boser technology tools.pdf

Technology Tools for Students with Autism

Innovations that Enhance Independence and Learning

edited by

Katharina I. Boser, Ph.D.,

Glenelg Country School Individual Differences in Learning Association Clarksville, Maryland

Matthew S. Goodwin, Ph.D.,

Bouvé College of Health Science and College of Computer and Information Science Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts

and

Sarah C. Wayland, Ph.D.

Center for Advanced Study of Language University of Maryland College Park

Contents

I Overview: Policy, Research, and Implementation Support

Katharina I. Boser ... 1

  1. What Is Driving Innovative and Assistive Technology Solutions in Autism Services?
    Tracy Gray and Alise Brann ... 3

  2. Universal Design for Learning: Meeting the Needs of Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorders
    Yvonne Domings, Yvel Cornel Crevecoeur, and Patricia Kelly Ralabate ... 21

II Classroom Tools

Katharina I. Boser ... 43

  1. Classroom-Based Technology Tools
    Christopher R. Bugaj, Melissa A. Hartman, and Mark E. Nichols ... 47

  2. Using Virtual Reality Technology to Support the Learning of Children on the Autism Spectrum
    Sarah Parsons, Nigel Newbutt, and Simon Wallace ... 63

  3. Using Therapeutic Robots to Teach Students with Autism in the Classroom: Exploring Research and Innovation
    Katharina I. Boser, Corinna E. Lathan, Charlotte Safos, Rita Shewbridge, Carole Samango-Sprouse, and Marek Michalowski ... 85

III Language Tools

Sarah C. Wayland ... 105

  1. Language Software for Teaching Semantics, Grammar, and Pragmatics to Students with Autism
    Katharine P. Beals and Felicia Hurewitz ... 107

  2. Mobile Media Devices: A Paradigm Shift in Communication Technology for Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder
    Jessica Gosnell Caron and Howard C. Shane ... 125

  3. Technology to Support Literacy in Autism
    Sarah C. Wayland, Katharina I. Boser, and Joan L. Green ... 141

IV Social Skills and Emotion-Regulation Management Tools

Matthew S. Goodwin ... 169

  1. Using New Technology to Teach Emotion Recognition to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
    Simon Baron-Cohen, Ofer Golan, and Emma Ashwin ... 171

  2. Incorporating Technology into Peer Social Group Programs
    Andrea Tartaro and Corina Ratz ... 185

  3. Technologies to Support Interventions for Social-Emotional Intelligence, Self-Awareness, Personal Style, and Self-Regulation
    Dorothy Lucci, Minna Levine, Kelley Challen-Wittmer, and Donald Scott McLeod ... 201

V Data-Collection Tools

Matthew S. Goodwin ... 227

  1. No More Clipboards! Mobile Electronic Solutions for Data Collection, Behavior Analysis, and Self-Management Interventions
    Minna Levine ... 229

  2. Tools to Support Simplified Capture of Activities in Natural Environments
    Gregory D. Abowd, Julie A. Kientz, Gillian R. Hayes, Rosa I. Arriaga, and Nazneen ... 247

VI Teacher Training and Practical Implementation

Sarah C. Wayland ... 265

  1. Racing Through the Professional-Development Obstacle Course
    Christopher R. Bugaj, Melissa A. Hartman, and Mark E. Nichols ... 267

  2. Using Distance Learning Technology to Increase Dissemination of Evidence-Based Practice in Autism Spectrum Disorder
    Brooke Ingersoll and Allison Wainer ... 279

  3. Bringing a School up to Speed: Experiences and Recommendations for Technology Implementation
    Monica Adler Werner, Kathryn Nagle, Chris Bendel, and Bonnie Beers ... 295

VII Adult Transition to the Workplace

Katharina I. Boser ... 307

  1. Using Mobile Technologies to Support Students in Work-Transition Programs
    Gillian R. Hayes, Michael T. Yeganyan, Jed R. Brubaker, Linda J. O’Neal, and Stephen W. Hosaflook ... 309

About the Editors

Katharina I. Boser, Ph.D., received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Cornell University in developmental psychology and cognitive science and wrote her dissertation about the early development of child language. She completed postdoctoral work at the University of Maryland studying language rehabilitation using computing technologies for patients with aphasia. In 2000, she joined the research faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Cognitive Neurology, where until 2005 she studied language training with low-verbal subjects and cognition (number representation, memory, and visual attention) in children with autism. She has conducted research on social robots and is involved in usability research with technology companies developing computer software for use with children with autism and other cognitive and/or learning issues. She was a board member and later cochair of the Innovative Technologies for Autism initiative for Autism Speaks until 2011. Dr. Boser is president of Individual Differences in Learning, an educational nonprofit in Maryland that provides professional development to teachers and parents regarding brain-based teaching techniques and innovative technologies for students with a range of cognitive impairments, including autism and twice exceptionality. She presents at many national and international conferences on autism technology research and cognition and advocates for universal design for learning and 21st-century learning and teaching at state and national levels. Since the fall of 2011, she has been a technology coordinator for the Glenelg Country School in Ellicott City, Maryland.

Matthew S. Goodwin, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Northeastern University with joint appointments in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences and College of Computer & Information Science, where he coadministers a new doctoral program in personal health informatics. He is a visiting assistant professor and the former director of clinical research at the MIT Media Lab. Goodwin serves on the executive board of the International Society for Autism Research, is chair of the Autism Speaks Innovative Technology for Autism initiative, and has adjunct associate research scientist appointments at Brown University. Goodwin has over 15 years of research and clinical experience at the Groden Center working with children and adults on the autism spectrum and developing and evaluating innovative technologies for behavioral assessment and intervention, including telemetric physiological monitors, accelerometry sensors, and digital video and facial recognition systems. He received his B.A. in psychology from Wheaton College and his M.A. and Ph.D., both in experimental psychology, from the University of Rhode Island. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in affective computing in the Media Lab in 2010.

Sarah C. Wayland, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Study of Language and a faculty affiliate in the Special Education Program in the College of Education. She has worked on issues pertaining to language for over 25 years, first at Brandeis University, where she earned a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology, and then at Northeastern University, the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and now at the University of Maryland College Park. She was not in academia for all that time; for over a decade she worked in industry designing those annoying telephone voice systems everyone loves to yell at. Active in the local disability community, she has helped organize numerous conferences designed to help parents and professionals learn more about ways to help their children with disabilities. She is on the executive committee of the Individual Differences in Learning Association and has been a board member of the Special Education Citizens’ Advisory Committee of Prince George’s County, Maryland, since 2007. She comoderates GT-Special, an international Listserv for parents of twice-exceptional children (children who are both gifted and learning disabled), and is a member of the Gifted and Talented with Learning Disabilities (GT/LD) Network. She is also a Parents’ Place of Maryland PEP (Parents Encouraging Parents) leader of Prince George’s County, Maryland. Dr. Wayland lives with her wonderful husband and their two fabulous boys in Riverdale Park, Maryland.

Classroom-Based Technology Tools

A vast array of low- to high-tech tools may be utilized to reduce and even eliminate educational barriers for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This chapter describes a sampling of the tools available to support students in accessing the general education curriculum to the greatest extent possible. Examples of how the tools may be utilized with students and integrated into the curriculum are provided via vignettes. It is important to note that the tools and strategies presented in this chapter must be adapted to meet the needs of the individual student. Technology tools should never be globally grouped and categorized around a specific disability. A tool that may appropriately support one student to varying degrees may not adequately support another student with the same disability. Any tools selected for use should be based on student need, the environment(s) for which the tools are required, and the educational tasks for which the student requires support (Zabala, 2005).

Tools for Routines and Self-Management

Routines are integral parts of daily life for students with ASDs and foster successful engagement and increased independence by helping a student manage the social and academic pressures associated with various school environments. Disruptions to normal routines can often trigger confusion and adverse behaviors. It is imperative that teachers of students with ASDs reinforce appropriate routines and transitions to prevent students from developing their own systems, which may not be as adaptive or effective as those developed by the teacher (Mesibov, Shea, & Schopler, 2005). A clearly defined and structured environment is vital in creating positive outcomes. Technology tools can readily support a student in reaching full academic potential. Sometimes, the least restrictive solutions for engaging students within the curriculum involve common tools found within the home, school, or work environment. For instance, Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint, two powerful tools that are common in many classrooms, have a variety of premade templates that can quickly be accessed to create learning resources. Both Word and PowerPoint can be used and modified in conjunction with clip art to create personal visual schedules, behavior charts, or even contextual stories depicting appropriate student social interaction. Visual schedules provide clear direction while requiring minimal social exchange by the educator, thus eliminating potential confusion by the student. The research of Bryan and Gast (2000) supports the benefits of utilizing visual schedules with students with ASDs. Students were able to learn how to follow the schedule and were able to generalize the schedule to different settings successfully. When the visual schedules were removed, productivity and ability to transition decreased. An individualized visual schedule may be prominently posted on the wall, on the student’s desk, or in a folder or notebook. The most common visual schedules list activities by times. For example, the day may be divided into 30-minute increments with pictures and/or phrases that can be moved from area to area depending upon the day and the activities. For durability, schedules should be laminated with information that is fixed. Velcro dots may be attached to pictures and/or phrases and affixed to the chart at the appropriate times.

Tools for Structuring the Classroom Environment

Students with ASDs require a structured day and a predictable, calm environment in which to navigate the school day effectively (Cumine, Leach, & Stevenson, 1998). Classrooms that serve students with ASDs should be flexible and contain academic, sensory, and group and individual spaces (Vogel, 2008). Students should have their own workstations or offices that are relatively free from distractions, complete with specified areas for necessary materials and visual schedules. Teachers may use dividers (portable walls) or bookshelves to provide a specific area for each student. This area may contain bins of activities, both preferred and academic, as well as any materials necessary to complete work. The workspace should be arranged in a natural progression with work to be completed in a folder or bin on the left side of the desk and completed work on the right. Some teachers utilize plastic bins for this purpose; others attach folders to each side of the desk. The materials used will depend upon the individual needs of the student.

Tools for Delivering Instruction

According to the principles of universal design for learning, it is imperative that teachers utilize multiple means for representation when delivering instruction to reach all students regardless of ability (Rose, Meyer, & Hitchcock, 2005). Each student has preferred styles of learning as well as specific strengths and weaknesses when receiving and presenting information. Students with ASDs tend to be visually oriented, thus using interactive whiteboards to present information via video and interactive games and activities is extremely engaging. Interactive whiteboards allow students to participate in tactile and kinesthetic activities. They also provide a way for teachers and students to present videos, including multimedia slideshows such as PowerPoint presentations and Prezis, and digital books to share with the class or individual students. Digital simulations are also very popular. Virtual dissections, math manipulative activities, space exploration, archeological digs, and additional activities are all available on the internet. A simple keyword search will yield more results than teachers can possibly use.

Tools for Expression of Knowledge and Productivity

It is important to recognize that an attribute of the human condition is the need to communicate with others. Successful communication happens in a variety of ways using multiple modalities (Pearce, 1989). Individuals communicate through words, gestures, writing, artistic expression, and more. These means can be organic (speech or gestures) or mechanical (technology) in both analog and digital formats. The tools 21st century students with ASD have to express themselves are vast and varied. It would be impossible to try to capture every tool students have available to them that could be used to demonstrate their knowledge; however, this infinite array of options can be clustered into categories to help organize the technology into manageable components. In this way, educators can focus on the task to be accomplished and subsequently look at the tool or tools that could be used to facilitate that task.

Tools for Verbal Expression

Difficulties with verbal expression present themselves in a multitude of complex ways, including concerns with the form, structure, and meaning of language, along with the accurate physical production of sounds in connected speech. The tools used to help students communicate can be grouped in two primary categories: augmentative and alternative. Augmentative systems are tools that help people whose primary form of communication is through verbal speech but who demonstrate difficulty with successful communication interactions. This difficulty might include problems with prosody, intelligibility, vocal quality, or language processing or with some other barrier to successful verbal exchanges. Augmentative tools work to facilitate communication by enhancing or supplementing verbal speech. When an individual does not demonstrate the ability to produce verbal speech, an alternative approach to verbal communication is necessary.

Among other strategies to facilitate communication, AAC technologies, like any other set of tools, span a range from no-tech to very dynamic, intricate digital systems. A pacing board is a set of displayed shapes to help provide and represent a visual, kinesthetic, and tactile model particularly useful for helping students expand their length of utterance and/or change their rate of speech. For instance, when a student makes a one-word verbal request, such as “toy” to indicate he or she wants a particular toy, a communication partner might draw three circles on a piece of paper, point to each circle and say, “I want toy,” and then present the circles to the student with the expectation that the student would use the circles as a model for verbal reproduction. Similar to a pacing board, a sentence starter strip provides a student with a visual representation of what to say in the form of a set of picture symbols followed by an empty cell. Voice output devices generate either a recorded or synthesized message when a cell (like a button) or set of cells is activated. Static voice output devices have a set number of cells that typically cannot be changed.