Category Archives: disability

Shout Out for Voices

BETT, disability, New technologies, software, special needs, youth and community

I have always loathed the voices on speech synthesis. I know disabled kids who think it is a laugh to sound like a Dalek but I think it’s sad and particularly depressing for adults who might have all their materials for a degree course read out in a robotic voice. But voices are getting better and I have two good news stories

First JISC TechDis commissioned CereProc to create Jack and Jess, two new high-quality voices that can be used with text-to-speech tools. The big story is TechDis has managed to obtain a wonderful licensing agreement so that all staff and learners in publicly funded post-16 education in England should be eligible to download the voices free of charge.

That means that if you are studying in Adult & Community Learning; Further Education; Higher Education; Offender Learning; Sixth Form Colleges; Specialist Colleges; UK Online Centres; Voluntary Sector; and Work-based Learning you won’t pay a penny. Ask at your education centre or college now.

Alistair McNaught, Senior Adviser at JISC TechDis is excited about the prospect of real voices for the estimated 4.5 learners out there who could benefit. ‘Now hundreds of thousands of print impaired learners have a decent voice to listen to while they are studying and won’t be embarrassed if they want to access talking materials while they are out walking or doing household chores. The stigma about using such software tools vanishes. This will have a massive impact on their productivity and confidence.’
Click here for more information

Voices for children
It’s not just adult voices which are improving. Rosie and Harry were shortlisted for the BETT ICT Special Educational Needs Solutions 2013. 74,000 children and teens in England cannot speak for themselves and need a voice for their assistive technology. Rosie and Harry are the first English voices for children. Acapela Group and AssistiveWare best known for former BETT winner Proloquo2Go have pioneered the development of these voices which in time will become available in other products too.

Harry sounds pretty normal but Rosie is definitely Home Counties which means girls will sound more like Hermione from Harry Potter than Lisa Simpson. More news here.

Anna Reeves, National AAC Coordinator for England
Anna Reeves, National AAC Coordinator for England

Anna Reeves, National AAC Coordinator for England said, ‘These new voices will further transform the lives of children who cannot speak and the lives of those around them. It may be the very first time that families hear their own children speak with a child’s voice – you can’t put a price on that.’

Sing Up helps children find their voice

disability, New technologies, software, special needs

Stephen Robinson is a music trained teacher who works at Green Park Special School in Wolverhampton. It is an all age special school for pupils aged 3-19 with severe learning difficulties, profound and multiple learning difficulties and those with autistic spectrum conditions. Here, and in his previous post at Beaufort School in Birmingham, he has used music extensively, as a means of developing communication skills, of adding an extra dimension to curriculum topics and also as a subject in its own right.

 

Stephen first saw Sing Up in a magazine and went online to see if it was as good as it looked. Sing Up is an online resource which has a song bank with over 500 songs cross referenced to curriculum targets and different theme. There is lots of help for teachers too including training and personalised support. The initial good impressions were reinforced when he attended a day organised by Sound Futures organisation. These training days feature classroom practitioners and artists who have been involved in projects with pupils who have a range of special needs.

 

Sing Up is a really flexible and versatile tool. It is online so teachers can use it anywhere that they have Internet access: in class, the hall, clubs, at home. There are plenty of different backing tracks which can be useful if a teacher is not especially musical or if there are no facilities for making music.

 

In theory, any school could put together a bank of music resources. Stephen thinks this would be a false economy as it would be a very time-consuming process and the end result would not be as comprehensive. Sing Up has been designed by music specialists and introduces pupils to different rhythms and tempos and the musical culture of different countries.

 

It is an ideal resource for special schools. There are suggestions for classroom activities and videos of songs with demonstrations of Makaton signs which teachers can copy. There are lesson plans as well as grids for communication aids so pupils who need assistive technology can join in too. The variety of information on the site means that staff can make sure they have suitable content for pupils with a wide range of needs.

 

When Stephen was working at Beaufort School he ran a club called Everybody Sings. This was an inclusive club. Some pupils would sign, others would sing; some would use percussion instruments, others would join in via assistive technology. The important thing was that children could all make music together in a way that worked for them.

 

Some pupils with communication difficulties come into their own if they are given a microphone. It seems to unlock their ability to vocalise and helps them to verbalise. Reuben had limited verbal skills. He went through a phase as an elective mute but an African call and response song unlocked his speech so that he began to say different words and sing in the right pitch. Soon he was trying to express ideas in increasingly developed sentences.

 

Children with communication aids can join in and become the leader. They can record a line or use a communication device with a switch and speech output to deliver key lyrics. Stephen recalled an occasion when a large group of children were singing A sailor went to sea, sea, sea in assembly. The children with communication aids were responsible for the refrain and really enjoyed their moment of power as they made the others wait for the See See See!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dyslexia Behind Bars

disability, Literacy, New technologies

Jackie Hewitt-Main is the driving force behind a remarkable project which might just revolutionise education in prisons in the UK.

Her project, based initially in Chelmsford Prison, has shown that up to 53% of prisoners may have dyslexia and that 21% have suffered a head injury which could have affected their behaviour. She has pioneered a cost-effective approach to help prisoners learn to read and write and there are clear signs that it could lead to a dramatic drop in re-offending rates.

Terry had been in and out of prison more than 40 times and was self-harming. He was totally frustrated with his inability to read and write and the fact that this was holding him back in a world where jobs, benefits and many social activities require good literacy skills.

He was assessed using Lexion software, a Swedish program which tests for a whole battery of skills and then provides carefully targeted exercises to build knowledge and confidence. He has made great progress and is now one of the prison mentors.

Jackie has adopted a grass roots approach. Learning doesn’t necessarily take place in a classroom because this is not a natural environment for those who have struggled and failed at school. She introduces learners to visual and tactile approaches and helps them find their own learning style.

“I was 40 when I found I had dyslexia,” said Jackie. ” I realise that my learning disabilities have been a big problem in my life. Many of the prisoners I met in my dyslexia and mentoring project at Chelmsford, including those with the most challenging behaviours, showed such great transformation and went on to help others with the knowledge they had gained.”

It is a shame that much of the publicity surrounding prisons this month centres on Gordon Ramsay – a man who can bully for England- and there is so little mention of the good work in prisons which can help offenders to turn their live around.

Dyslexia Behind Bars: Final Report of a Pioneering Teaching and Mentoring Project at Chelmsford Prison – 4 Years on by Jackie Hewitt-Main (Paperback – Jun 2012) can be bought on Amazon

Ray Barker retires from BESA

awards, BETT, disability, Politics, software

Last night was the end of an era for the British educational software industry as Ray Barker, director of BESA, retired.

Ray worked as a teacher, a multimedia publisher and ran an Education Action Zone before joining BESA. He was chair of judges for the BETT awards and was a regular commentator on changes in government legislation which affected the purchasing power of schools.

There are many ‘experts’ in the educational software industry but Ray really knew his stuff. He was a great networker, very pragmatic and found ways of making things work, often against the odds. He was a good friend to the special needs community. He had a particular interest in literacy and was keen to see a division of spoils which gave everyone a more equal chance. He was a very talented political animal and will be much missed. His successor at BESA is Caroline Wright who has a wealth of experience in government departments as well as in the public and private sector.

At his farewell do at the City of London Club, many representatives from the press, software companies, schools and key educational organisations turned out to wish him well.

Pictured here from left to right are are Ann Crick, Sal McKeown, John Crick (Crick software), Ray Barker, Mick Archer (former editor of Special Children magazine), John Galloway (journalist and adviser in Tower Hamlets), Carol Allen (special needs adviser for North Tyneside) and Amanda Peck from Mayer Johnson software

Texthelp’s award winning software helps the Fire Brigade

disability, New technologies, Politics, software, , ,

I am just back from a week in Boston and Chicago. I was amazed at the number of fire engines I saw and wondered if we were about to have a second Great Fire of Chicago but Jimmy, the 77 year old taxi driver and self-appointed guide to the city, told me that in the USA fire engines don’t just put out fires, they often act as paramedics too.

When I thought about it , the same thing is happening here. If ambulances are busy in rural areas, often a fire engine will be dispatched and they have always cleaned up after road traffic accidents.

So I was very interested to discover that Texthelp, a company well known for its Read and Write Gold software, is working with the Fire Brigade Union (FBU). Texthelp has long been used in schools, especially secondary schools, and has proved its worth with young people who have problems with reading, writing and the research necessary for compiling projects and revision for exams. But why the FBU?

The answer is that they are now subject to the strictures of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA . They used to be exempt, along with police and prison officers and people who work on board ships, aircraft or hovercraft.

These days firefighters need a lot of training to keep up to date with new procedures. They have to be experts in fire fighting techniques, hazardous chemicals, first aid, dealing with trauma and using breathing apparatus correctly. Modern firefighters also needs IT skills for the administration they have to do such as logging incidents and writing reports.

Trevor Shanahan of the FBU was aware that a number of fire fighters were anxious about their literacy levels and would welcome some help . He had heard about Read&Write GOLD through other unions and invited the company to show what they could offer.

Read&Write GOLD is now used both on the service’s computers and on home computers too. It works with common programs such as Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, and Adobe Reader. It will read text out loud so firefighters can upload training materials and listen to them instead of straining to read them and only get half the message. It is very versatile and is ideal for users with dyslexia as all the settings can be tweaked. Among other functions, Texthelp has an inbuilt dictionary, word prediction and a homophone checker for those common similar sounding words.

Now when I give way to a fire engine, I am much more aware of the hours of behind the scenes training and admin which keep fire fighters on the road. Thanks to Texthelp, those with dyslexia are now a little more confident and competent and that has to be good news for all of us.

Meet me at the TES Special Needs Midlands 2012 Show

disability, software, special needs,

This takes place at the NEC on Friday 29 and Saturday 30 June. I am running a session 12.30 -1.30 on the
Saturday called Helping pupils with dyscalculia engage with the numberness of numbers. It will cover the early signs of dyscalculia and how to assessfor the condition. It will present different techniques and guidance for teaching basic numeracy.

Later in the day at 3.30 I will be running Using computer games in the primary inclusive classroom  with Donna Burton Wilcock, internationally renowned expert on games and CEO of the very successful Immersive Education. We will be looking at the new demand for gaming in the classroom and how games making can help pupils develop self-reliance, problem solving and critical thinking skills. View and book  seminars here http://secure2.eventadv.com/tesmidlands/step1.asp

But enough about me. What else will you see? I hope to go to Carol Allen’s session Supporting visual learners in the inclusive classroom on  Friday at 11pm, looking at how to create an inclusive environment using digital media and visual resources and How we created a 21st century special school on Friday at 2pm run by Maxine Pittaway, head teacher of award-winning special school St Christopher’s in Wrexham.

My three ‘not to be missed’ exhibitors are:

ActiVise Software ww.bactivebrainsolutions.com). This looks interesting and very timely as we enter exam season. It is a learning and revision software resource for learners of any age and ability studying any subject. The software consists of a framework of six interactive games which can be populated with personalised content.

Texthelp (http://www.texthelp.com ) help will be demonstrating Fluency Tutor which I have seen demonstrated online. It is designed to assess and improve pupils’ reading and comprehension levels and I wrote about it for Special Children magazine in my article on Reading Aloud.

Dore is a Programme (www.dore.co.uk) offered by a company in Stratford upon Avon. It assesses and addresses problems which affect co-ordination, eye tracking and attention span and makes these underlyingskills become more automatic so that children can concentrate better and learn more effectively. Up till now it has only been available for home use but at the show they will be showing schools how they can use their Programme in schools.

Read All About It with Symbol Support

disability, Literacy, New technologies, software, special needs, youth and community,

With the Olympics and the Queen’s Jubilee coming up, there has never been a better time to get young people interested in the news. But what if your children are not good readers? They may end up confined to the TV news which is so transitory that children cannot grasp it, let alone recall it.

News-2-You (http://www.news-2-you.co.uk/) is an online newspaper aimed at pupils who need extra support for literacy. It has been created by special needs company Inclusive Technology, comes out fortnightly and costs just £99 for a single licence. It has speech and symbol support and brings over 200 pages of current affairs, features, activities and stories into the classroom.

Teachers can access News-2-You on an interactive whiteboard for whole class work or print it out for individuals. It has four levels of difficulty. The Simplified version gives a basic overview of the week’s key story topic with SymbolStix supported text. This is ideal for young people with learning disabilities who cannot access conventional print. There are three higher levels so pupils can progress.

In addition to the differentiated levels, there is also a text only version and all levels have a ‘speaking edition’. This means that the students follow the text as it is read aloud. Each word is highlighted as it is spoken.

Each edition features the story of the week which is the focus for a host of activities too. Recent topics including the Frozen Planet, Sports Relief Week, Animal Record Breakers and Star Wars – The Phantom Menace. It also has a World new section which has 2 or 3 substantial articles per fortnight and uses Google Maps to show where each story is taking place.

It is packed full of activities including worksheets for comprehension and literacy activities. But News-2-You is not all about the serious stuff. There is always a joke, a recipe for cookery lessons and some games.

My dyslexia book is proving popular

disability, Literacy, software, special needs, training,

I have just received this lovely comment from handwriting expert Amanda McLeod, “Just to let you know it’s on my table and quite a few parents have looked through and then gone out to buy it. They like its practical nature.”

The book in question is How to Help Your Child with Dyslexia and Dyspraxia which is available from Crimson Publishing and has a foreword by Tom Pellereau who won The Apprentice last year.

Handwriting expert Amanda McLeodThe McLeod Centre for Learning is in Pimlico (London SW1). It is a centre for children who are under-achieving in English and Maths. Children attend mornings and are taught by specialist dyslexia teachers in small groups, or on an individual basis. Children attend up to four days per week and usually stay for two to three terms. They go back to their main schools for the afternoons.

Requiem for a trail blazer

disability, New technologies, Politics, software, , ,

The Oxford ACE Centre is to close this summer unless there is a change in government policy or an investor comes forward. The ACE Centre Oxford was a pioneer in assistive technology for children and young people who need computer support to help them speak, study and lead their lives with dignity.

A girl being assessed for a communication aid at the Oxford ACE centre
If Oxford ACE closes, who will help her?

Oxford ACE has been in the forefront of research, developmental projects, assessments and technology provision since it was set up under a Tory government 28 years ago.

Many young people have benefited from their expertise. One example is Alice who is now 19. She was born with athetoid cerebral palsy. She was a very bright girl but when she started school she could not a pencil or make herself understood. When Alice was six years old she received her first computer. Even so, typing was laborious. She typed very slowly, using just her left hand.

When Alice started her GCSEs she was assessed by the Oxford ACE Centre to see what technology she would need to fulfil her academic potential. She got a laptop with Internet access and voice recognition. This marked a turning point as she could produce work much more quickly and accurately and found the whole process of composition much less tiring. Now she no longer needed a scribe so the school saved money too. Alice is now studying for a degree in Environmental Sciences.

The Oxford ACE Centre was the first organisation of its kind in England and set a very high standard. Its research always focused on the leading edge technologies, most recently eye gaze technology for those who cannot use their hands to navigate a mouse.

former head of inclusion at Becta
Becta was a victim of governemtn cuts, now Oxford ACE

Chris Stevens, formerly Head of Inclusion at Becta, itself a victim of government cuts, commented, “This is very sad news. Oxford ACE was a trail blazer and set very high standards with its assessments and research. It made such a difference to the lives of so many young people. I worry that the next generation of youngsters with disabilities will not get the same rigorous assessments and decisions about technology support will be made purely on the basis of cost”

Oxford ACE

Making best use of symbols

disability, Literacy, New technologies, software, special needs, ,
Feelings grid from Mayer-Johnson
Feelings grid from Mayer-Johnson

I spent the afternoon in Leicester with teachers, teaching assistants, speech therapists and people from the NHS. We gathered together courtesy of Mayer-Johnson to learn more about practical uses of PCS symbols. This covered both print materials for displays or for children to take home as well as activities which have been devised especially for BoardMaker.

Carol Allen and Ian Bean, both national experts in assistive technology for schools, led off with three really good sessions:
• The value of symbolic communication in education – proven theories and practical strategies.
• Explosively exciting supported learning strategies to bring the curriculum to life.
• Symbols for transition & behaviour – symbol based strategies for tackling tricky areas and challenging behaviour.

There was so much to take away from the day. Both Carol and Ian have a fund of stories of children they have worked with. These included the child up a mountain who was so distressed because he had no idea what was happening or whether he would be stuck up there forever. Visual timetables are not just useful in the classroom but for showing what will happen next in real life.

Then we heard about the school which links symbols with physical activities so children walk round the school on a treasure hunt, looking for where copies of a particular symbol are hidden, matching symbols on a piece of paper with the symbols on a hopscotch grid.

We heard about useful life skills work.  Put symbols for a sequence on a digital key ring so a pupil goes off to a particular shop to buy certain items and bring them back to school. There is even a symbol reminder than they need to say thank you.

But you can also combine symbols with the animation program Crazy Talk. Take a symbol and make it talk to you so the symbol and the concept it represents come to life. Even better, many children with learning disabilities are able to do this for themselves so it should be within the realm of possibility for most staff.

EAL and other resources
SEN and EAL resources

Kerry Vacara of Mayer-Johnson rounded up the day by introducing the audience to profiles of different learners and staff. Groups had to decide how to provide support and what symbol resources would help.
For more information about Mayer-Johnson training events see http://www.mayer-johnson.co.uk/seminars/ They can also advise on in house training events.
Carol Allen and Ian Bean also provide training and consultancy. See http://www.ianbean.co.uk/