- Welcome to this edition of "Spotlight."
We are at the Gerner Family Early Education Center
with Coordinator Rachel Ward.
Rachel, dozens of students in our district
learn and communicate more effectively,
thanks to assistive technology.
And that includes students here at the Gerner Center,
and that is really a crucial part
of ensuring all of our students succeed.
- Absolutely.
I'm very excited for this "Spotlight" to highlight
our use of assistive technology and allowing
all students to have a voice in the learning process.
We have a wonderful staff here at the building
to be able to support our students
as they learn and grow, academically,
as well as in their practical life application,
and many of our students that utilize devices
are able to grow and develop in incredible ways.
- Well, in honor of
Augmentative and Alternative Communication Awareness Month,
why not let some awesome Gerner students,
along with our teachers and parents, show and tell us
how they're learning to join the conversation
as we highlight the Gerner Family Early Education Center.
(gentle music)
- The AAC stands for Augmentative Alternative Communication.
And so, it's a way for our kids to become more independent
in their communication skills. And so
even though they may be at that one- to two-word level,
or maybe their speech is so unintelligible
that you can't understand what they're saying,
this is a way for them to use communication
at a higher level, that they're capable of doing it,
and make it functional for us, for them to communicate
with us, at school, at home, in the community.
- When you give a student a device,
you can't just expect them to automatically
know how to communicate right from the beginning.
They have to be taught, and they have to be taught
the social aspect of it, how to use it
interactively with other people, and they have to
be taught the vocabulary that's in the system.
And one of the ways to do that
is just by modeling, all of the time,
the words that you're using, the words that they're doing.
- Mealtimes is really his favorite time to use it,
because he can get exactly what he wants.
And since we've had the talker, it's actually cut down
a lot on tantrums and behavior issues, because he's able
to communicate those needs, which is great.
- We've always had really structured times
during the day when, it's kind of been,
I guess, you could say easy to implement the device.
So, times like snack, or work time.
It's kind of easy to put that vocabulary
into what they're doing,
but now that we're able to do it during
large group instruction, we're able to do it during
gathering time, where the vocabulary is always changing.
They're always learning new concepts.
They're able to learn it during music time,
where there's all kinds of words that they're learning,
so it just broadens that vocabulary
and gives them even more exposure to
words that they weren't even seeing before.
- She can't talk. She says zero words,
so this gives her the platform to be able to say anything.
And at first, it was not as specific.
It was kind of just learning it,
so she would list all the state capitals in order
and then play them all through, which is funny,
but then she started with things that she wanted,
and that developed to, you know, she would start to
talk about her feelings, which was different.
So, it's more in depth, and then she's more willing
to just, I mean, do it willingly.
She'll come up and just say, you know, "I'm hungry."
- One of the biggest misconceptions out there
about assistive technology is that
the kids will learn to rely on that,
as opposed to their own voice,
and they'll stop wanting to learn to speak,
and we've actually seen the opposite is true.
It's almost like when you unlock that power
that they know that if they communicate,
they can get what they want.
They can express their own personality.
- They're just picking up these things that, from modeling,
that we're also not discreetly teaching them.
So, I've seen kids who've busted out sentences
that you're like, "I've never taught them how to use that,"
and they're using it correctly,
with correct grammar, correct punctuation.
They're using it in the correct setting,
so it's really cool to see how they move from something
that's very specific, and you're doing it
in a very structured setting, to, then eventually
being able to just use it spontaneously.
- He will use his talker to say something,
and then he'll try to say the word.
Or, he'll try to say something,
and then he'll go to his talker to kind of confirm.
So, it's really encouraged him to help take risks,
whereas before he didn't want to try
saying words, because he knew,
"They're not going to understand me."
- It's amazing. It's amazing.
I mean, it's not her voice, but it's her voice, and it's ...
(exhales)
I can tell that she's, sorry.
She's less frustrated,
because she can use that to talk to me,
and it's just been the best thing
for my husband and me to, you know, to have that for her,
for her to be able to, you know,
it helps in every single aspect.
- She can build a sentence like no other,
and she understands the concepts
of how language goes together, to make longer utterances,
and it's just amazing to think
where she's gonna be in five, 10 years.
She's going to be literate. she's going to be reading.
She's going to be writing. She's going to be
an effective communicator for life
because of the things that have been established here.
- We moved here from Texas to be in Park Hill
so that she could go to Gerner,
because it's supposed to be one of the best,
you know, school districts in the nation.
- I'm going to cry, because it's so cool,
but there's so many different levels, where the kids are,
but we have kids leaving here that are reading,
that can put things together that are grammatically correct,
and that's like a, you know, I mean,
that's a kindergarten to first-grade kind of skills.
- Gerner is amazing.
I can't say enough nice things about them.
They are, kind of, the number one cheerleaders
when it comes to using his talker, using his device.
You know, Ms. Nelson just supports him all the way.
You can see in the classroom. It's always supported.
It's always integrated.
And they've just kind of been our number one advocates.
(gentle music)
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