On February 1, 2018, the LIGHT Awards team from Alvarado Elementary School in San Francisco attended the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) Conference in Orlando. The Assistive Technology team shares about their experience.
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This 3-day conference focused on using assistive technology to help kids with all kinds of disabilities. Our 5-member team includes teachers who work with kids with severe disabilities, others who focus on students with mild disabilities, and a speech language pathologist. The sessions were incredibly diverse; so we were able to split up and focus on our areas of interest. The Speech Language Pathologist learned practical strategies to teach literacy to students with complex communication needs. The special day class teachers learned how to teach reading and writing to kids with severe disabilities. And the resource specialists learned strategies to help kids with dyslexia read, write and calculate equations.
Collectively, we attended more than 40 training sessions on topics including note-taking strategies, Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), facilitating transitions for kids with Downs Syndrome, training teams to implement assistive technology tools, and using assistive technology to help kids with behavior challenges.
We’ve only been back a couple of weeks, but we are already making changes to our teaching methods based on what we learned.
Thank you, LIGHT Awards!
