Charlie - Sometimes the best examples of assistive technology implementation happen in the smallest schools! Charlie, an engaging and communicative intermediate student, attends a small elementary school in the Rocky Mountain area of British Columbia. He has made amazing progress in recent years using Intellitools to support his reading and writing. He has difficulty with the writing process and in comprehending textual material. With Intellitalk II, he is able to complete writing assignments based on topics taught in the classroom.

Charlie's Special Education Assistant, Donna, has worked with assistive technology for a number of years now and is very comfortable using Intellitalk II to create custom activities to motivate and support Charlie when writing. She uses texts or topics taken from the regular classroom program, modifies them, and then builds highly interactive activities. Charlie looks forward to new activities – her biggest challenge is keeping up with him!

When Charlie first started with Intellitools, he accessed the program using an Intellikeys keyboard. Donna has found that, in the past year, he has progressed to the point where he can usually use the regular keyboard and mouse to engage the activities. He still occasionally prefers his alternative keyboard though and Donna can accommodate his choice as needed.

Intellitools has helped develop Charlie's understanding of classroom concepts, improved his writing ability, and increased his general independence in the school setting. Donna works very hard to create activities that match his needs and his developing maturity. Early activities were very graphically rich and took longer to create. As he has progressed, she has been able to reduce the amount of graphic support and can see a time when he may move on to a more conventional word processor.

Keane - For some students, assistive technology does more than just enhance their educational program - it provides a focus for daily activities. Keane is such a student. He is a handsome and charming high school student who uses a computer and Intellitools to learn some very important life skills.

Keane has difficulty understanding and remembering everyday concepts that we take for granted. His team, when requesting support from SET-BC, was looking for a solution which would help him learn and retain concepts like colours, kitchen routines, and community signs. His enthusiastic and dedicated high school team, led by his Special Education Assistant Lori, creates custom Intellitalk II activities that allow Keane to explore and practice these types of concepts. Lori creates the activities on Intellitalk II and then prints out the corresponding overlay so he can access the activities with his Intellikeys USB.

Lori has successfully created game-like activities that are highly motivating. Keane continues to enjoy the games for many weeks. She has also created a daily journal activity that helps him report his daily activities. He is gaining independence in writing his journal and printing it out at the end of the day. Keane has computer time scheduled into every day of his school timetable and really looks forward to seeing what new activities Lori has created for him.

Keane's team has been very successful in implementing assistive technology for a number of reasons. The choice of Intellitools was carefully made to match his needs, his team is very committed to including technology as part of his everyday routine, his Special Ed Assistant is very enthusiastic about technology and what it can accomplish, and time is set aside on an ongoing basis to prepare and review Keane's activities. We are sure to see some great things from Keane in the future!

You can see Charlie & Keane in action in the Access Classroom section of our Learning Center.