Reducing Overload in Students with Learning and Behavioral Disorders: The Role of Assistive Technology

I chose an article based on students verified with Emotional Disturbance (ED), called Emotional and Behvioral Disorders in the article, and assistive technology (AT). I am getting my certification in special education and have an interest in working with students whose main concerns are behaviors. This article matched the criteria for the assignment and my interest.

The article gives four tips when choosing to use AT.
Tip 1: Take into consideration what precipatates the behavior. For example, a student who hates to write could become agitated and escalate when told to write a paragraph. This student may use AT such as DragonSpeak to dictate his or her paragraph instead of physically writing it. The article goes into detail with other anticedents and possible AT that could prevent behavior or escalation in a student.
Tip 2: Data tracking is extremely important when working with students who are verified ED. When dealing with outbursts from students tracking what happened before, during, and after an episode is imperative to help identify triggers and what could help de-escalate the student. The article talks about AT that could help with tracking data. Stop watches, counters, and computer applications are discussed. These devices can help a student have a visual, help with activities, and graphing performance. I feel there are many AT devices and applications that could be used that were not discussed in the article.
Tip 3: AT can be used to allow the student to self monitor. There are three categories that devices can be divided into when used for self monitoring: visual/ auditory prompting, visual/ auditory cueing, and self- graphing. Examples of this type of technology include: visual timers, timers with verbal cues, and graphing behavior and performance data for the student.
Tip 4: Teaching students social skills. Social stories to help teach appropriate skills and behavior for certain situations can be found online and created through certain applications and websites. The article also discusses Power Cards. Power Cards are visual aides that can help explain a social situation. These cards are created using a special interest of the student and are the size of business cards or playing cards. They show a social situation and how it is solved/navigated by the hero.

This article was written in 2007. While the article is only 9 years old, it is considered fairly old in the technology since. While the technology discussed may be behind the times, the four tips are still very relevant and can be useful in considering AT that could benefit the student and the teacher.

Article website: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ967467.pdf