutions. The first solutions we would look at would be a low tech solution like a pencil grip. The solutions would be tested and move up the spectrum until the best solution is found.
One of the teachers I work with, Ms. B, has a student who needed a way to feed herself. This is a basic task that many of us can do without even thinking. Could you imagine having to rely on someone else to feed you every meal? Could you imagine sitting in the cafeteria at school and wanting to socialize with your friends only to have your paraprofessional sitting right next to you so that she can feed you lunch? Wouldn't you want to find a way to do it yourself? Well, there are fancy self-feeders out there that can feed you every meal, but they are really expensive.
Here's an example of a Winsford (TM) Feeder that retails for $3495.00:
AT, like many other things, falls on a spectrum. This spectrum goes from low tech to high tech. It might be easy and pretty to just throw the latest and greatest technology at our students that need a solution, but that's not always the best thing. Let's think about what that means. Say a student is having trouble holding a pencil and can't write legibly with a standard #2 pencil. With the spectrum, we would start with low tech solutions and work our way up to high tech solutions. The first solutions we would look at would be a low tech solution like a pencil grip. The solutions would be tested and move up the spectrum until the best solution is found.
One of the teachers I work with, Ms. B, has a student who needed a way to feed herself. This is a basic task that many of us can do without even thinking. Could you imagine having to rely on someone else to feed you every meal? Could you imagine sitting in the cafeteria at school and wanting to socialize with your friends only to have your paraprofessional sitting right next to you so that she can feed you lunch? Wouldn't you want to find a way to do it yourself? Well, there are fancy self-feeders out there that can feed you every meal, but they are really expensive.
Here's an example of a Winsford (TM) Feeder that retails for $3495.00:
As nifty as this is, that's a hefty price tag for something that may or may not work well for this student. This would be the high tech end of the spectrum. There are several other types of adaptive and self-feeders, but this is like the Mac Daddy of them all.
Ms. B decided to build something that could work instead. (Side note- teachers that work with students with physical disabilities tend to think outside the box when coming up with solutions for students. We also tend to build a lot of our own stuff.) She decided that we should start with something that could hold a sandwich for her to eat. I happened to stumble across this cool idea and we decided to run with it. So Ms. B and I headed out to our local hardware store to find some materials that we could use to build it. After a few minutes, we have a prototype! For around $30 in supplies (that can be used to make more of these feeders) we were able to create this.
Ms. B decided to build something that could work instead. (Side note- teachers that work with students with physical disabilities tend to think outside the box when coming up with solutions for students. We also tend to build a lot of our own stuff.) She decided that we should start with something that could hold a sandwich for her to eat. I happened to stumble across this cool idea and we decided to run with it. So Ms. B and I headed out to our local hardware store to find some materials that we could use to build it. After a few minutes, we have a prototype! For around $30 in supplies (that can be used to make more of these feeders) we were able to create this.
Technology is awesome! But don't forget that sometimes we need to look to a low tech solution that can get the job done.