Philippe's Success Story
March 2009
When you look past Phil’s winning smile, great sense of humour and technical ability you find a grade 7 student getting ready for the transition to high school. Phil has been a SET-BC student since he was in grade 1 when his Maple Ridge team, with the support of district staff sat down to figure out what would best compensate for motor apraxia which affects his speech and written output. Deciding on a communication system was difficult as Phil is hyperlexic and therefore loves text. After much discussion it was decided that he was very cable of handling a Minspeak system on a Pathfinder and the team committed to all the learning ahead. Although the road was a bit bumpy the hours of training and support from his team have led to Phil being able to use, program and make decisions about vocabulary on his Pathfinder. All this, while his ability to type like lightening supplemented his use of Minspeak and was his backup system when the Pathfinder required repair.
Early on Phil used Clicker 4 on a laptop to do some writing and recently received a new Macbook with Kurzweil that he uses all the time to listen to text that is difficult to decode. Copying and pasting research information from the internet, adding his own sentences to the material and having it read back to him has allowed him more independence in the tasks of his modified program.
An avid sports fan, Phil uses the internet to track the WHL, NHL and basketball games that he watches on the family HDTV! His fingers fly as he types in the web addresses and searches for today’s games.
As part of his transition to high school, Phil will be involved in creating a Digital Transition Portfolio that will summarize who he is as a learner, and how he uses technology. This will provide the receiving high school some tangible examples of his work, information about his learning style, technology use and some information that Phil will choose to share about himself. Viewing the digital portfolio (PowerPoint format) will give the new team a better idea of who Phil is and will provide background information so they are more informed for a September startup.
Good luck as you get ready for Grade 8 Phil!