Community comes together to provide adaptive toys for Early Childhood Special Ed class
Electronics students at the Jr/Sr High School, adapting a game buzzer to become a switch that will make a toy easier to use in the Early Childhood Special Education classroom. Photo courtesy of Joe Freeman.
submitted by Theresa Herron, speech-language pathologist, Manchester Community Schools
I knew there are options out there, we just needed to brainstorm a way to get them!
Some kids need extra support to help them access toys — they have fine motor delays, or social communication deficits caused by autism, or other developmental delays that make interacting with the world more difficult. For those kids, having colorful and exciting toys that can be activated with a switch is one way to help bridge the gap.
However, those switches are expensive — between $75 and $200 per switch, not including the toys they operate. And the visually stimulating, fun toys that kids like are usually operated by a button that can be hard to manipulate, or by a tiny switch on the back. A nonprofit group based in Cincinnati called May We Help? (maywehelp.org) has offered to help modify certain toys to be operated by a switch, and they even publish their modifications in step-by-step directions. Thanks to a grant requested last spring, May We Help? has provided a sensory chair for use with students at Klager Elementary. They will also be sending a switch-modified toy soon, as a request was submitted by Special Education staff at Klager.
When I got the email about requesting a switch-modified toy, I was excited — this would fit a need we have in the Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) classroom. But then I started looking around on their website and saw the instructions on how to modify toys. Maybe we could adapt multiple toys, and have lots of opportunities for our young learners. I reached out to Joe Freeman, who teaches technology classes at the Jr/Sr High School, and Joe responded that his Electronics class students would be willing and able to help.
Now to get supplies for the project. I turned to DonorsChoose.org, which helps educators use crowdfunding to support classroom projects. For under $200, I found I could get eight “game buzzers” that could be modified into switches with 3.5mm jack wires, along with a bubble machine and some tornado lamps that could be modified to be switch-activated. I posted the campaign to my Facebook page, and within 2 hours it was funded by friends and family. The items were ordered automatically by Donors Choose and shipped to the school.
Flash forward a few weeks, and Freeman and the Electronics students came through. The ECSE classroom received four adapted switches and the toys that were adapted to be operated by pressing on those switches.
The ECSE classroom staff wasted no time putting the toys and switches to work. I chose the target word “push” and modeled it on a speech-generating app on a classroom iPad, then students took turns pushing the button to activate the tornado lamp. It was an immediate hit!
Sometimes it’s the community pulling together that makes all the difference. I would like to send big thanks to MayWeHelp.org for the instructions, to DonorsChoose.org for the help getting the project pulled together, of course to the donors to the project, and especially to Freeman and the Electronics students. My students and I say THANK YOU!
Page one of a set of instructions available for modifying a bubble-blower toy, available at maywehelp.org
Presents arriving in the mail! Photo courtesy of Theresa Herron.
Electronics students at the Jr/Sr High School adapting game buzzers that will be attached to toys to make them easier to activate. Photo courtesy of Joe Freeman.
A student trying the lamp for the first time. Photo courtesy of Theresa Herron.
Herron modeling “push” as a vocabulary word. Photo courtesy of Kristen Hancock.
Students taking turns activating the tornado lamp. Photo courtesy of Kristen Hancock.
Photo of a page set from the LAMP Words For Life app for iPad. Photo courtesy of Theresa Herron.
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