3.1 - Lynette
Lynette is a nine year old student with Turner Syndrome, a genetic disorder resulting in physical anomalies and learning disabilities. As with other girls having Turner Syndrome, Lynette is very short and has visual-perceptual difficulties. She has difficulty with balance and coordination as well as significant trouble with fine motor skills.
When Lynette sits in a regular school desk, her feet do not touch the floor, and she struggles to maintain her balance. The desktop is also too high for her to work with ease. Her discomfort and tentative balance further detract from her ability to attend to learning and distract her from her school tasks. Lynette uses a desk top computer on loan from SET-BC for written assignments.
Assembling the Planning Team and Assigning a Team Leader
Lynette's planning team included Lynette and the same people who made up the Individual Education Planning Team: her classroom teacher, her mother, a physiotherapist, and the school based resource teacher who acted as the leader of the team. Before the first team meeting, the resource teacher used the Observational Checklist (p. 35) to begin assessing Lynette's needs for an adapted school workspace.
Planning the Workspace
Analyzing Lynette's Needs
Lynette's team met to discuss Lynette's difficulties and possible solutions. The team looked at Lynette's physical abilities, mobility, motor abilities, learning difficulties affected by workspace issues, and classroom demands for group work. They decided that she needed modifications to her workspace to ensure her stability and proper posture, including adjustments to the height of her seat. They also agreed that she needed a separate station for intermittent computer use. The team recorded information from their meeting on the Adapted Workspace Planning Form (p. 36-38).
Deciding on Solutions
The team discussed several possible modifications of the workspace to meet Lynette's needs:
- increase the height of her seat so she would have easier access to her desktop, which would then be the same height as the other students' desks,
- provide Lynette with a wooden box-like footstool so that she would be able to maintain the correct sitting posture, and
- provide another table for her computer, close to her desk, but not on her desktop, since she is only using the computer for a portion of the school day.
They used the form, Designing an Adapted Workspace (p. 39) to record measurements, dimensions and features of Lynette's workspace.
Fabricating the Workspace
The resource teacher worked with the school district maintenance department to design adaptations for Lynette's chair, a footstool, and an additional table was obtained form the central supply department. The maintenance staff completed the work and delivered it to Lynette's classroom teacher.
forms to go here.