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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Show Notes:
Adaptive Toys and Play with Ahren Hoffman, Manager of Industry Relationships and Partnerships, National Lekotek Center | www.lekotek.org
Learning Ally Will Host First Ever National Virtual Dyslexia Conference for Parents http://buff.ly/1Eptl8g
Microsoft’s bone-conducting headset uses audio to help guide the blind around town | PCWorld http://buff.ly/1Eprdxs
Hit the right notes with assistive devices – Channel NewsAsia http://buff.ly/1B1ZR4c
App: Snap Type www.BridgingApps.org
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AHREN HOFFMAN: Hi, this is Ahren Hoffman, and I am the Manager of Industry Relations and Partnerships at the National Lekotek Center, and this is your assistive technology update.
WADE WINGLER: Hi, this is Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana with your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of technology, designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Welcome to episode number 181 of assistive technology update. It’s scheduled released on November 14 of 2014.
Today we’re going to hang out with my friend Ahren Hoffman, who is the Manager of Industry Relations and Partnerships at the National Lekotek Center. They are headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, here in the United States. We’re going to talk about toys and play in all the interesting things about kiddos with disabilities and how adaptive play might be an impactful thing in their lives.
Also, Microsoft’s new bone conducting headset that created 3-D soundscape for navigation; we also have an app from the folks over at BridgingApps called Snap Type.
We hope you’ll check out our website at www.eastersealstech.com, drop us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project, or ask a question, give us your feedback, be a voice in the next edition of assistive technology update. Just call our listener line at 317-721-7124.
Many of my listeners are familiar with learning ally, which is a nonprofit organization that helps folks were blind, visually impaired, or have learning disabilities have better access to books and other kind of materials. Well, they are going to do what seemed to be the first ever national virtual dyslexia conference for parents of kids with disabilities. This event is going to happen on December 5, 2014. There is a fee by the way. It has $89 unless you are a member of learning ally, then it is $59. On this day, they are going to have headlining speakers, for example, Sarah Barton with bright solutions for dyslexia. Sheila Costello who is with Oren Gillingham practitioners and educators. Jimmy Martin who is an assistive technology consultant and will be presenting playing with a full deck using assistive technology to study vocabulary. I love the fact that although this event is going to be held in New Jersey, is a web event and will be available to everybody that has interested. I will pop a link in the show notes over to learning allies press release where you can learn more about this national virtual dyslexia conference for parents of kids with dyslexia.
From PCWorld.com, the headline reads Microsoft’s bone conducting headset uses audio to help guide the blind around town. This is pretty cool. This is a new project for Microsoft is being done in the UK right now. It is designed to help people who are blind navigate the environment a little bit differently. There is a great video on the site that gives you a lot of details, but the quick overview goes like this. You wear a bone conducting headset, so it is a regular headset that goes on the back of your head, and instead of earbuds going in your ear, the bone conductive headset lays up against the bone surrounding your ears. That translates sound to you. That is connected to a smart phone, and they talk about it when the smart phone in this case. Your navigating area that is kind of preprogrammed with Bluetooth begins and Wi-Fi begins to give the user information. The end effect, according to this video, is that somebody who is blind can still rely on their cane or their daughter basic navigation, but as their moving around, they get more information. They describe it as a 3-D soundscape that provides information about where you are going, what you are looking for, how to navigate and find things in your environment.
This is currently a pilot project. It is only being done in the UK check Microsoft is not talking about when they might start testing the system in the US. But it is an interesting thing and I think, in general, there is a lot of opportunity to be done with sound and 3-D soundscape navigation. I am excited about what Microsoft is trying here. Off of a link in the show notes over to PCWorld.com and you can check out this article in the video on what Microsoft is doing with this bone conducting 3-D soundscape technology. Check our show notes.
>> — Is being played. It turns out you do not need to have a musical background. I certainly do not.
[Music Tones]>> And the interest in music technology worldwide is growing. With special needs children learning how to play music, despite the odds.
WADE WINGLER: What you are hearing there is a clip of a story coming out of Singapore on Channel news Asia.com. It is a fascinating story that talk about adaptive musical instruments. We have talked about Skoog and a few of those in the past on the show. This is a nice video and blog post that talks about several people with different kinds of disabilities using several adaptive musical interfaces. They demonstrate the Skoog, also one called AlphaSphere, where a gentleman is blind and playing the air guitar. Another one that is called Soundbeam that allows people to play music in an adaptive way as a group. It is a nice overview of the various different kinds of adaptive medical devices interfaces there.
One of the leaders is named Carmee Lim. She says that “music and movement wire up the brain. But now with this programme, anybody can do it. It’s good for children with special needs, for children who are recovering from illness and operations, and also for seniors, because that will help them keep active, engaged and happy.”
So I am going to pop a link in the show notes and you can check out the video and also read the text from the story in Singapore about adaptive musical instruments. Cool stuff.
Each week, one of our partners tells of that happening in the ever-changing world of apps, so here is an app worth mentioning.
>> This is Amy Barry with BridgingApps, and this is an app worth mentioning. Today’s app is called Snap Type for occupational therapy. Snap Type is an easy-to-use, intuitive app, a long completion of worksheets using the camera on an iPad to create an image and type answers on it. This app greatly assists students who have handwriting difficulties. Using the iPad camera, a picture is captured of a worksheet or a form and then loaded into the app. The user is then able to type an answer directly on the worksheet using the iPad keyboard. Within the app, fonts can be enlarged and images can be resized by simply pinching with two fingers. Tapping and dragging can move text boxes. Work and then be saved to the camera roll or emailed or printed. It is easy to begin again by flipping over the iPad for two seconds.
We trialed Snap Type with an eight-year-old who is receiving school-based occupational therapy due to visual-motor and visual-perceptual issues. The biggest complaints from teachers about handwriting for the student was related to illegible answers on worksheets. The student quickly learn to take images of the worksheets using her iPad, upload them to the device and type in her answers. In addition to making her writing legible, and eliminating issues with visual-perceptual skills, the child’s interest in the task was greatly improved, as was her pride in her work.
Some of the pros of the app are that it is extremely fast and easy to use for young, inexperienced, or cognitively challenged users. There are a few tools on the app that can eliminate confusion. It requires few steps to complete the task. Text boxes are easily created and deleted for the user. Workflow to photo album for printing and or sharing is available. Some of the adaptation possibilities are that worksheets can be modified to user ability level using pictures, multiple-choice, or word banks to copy from or provide simplified vocabulary. Also, is answer choices are offered, X’s or voice-recognition capabilities can be used to complete a worksheet. Additionally, instructional support can be provided to take the picture, create text boxes prior to completion, performed a screenshot, or share using airdrop capabilities.
We really like Snap Type and highly recommend it, especially for occupational therapy students. The Snap Type is free at the iTunes Store. It can be used on iOS devices. For more information on this app and others like it, visit BridgingApps.org.
WADE WINGLER: So today was one of those early days for me when my family was still in bed and I was getting up in the dark and getting ready to leave for an early morning meeting. When I did that, I checked over some toys in the dark. That is because I got little kids in my house. Their toys and play is absolutely a part of my life. When I am heading into the weekend like I am at the recording of the show, I am looking for to spending some quality time with some kids and some toys there in my house. As I was tripping over toys this morning, and maybe recall some visitors that we had at Easter Seals crossroads just a few weeks ago. We had Ahren Hoffman, who is the Manager of Industry Relations and Partnerships at the National Lekotek Center, come in with a colleague into a full day training where we just spent the whole day playing with toys and games and having fun fun fun.
I am thrilled to have on Skype and telephone today Ahren from Lekotek. Ahren, you are there, right?
AHREN HOFFMAN: Hello. Thanks for having me.
WADE WINGLER: Ahren, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule. Somebody who gets to play all the time, I hate to interrupt you and make you work, and are probably tired of hearing those jokes all the time. Now that I have met you and gone to know you a little bit, you guys are a fun bunch and you are always dealing with toys and things that it did not make folks happy.
We have got you on the show today, and I want to spend a little time best possible having you take us to school a little bit about Lekotek. What is Lekotek? How did you get started? How did you get involved and why is this important?
AHREN HOFFMAN: Absolutely. Lekotek is a toy lending library and resource Center for children with special needs and their families. We are a lot of fun, as Wade said. I actually did my internship here at national Lekotek center in 2007. I really got into it because my grandpa actually had rheumatoid arthritis which caused him to become blind and also in a wheelchair. So I just felt from then on that it needed to work with people who have special needs. I was able to go to college and get my degree in therapeutic recreation, and from there move on to Lekotek which was a wonderful restraints for me. I stay there ever since, helping out with programs as a consultant when I was at a different job, and then came back a couple years ago and am now in the current position that have been as industry Relations and partnerships manager.
WADE WINGLER: It is obvious that you enjoy what you do. I am going to guess that some folks in my audience do not even know what a Lekotek is. I want you to tell me a little bit about that word and where it came from.
AHREN HOFFMAN: So one of the phrases we do for Lekotek is “What the heck is Lekotek?” We have a really fun document that we share with people so that they remember how to say it, because a lot of people want to say “LEGO-tack” or just do not get it right at all. Lekotek. What the heck is Lekotek? I will tell you.
It actually started in 1980 in Sweden. We are international. To moms went over and heard about this wonderful program. They need to go see it so they went over and got in Lekotek. Spent a lot of time over there and were able to bring it back to Illinois to Evanston. It has been in the US ever since. We have had sites all throughout the United States, and it is growing, we hope, daily with different programs. Rehab program still internationally. We are not affiliated with our international programs. They do their thing and we do our thing here in the United States. But we currently have 9 states right now where we have 17 different Lekotek sites.
In Sweden, Lekotek, Lek- means “play or toys,” and -tek means “library.” So that is essentially what we are. We are a toy lending library. Our programs are meant for families to come in one time per month for an hour-long play session with our play specialist. They get to play with toys and learn about how they can grow developmentally with our toys and and take them home and use them for the month and come back. It is really just like a library system but with toys.
WADE WINGLER: So we are talking about a toy library, but because we had to give for training and because I have done a little bit of show research, I know that there is more to it than that. I know that, in addition to the toy library, you guys are doing some other things. Can you walk me through some of those services?
AHREN HOFFMAN: Not only do we have our individual family play sessions, but we also do a lot of other events throughout the month so that families can see us more than their one schedule visit. We do parent support groups. Those are things where we are teaching the parents about stress. So we might have a yoga program or who might have someone come in and give massages to them. They love it. We also include childcare on those evenings.
We do play group spirit those I was a month as well where he might have the group at our Lekotek center. We might go out into the community and do something at a library or a museum or a play café which seems to be popping up everywhere. We did a lot of community events which is part of our mission. He wants kids and family to feel empowered to go out to the community and feel comfortable with their child at a library where maybe that is a place you would be quiet. It is okay to go. Libraries are open to having children with special needs there and we are running programs there often so families feel welcome to come.
We do holiday events, and we also do a lot of training which Wade talked about in the beginning. We do three main trainings which would be facilitating play, where we are teaching people about how to play with children with special needs and without. It is inclusive. How to make play accessible, so if a game or toy is not accessible for a child to play independently, we are teaching them about that. They also teach how to create switches or adapt toys that are electronic for kids that have special needs.
WADE WINGLER: Ahren, as I am looking at my notes here for my interview, it occurs to me that your title is the manager of industry relations and partnerships. When I think about kids and toys and a library, I do not think about industry relations or partnerships. Tell me how the figures and.
AHREN HOFFMAN: Right. So Lekotek started in 1980 and we became this wonderful resource for families and for professionals and retailers and manufacturers to learn about toys, because we had this great grasp on them working with children with special needs and without. We really want to include siblings and on this program that we have as well. So we started a program called AblePlay. Ableplay.org is a website. That is where my job comes in where I get to reach out to people in the toy industry and they send toys to us where we can then use them in our toy session with our families. They give us feedback. Did it work for the child? Did it not work for them? If there was a small change that could have been made or small adaptation that we were able to make, we can get that information back to our client that we are working with in the toy industry and hope that they will make those changes to the next manufacturing cycle.
That is where my job comes in. We had the pleasure of getting toys and which also fuels our library toys to lend out. We try not to buy toys. We do often had to, but Ableplay helps us to our library program and helps us have more toys to lend out to families. We are able to give those to all of our sites throughout the United States.
We also help toy industry manufacturers and companies with, not only the product themselves, but also the content that comes with them. Whether there is information on the website or there is information within the box like an activity guide or the box content itself so that you know what you are getting with this toy. Will it help my child with fine motor skills? Could it help them with their social skills? Those kinds of things. That is where my job comes in at Lekotek.
WADE WINGLER: I am glad that you do that because obviously in the world of assistive technology, we are constantly thinking about how do we kind of retrofit things to work with kids with disabilities or adults with disabilities. The fact that you are working on the front end, I think, brings a lot of value to what the toy manufacturers offer to the general public. I cannot imagine how surprised and pleasantly so a parent would be when they find that a toy that was not designed for a kid with a disability works really well.
AHREN HOFFMAN: Absolutely. That is another thing we do at Lekotek too. And are facilitating play training that we do, and all of the model and mission, is to teach families how to play with toys right off the shelf. You can forget about the rules. Do not use it the way it is meant to be used. You can change it to let the child be able to play with it as independently as possible. However they access the toy, the access it.
One of the great examples we do is kids that play with blocks. We got some blocks out for a child, those bristle blocks. Haley, my colleague, like to use this example a lot. The child wanted to use it as a brush. Okay, we are not going to build with these blocks anymore. We are actually going to play pretend was the blocks and use it as a brush or massage someone’s back with that or whatever it may be. We like the child to read play and see what they are going to do with it before we come in as an adult and say here is the rules. This is how we are going to do it. But then explore and use their imaginations to put how they want to play.
WADE WINGLER: So let us talk about that a little bit more. Why are toys and adaptive play so important for kids in general, and then more specifically kids with disabilities?
AHREN HOFFMAN: Absolutely pure toys are important. One of the questions I like to ask is, Wade, I am sure that you had a toy that was your favorite when you were a kid. Most people have a favorite or a couple of favorites that they remembered vividly from their childhood. Often times when kids come to Lekotek, they are frustrated with toys because they have not found one that they can access independently that they can use and love. At Lekotek, we are able to find is right toys, whether they are right off the shelf and we had done no agitations to them, or if they are adaptive toys that we found from specialty toy retailers are that we adapted ourselves. All of these things, through play and toys, are really helping these kids develop physically and cognitively, socially, emotionally. That is really what toys and play doom. They are really doing a lot of work with these kids pick they do not even know it it is fun and they are not working hard.
WADE WINGLER: So for me, it was my erector set. I do not even think they make it anymore because it has metal parts and little scratchy edges.
AHREN HOFFMAN: No safety.
WADE WINGLER: I know. You probably have to do bristle blocks or something like that these days. Ahren, tell me some of the more common request that you get from parents and families to need help in this area.
AHREN HOFFMAN: One of the things that we get — all the adaptation to toys and things are really subjected to the child. We see kids of varying disabilities. We do not just have a big pool of kids with autism or down syndrome or cerebral palsy. We have so many different disabilities that come to our Lekotek programs. It really is subjective. But I will say, unrelated to the toys, is families want to have their kids be united. Toys can unite the child with a disability and the children or child that is typically developing. That is one of the things that is really huge for families that come to Lekotek, is we are family-based. We do not just see the child with special needs and our program. We have the entire family joint and. They want mom and dad, brother and sister, grandma and grandpa to come, maybe the nanny, whoever it might be, that hangs out with the children the most. We are able to find toys that fit, not only the developmental goals and skills a child with special needs is working on, but also find things that will incorporate brother or sister, mom and dad into play as well. The really unites the entire family.
And then also with our playgroups and our current support groups, families are able to network. They find other people that have similar family dynamics as them and can learn from other families that we had that come to Lekotek.
WADE WINGLER: So the cynical dad and me is sitting here smiling and nodding. I have to only assume that if toys can be used to unite siblings, it can also be used to give them something new to fight about. Does that happen at the Center?
AHREN HOFFMAN: Absolutely. That is really funny that you say that. We do not see a lot of fighting here at Lekotek because there is something about Lekotek that is therapeutic. We do not say that we are therapy, but we are definitely therapeutic. The families really have a lot of fun when they are here and I feel really accomplished. The sibling, because is not a normal therapy where maybe the sibling is that physical therapy or occupational therapy or speech therapy, where they are waiting in the lobby or drop the child off and went with mom and dad to the grocery store and ran errands, this is a time that is for the entire family to set and be together and enjoy. We do not see a lot of fighting. There might be when they take the toys home, but not typically at Lekotek.
WADE WINGLER: The year ago. I know that you see kids with all kinds of disabilities and kids without, but I have an autism specific question. The kids that I know on the autism spectrum, many of them have very restricted interests. They might be interested in dinosaurs or trains or robots or those kinds of things. What’s your advice when it comes to kids who just want to play with those toys that represent their restricted interest? Should that be dissuaded by parents? Should you just let it happen? What you guys think about that?
AHREN HOFFMAN: We get that a lot. We have a lot of kids with autism that love trains. That is the only choice that they want to play with at Lekotek. There is only so much you can do with a train set. You build it, you sequence, you problem solve to put it together. So we tried to take those trains and put them into other play activities or toys. Let us say we decide we are going to put a sensory been together where we hide the trains inside of some rice and beans or some sand where the kid actually have to use a shovel or just their hands and try to find those trains. As a reward, they can go and play with the train tracks. Then they still get what they want, playing with trains, but then as a parent, they are also getting the goals they are working on, whether it is fine motor skills or something like that, that is in a different category of play. So we do try and move the product that they want to play with, the train or whatever it may be, into other activities.
WADE WINGLER: Ahren, by the time this show airs, we should be getting pretty well geared up for the holiday shopping season and the holiday travel season. Do you have any advice for parents of kids with disabilities and maybe some toys or games they might do in the car?
AHREN HOFFMAN: Absolutely. The thing that I definitely recommend is do not forget your child’s favorite blanket or their favorite plush that they have, whatever stuffed animal that might be. The major suggestion is that try to interact with them while you are in the car. It’s such a good time to have them trapped in the car with you where you have to interact with them and community about things you are seeing when you are driving around or what you hear on the radio. I would highly suggest getting some fun CDs with kids music on it and being a little crafty on the caregiver side and maybe creating some sort of a scavenger hunt where kids have to find different things throughout the trip appear there are some cuter things you can find online really easily to do those. However, if you do want actual toys, my suggestion would be things that are compact and do not have a lot of pieces. A suggestion would be Smart Toys and Games, which is a great company to look into. They actually have a lot of travel games that they had created from their bigger games. They just pare them down with less pieces and travel pouches or sets. The other company is Think Fun. They also have some really great games that are travel oriented for your kids. All of their games come in bags. You do not need the box anymore. After you play it the first time and get rid of that box, you put everything in a tote bag which is really great with a draw thing. You are good to go.
WADE WINGLER: That is great. All those little pieces are not under the car seat, with the car seat slide back and forth. I have done a lot of that.
AHREN HOFFMAN: With the french fry that vendor for five years.
WADE WINGLER: And the empty juice box. In a couple of weeks, we are going to kick off our holiday shopping episode. This will be our fourth annual holiday shopping episode. It will be released on black Friday which is November 28 in the US. Ahren, you have agreed to call in and give us a little more advice when it comes to holiday shopping. We are looking for to that call-in segment. In the meantime, can you tell folks how they might reach out to you and get more information about Lekotek?
AHREN HOFFMAN: Absolutely. We are available online. You can check us out at lekotek.org. We are available by phone. You are more than welcome to give us a call and ask us questions about holiday shopping or toys in general. Our number is 773-528-5766. We also have, when I talked about before, Ableplay.org. It is a website that provides toys and play products where we give you our thoughts on the product and also give you additional play ideas that the box does not state. We also give you adaptations. If we were able to think of any adaptations for children with special needs to help them access the product better, we have those on there as well. I do have to say that we are getting a brand-new website for Ableplay.org here by the end of the year. So if you go on now, please be sure to check back later to see all of our new updates on the site.
WADE WINGLER: Ahren Hoffman is the Manager of Industry Relations and Partnerships at the National Lekotek Center. Should been our guest today on the show. Ahren, thank you so much for being with us.
AHREN HOFFMAN: Thank you.
WADE WINGLER: Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? Call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Looking for show notes from today’s show? Head on over to EasterSealstech.com. Shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject, or check us out on Facebook. That was your Assistance Technology Update. I’m Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana.
