Training Multiply-Handicapped Switch Users to Scan
Rob Koch OTR
Hello to those of you who are involved in teaching multiply-handicapped persons to scan.
Below is the article that was published in Closing the Gap in December 2006.
Also below is a software guide to help teachers find software to train multiply handicapped users to scan. The software guide is dynamic – I change it whenever I review new software.
Before you use the software guide below, I need to clarify a few points regarding the guide and the classification system I used to develop it.
The first point I need to clarify regards my rationale for my classification system. When I developed the guide, my intent was to contrast software so that teachers would be able to determine at what “level” their students were performing as they moved through the process of learning to scan. Therefore I decided to classify each piece of software based on the highest “level” the software addresses. I feel by showing this contrast the teacher will be better able to choose a program to accurately match the student's progress while training.
However, the teacher must understand that I am not declaring the software to be useful at only its “highest” level. Most of the software in this guide addresses other lower “levels” that make the programs applicable to a variety of training goals. So even though I have classified a program to be at a particular “level” - the programs have multiple teaching attributes and can be applied to training at various levels of performance.
The second key point I need to clarify regards the level “2 Switch Training”. I realize that in the CTG article I should have labeled the category “2 Switch Training” to be “2 Switch Awareness”. The importance of this distinction is that I do not want the teacher to think that learning to effectively operate 2 switches occurs at this low level. What I meant to imply is that this level - “2 Switch Awareness” - is categorized by having the user show physical or sensory awareness that 2 switches are available for pressing - one on one side and one on the other. Performance at this level is simply that the student show awareness of the existence of 2 switches - not that he stop and start appropriately to make choices with 2 switches. That skill develops later in higher “levels” of scanning training.
I hope you find the article and guide useful. Finally, if you know of some software that I have omitted in the guide, please let me know. I want to be able to include as much beneficial software as possible. Feel free to send me your comments.
Software Guide for Beginning Scanners
Comments or Questions
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