Closing The Gap II

Bridgette Nicholson (OTR/L) of Custom Solutions gave a wonderful presentation on The Power of Voice for Writing! Her talk went beyond the use of voice recognition software as she discussed voice play, recording answers or written work into Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, use of digital voice recorders, quick creation of talking books in PowerPoint with Record Narration..., and so much more.

When students record directly into Word, they are independently expressing their own thoughts. There is no influence of an overly helpful or a discouraging scribe. If the teacher is not willing to or doesn't have time to listen to the recorded work, an Aide can transcribe the work directly in the Word document in brackets for the teacher to correct. This is a wonderful way to increase the student's independence.

As part of her online typing tuotrial program, you can test a student's writing speed and accuracy by alternative methods so that you can truly judge which writing accomodations work best for the individual. You can sign up for a free trial.

Bridgette is one of the many practitioners of Assistive Technology who are expanding our concepts of Assitive Technology in the ever-growing digital world. At this web site she has video clips of students using her techniques and a wealth of other information about the use of voice. It is definitely worth checking this out.

If this is not enough, Bridgette has also designed
AdaptaTRAY which is a wheelchair tray with holes, blocks, brackets & straps for optimizing positioning of arms, hands, switches, augmentative communication devices, and anything else you might need to position on a tray.