Special Education + Pressure Switches

Today was thankfully the last of class, for this week. Actually, the classes I was taking this week are done. I start three new classes next week!

I completed my morning class with a test that we could work on with a partner. Not too bad I thought. Although we had to reading through many case students choose 2, one from a younger age group and one from an older age group. Then we had to basically pull it apart and discuss appropriate assistive technology for each student. Not too bad.

The afternoon class we did some more learning. Imagine that. Role playing. Can't get away from that in the education field. Then we learned some fun self-defense and "holds" for behavior children. That was fun. Especially when we got to pretend to pull each other's hair, choke each other, and try to kick each other! Then we did some role-playing as part of our final! I still have my take home test to do that is due in three weeks. More case studies! How crazy is that?

So I told you all about this class I was taking in which we made pressure switches Wednesday. I guess I left out what it is that pressure switches have to do with special education. Hmm. Sorry about that.

Special Education covers a wide variety of learners. You have your learning disabled, LD ( difficulties with math, reading, spelling and writing, along with some comprehension difficulties). Then there are your behavior children, ED/EBD. We work with these students on behavior, social skills, coping skills, power struggles, violent behavior towards themselves and others, etc. Then we have our developmentally cognitively delayed, DCD, students ( some people refer to these children as mentally retarted, MR). We don't use that term at school. Then you have to include hearing impairment, visual impairment, ADHD, ADD, ODD, OCD....we call it alphabet soup.

What I am trying to say is that there are a wide variety of learners. In order to help these students become learners, we need to be able to give them the assistance they need to learn. Some students need glasses, some need hearing aids, for the more severe or lower functioning students they need more.

To get to the point of this post, the reason why we created the switches is because our instructor felt that it was something that we should learn how to do. Switches for the classroom can cost from $75 - $200 probably. These switched we made probably cost $3. What can they be used for??? These are used a lot for lower functioning students. Students with cerebral palsy, multiple sclorosis, severely mentally handicap students, etc. These switches can be used to turn on lights, play a tape player, turn the blender on, turn the tv on, be used with computer programs/games, etc. For students who can't do much, this is something they can do.

Anyway, that is probably more than anyone wanted to know or read. But I thought I would explain that more. If there are other special ed teachers out there that would have more information, feel free to make a comment. I didn't want to ramble as much as I did. Oops.

No running today. Tried to do a little rollerblading, but had the wrong kind of socks on and they rubbed my ankles. Had to call it quits early. Tomorrow I plan on doing a longer run. Hopefully. Depending on my legs. I will let them make the decision.