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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.
266-07-01-16 – Gadget Camp
An overview of an annual camp for young people who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication systems.
Panel: Wade Wingler, Brian Norton, Nikol Prieto, and Wendy Strickland
www.EasterSealsTech.com
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BRIAN NORTON: Hi, my name is Brian Norton, the Director of Assistive Technology here at Easter Seals Crossroads.
NIKOL PRIETO: Hi, I’m Nikol Prieto, Community Outreach Coordinator for the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads, and this is your Assistance 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 a special episode of assistive technology update. I am out of the office and away from work this week, and you’re going to find out why as we interview the folks who were in charge of the INDATA Project gadget camp. Really cool stuff. The camp is all about assistive technology and augmentative communication and also things like water balloons and fishing and hiking and all that kind of stuff, so it’s an exciting conversation. Also we would invite you to send us some feedback on our listener line about our upcoming iOS tips and tricks show. We want to know from you what you make iOS do that might be assistive technology or just super helpful tips and tricks. Let us know what you know about that stuff. Leave us a 2 to 5 minute message on this voicemail at 317-721-7124.
Also we hope you’ll check out our website at www.eastersealstech.com, or shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project.
And not in the studio, and neither is anybody in our office this week, because we are at camp. So for the last seven or eight years, one week out of the year, we shut down the vast majority of our assistive technology program and our augmentative communication program, and we had over to a local university here in Indianapolis, supersecret location. We partner with some organizations, volunteers, and create a camp experience for about 12 to 15 young people who have disabilities and use augmentative communication devices. We call it gadget camp. It is, full disclosure, our favorite week of the year because they all get to be campers and camp counselors and do all kinds of fun stuff.
Today, because we are gone and I had to put a show together, they are going to talk about God’s camp for the post on ever. I have three dear friends in college joining me. I have Brian Norton who is the host of ATFAQ and the director of assistive technology here at Easter Seals crossroads. Brian, how are you?
BRIAN NORTON: I’m doing well.
WADE WINGLER: So, camp, right?
BRIAN NORTON: I’m loving it. It’s a great time.
WADE WINGLER: Also in our studio, we have Nikol Prieto who you have known from our Christmas shows and dropping in segments here and there. She has a lot of our outreach and social media kind of stuff and is camp mom really, is what her role ends up being. Nikol, how are you?
NIKOL PRIETO: I’m great. I’m really excited for the week.
WADE WINGLER: Looking forward to it. And joining us via the Internet over a Skype connection or some sort of Internet connection today, we have Wendy Strickland who is our speech pathologist who leads our augmentative alternative communication efforts. She is our lead camp counselor and sort of the brains behind the operation. Wendy, how are you?
WENDY STRICKLAND: I’m doing great, looking for to camp this week.
WADE WINGLER: I know. It’s a blast. It’s going to be absolutely fun. Wendy, I’m going to start with you a little bit because, as I recall, it’s been you and I who have been the people elect them camp every single year from its inception, right?
WENDY STRICKLAND: Yes.
WADE WINGLER: I want you to talk a little bit about – first of all, can you give us some of the logistics of what the week looks like and talk more specifically about the people who come to camp. Talk about our campus a little bit. For privacy, we are not going to talk about names today, of course, but talk to us a little bit about the kiddos who come to our camp.
WENDY STRICKLAND: All the kids have one thing in common: they all use communication devices of some kind to communicate. That’s kind of the connection at camp with everybody. We have a lot of fun activities planned. Each day is filled with both indoor, outdoor activities, things they wouldn’t get to do otherwise during the summer.
WADE WINGLER: Yeah, so tell me, to set the stage a little bit, let’s talk about the disability characteristics of the kids. Everybody is using an Aug-Com device, but there is in them for different reasons. Can you give me some of the broad categories of the types of disabilities that necessitate Aug-Com?
WENDY STRICKLAND: Some of the campers have cerebral palsy, so they have trouble with talking. You can’t understand what they say, so they use their communication device is for that. Some can’t use their arms or legs or any part of their body but their eyes to communicate, so they have eye gaze system that they can communicate with. There’s just a huge variety and different diagnoses and medical type diagnoses that they all have.
WADE WINGLER: Some of our kids are ambulatory, some rely on wheelchairs, some are very invalid for any kind of fast and will take off occasionally. We’ve never had anybody elope from our camp, but we have chased them around a little bit, in a good way.
WENDY STRICKLAND: Yeah.
WADE WINGLER: And our kids range in age a little bit as well. Can you talk to us about that?
WENDY STRICKLAND: It goes anywhere from seven to — we have one who is 21 years old. He gets a little bit more of a leadership role in helping the younger ones along. It’s a big variety of age, but the activities are all geared towards everyone.
WADE WINGLER: Absolutely. One of the disclaimers: I probably should’ve done at the beginning of the show but we will do now, and maybe a couple of times, our camp has been a little bit secret in the past, and we haven’t opened it up to the general public. One of the hazards of doing an interview like this is the fact that we are going to take about a camp that you probably can’t send folks to, because we have a waiting list of people who come to our camp every year. It really is focused in central Indiana. But one of the things I do want to make sure we cover today as we are having our conversation is why this kind of camp is important and why it’s important for kids, especially for use augmentative communication devices, who have disabilities, to have this kind of camp experience, and maybe just throw out some tips and tricks about the structure of how we do camp and how we start it and some of the activities we do so that if other organizations wanted to create something similar, it might spark some ideas in terms of how they do that.
Nicole, I’m going to turn to you a little bit and ask you to talk to us about our schedule for the week coming up and talk to us about the activities and how we set them up and maybe how does have changed a little bit over the years. Because we’ve had some hits and misses with activities. We’ve had some that have become sort of the perennial favorite activities. Talk to us a little bit about what a day looks like at camp and each day is different, and also how long is the camp and that kind of stuff.
NIKOL PRIETO: We hold the camp all week. Stuff is there about 8 o’clock to get set up. We get our crafts for the day, and the campers usually get there about 9 o’clock. Our camp ends at 3. We had a lot of trial and error. What we found is that bringing in entertainment is nice, but gives a nice focused event. When we do crafts, a lot of times they go really fast and people have different levels. We do try to bring in outdoor entertainment. We bring in folks like Animalia, who will show us animals, sometimes exotic animals, sometimes it’s a pig. But the kids love that, and they are really hands-on. They get to actually touch the animals and they will bring the animals all around and everybody gets a one-on-one experience with those animals. We have magicians. We’ve had some magicians who been really great with the campers and then some who’ve been a little more uncomfortable because they haven’t worked with kiddos with disabilities, so we’ve worked really hard to educate the additions and entertainers out of time on what to expect. Same things with the volunteers, what to expect, how to give them a comfort level with working with kiddos if they never have before. We have a group that is fantastic called Baloongenuity and they make the most amazing balloon animals, you name it. It’s a really incredible operation. We’ve had them every year. They’ve gone above and beyond. One year we had to go to the basement because of a tornado, and they were already wrapped up and stayed an extra hour just to entertain the kids while we had to be down in the basement during that tornado warning. So they are a great group. We have Cooking & Canvas coming. The organization is Wine & Canvas, but they also do a kids program called Cooking & Canvas. That’s a great opportunity for them to take a piece of memorabilia home because they paint something. For the campers who can’t, the volunteers help them. That activity is very popular. We do have some kiddos that wrap up a lot sooner, so through our trial and error, what we tried to provide is some side activities. We are even going to do that better this year of making sure we have some Play-Dough and some coloring books or let the volunteers know to take the kiddos on a walk in case they are wrapped up sooner than other campers. We have a really interesting guy that comes in and makes homemade instruments. Bill Bailey makes these home instruments and we just do a music gem. He jams the music, the kids get to get their hands all over the instruments he made, and they really get to rock out and have a great time. It’s probably one of my favorite things, to see their smiles at that time. And then we do some things on our own. We fish. I’ll let you talk more about that in a minute. We do a creature feature. I let you discuss those. I think, hands down, the favorite activity is the water balloon fight. We fill up about 300 balloons and we just let these kids go at it. We throw blue that kiddos in wheelchairs, no one is safe. I’m the only one who is sick because I have a camera. No one is safe and they love it. Squeals and yelling. We take hikes on the campus. We go look at fountains. You name it, we try to do it. Just a typical camp experience. I’ve seen parents break down and cry in tears saying I never that my kids would have a real camp experience.
WADE WINGLER: So the facilities, by the way, I want to talk about that a little bit. We do it at the end of June in the summer in Indiana, so the temperatures can be in the 80s and 90s Fahrenheit. We had thunder some that happen. We mention that we did have a tornado warning one time and we had to sort of take cover. We do it on a campus where we actually have two locations happening at all times or are available to us at all times. We have an air-conditioned indoor classroom, a pharmacy classroom, that we use so that all of our activities, except for the ones that are tied to fishing in the canal can be done inside if we need to. Most of our performers who come in for balloon animals and things can come inside of necessary. Then we also set up sort of a circus tent outside. It’s not red and white. It’s a white tent that you would see at a carnival or something like that. We can have our activities outside under the tent. The tent is important for us, one, because if we have a sprinkle of rain, we can deal with it some thought and two, it is moderate the temperature. The tent also happen to be located right next to a pretty big fountain, so you get for of that qualify air-conditioning affected when they wind blows across the fountain into the tent to make it not quite as hot. Plus sometimes we have snow cones out there which really cool you down as well. So we thought about accessibility when we chose the venue. We do a lot of hiking, but all of our hikes are sidewalk hikes that are in very nature areas. We do a thing called fountain countin’ because this particular camp has tons of fountains all over campus. They’ve all been donated by the class of 1980-this and 1980-that. So we go around and that’s our excuse to hike, is to count fountains we run into. We’ve been on the campus long enough that the people know as unrecognized as they are excited to see get to camp come back.
Wendy, I want to talk a little bit more with you because our main goal, other than just having a blast and giving families respites, is to talk about communication in and help these kiddos build communication strategies and communication skills at camp. Can you talk to us about how we build that into our day and how we sort of plan communication as part of camp?
WENDY STRICKLAND: That’s one of the great things about this camp is that a lot of the kids in the schools they are at, they don’t have anybody else using a communication device, so they get to be surrounded by kids who are all using them. We encourage with our one-on-one volunteers socializing, asking questions. One thing we do every day is go around and ask all the kids are introduced themselves so that any new volunteers rehab will know who they are, and then to also tell what their favorite part of camp has been so far. That is a great way for them to be able to communicate and socialize with each other and with other people.
WADE WINGLER: Wendy, can you talk a little bit about how we prepare volunteers for what might be their first Aug-Com experience? How do we prepare the campers and devices with language?
WENDY STRICKLAND: The campers with their devices, they are pretty much prepared ahead of time. They have the vocabulary that’s needed to work on those. Anything that needs to be added, sometimes I will add it the week before or first thing Monday morning. The volunteers, we had a video on YouTube that they can go out and watch if they’ve never had any exposure to communication devices. And also, first thing in the morning I’ll go around to all the volunteers and campers and introduce them to the device is a little bit and show them what where things are at. This year, we are actually going to have some keys made up that show the pictures and icons for where to find certain vocabulary for things they talk about every day, so that will help our vultures out.
WADE WINGLER: We’ve talked a lot about volunteers and staffing, Brian, you’re in a unique situation with camp. I’m going to ask you to talk about your experience with camp so far and what your role is going to be this year. Then I want you to tell us a little bit about how we stop it an hour volunteers that come to camp, because I know you know about those folks.
BRIAN NORTON: In years past, I had the opportunity to go one day a week. We have a pretty large assistive technology center, so half of our staff are out working with folks one-on-one throughout the state here in Indiana. We let those staff members enjoy the camp experience one day a week. As a part of that team, I had that opportunity. This year is going to be a little bit different, where I have changed my roles within our department and now have some responsibility on both sides of our program, our clinical site and in data side. I get to spend the entire week there, which I’m super excited. As a volunteer, it’s just so fun to get out of the routine of what your regular job is and get into the weeds and get into the day-to-day stuff with folks and get to be a part of an experience that you know is memorable for them, is memorable for their parents, and really kind of enjoy the experience. I look forward to this week or that day in the past, and now I’m looking forward to the whole week for 51 weeks of the year. It’s super fun. In fact, when I first got into disability services and things like that, I actually got into it because I worked at a camp and I was a camp counselor for a year and went back the next year as the camp director for the camp that served folks with disabilities. It gets me back into the passion and the reason I got into this work in the first place, because I just want to enjoy people and see them experience think that they don’t get the opportunity to do day in and day out. It’s just really fun.
WADE WINGLER: It’s great. And it takes more than just the paid staff who are part of Easter Seals crossroads. It takes some volunteers. Nicole, can you talked with a little bit about who our bodies have been in the past and how all of a sudden we have lots of volunteers.
NIKOL PRIETO: We personally will seek out some of our friends and family members to see if they want to be participants. We usually have great luck with that. We also had gotten from some of the colleges around Indianapolis, elementary education students, speech therapist and occupational therapist, and that type of thing. More recently we have had a group from Indiana State University, the second group we’ve had, which they are all OT students. I think this year we will have 27 of them. Part of the curriculum is to come up and volunteer for the day, so they get a real hands-on experience working with kiddos with disabilities. Then they go back and report the information. The neat thing they are doing is they group up as a team, and they do one craft or activity for the kiddos. Not only are they one-on-one paired with someone and getting that experience, they also have to be creative in coming up with an activity. Also, the challenges with all of our activities is that different ages and their abilities with the kids. They all have to be taken into consideration when you’re planning back, and I get some good information to think about and plan accordingly.
WADE WINGLER: Working with these graduate-level OT students has been good. Because they are getting credit, actually drive almost an hour to get to camp each day, but they are getting a good academic field experience. We are getting volunteers that are fresh and vibrant every day. It’s nice because we had a blend of people who are volunteers all week, so they had a continuity of knowing the campers in process. But then four or five or six new people every day to freshen us up a little bit, which is really nice.
Wendy, one of the things you do at camp as you make sure that our campers are matched up with volunteers and staff appropriately. Can you talk to us a little bit about our ratios of campers to volunteers? Also, what do you think about when you are trying to match kiddos with camp counselors?
WENDY STRICKLAND: We tried to do at least one and one for each camper with a volunteer. Some of our campers required to volunteers just because they are more active or maybe they just need support throughout the day as we do our different activities. When the volunteers come in in the morning, I just talked to all of them and find out what their expenses are and how comfortable they would be with each kid. We gear them up that way. If it looks like throughout the day that there is somebody else they would be better with, we just change them. Everybody is with everybody all day, see you get to know all the campers, campers get to know most of the volunteers. We are easily able to change them out if we need to.
WADE WINGLER: I think that works pretty well. A couple of little logistic things I think might be helpful for folks to know who might be listening. What do we do about food and snacks? What do we do about downtime, when one of the activities doesn’t run as long as we thought it would or the weather means we can’t go fishing one morning. How do we handle those kinds of things? I’ll let anybody jump in on that.
NIKOL PRIETO: It’s a team effort. We have a lot of crafts. I think our agenda, we make an agenda and we have a full day planned for every day of the week. We always tweak it depending on moods and how something went. We just always have backup activities and can always take up and get a walk if people are searching. I think it’s more about having lots of supplies, being creative, being a team, and really feeling the mood of all the campers. Sometimes they need just to get out and move. Sometimes we need to come back in and regroup because of the heat. I think it’s just having a lot of activities and reading the group.
WADE WINGLER: Wendy, talk to me about food.
WENDY STRICKLAND: All the campers bring their own food. We do provide some snacks. We have popcorn every day. We have snow cones every day. But for the most part, they pack a lunch is that you would for any other day camp. We have a refrigerator if that’s needed. The parents really send everything for the kids for the day that they need.
WADE WINGLER: Attempt to work out pretty well. Some of the kids come with those caregivers because they are working with feeding tubes and stuff like that, and we don’t provide those medical level services. We require them to bring somebody who can provide that sort of stuff for us.
We are getting close on time but I don’t want to have this conversation without having this question. Tell me one or two of your favorite camp memories from having done this over the last few years. I’ll start to give you guys a couple minutes to think about this. I really love the fishing part, partly because my father-in-law who is a big fisherman coming down, and that is one day of volunteering a day, and he does a great job with that. It’s nice because you get some insight into the world of disability and my job so that he knows I’m employed in taking care of his grandkids and his daughter. One of my favorite parts of the week is the water balloon fight because we have this tradition where, at the end of the water balloon fight, I almost always get this cooler full of water dumped all over me. I feel a little bit like the football coach where they dump Gatorade on him at the end of a game. It’s fun because even as the person who sort of provide admission of leadership over the camp, I make enough of a connection with the campers that they all want to douse me at the end of camp with a big ton of water. Those are some of my favorite memories.
BRIAN NORTON: For me, I’ve only been there one day a week. I’ve done a lot of the fishing. That’s really a fun experience. I’ve been a part of the water balloon fight. But any of those outside activities. We take sidewalk chalk and they have a huge brick patio area where our tent is located. We sit there and color different bricks in different colors. I just love anything, everything outside. It’s super fun flying kites with them. It’s such a fun experience.
NIKOL PRIETO: I love everything. I think one of the things I think of is in the morning. We start with camp songs. Every single person stands up. By the end of the week — a lot of the campers are returning, so they know the songs. By the end of the week, they definitely know the songs. Think everybody up, letting their guard down, even staff members, and everyone is dancing and singing and laughing. Again, I think it’s just letting your guard down and everybody being equally goofy. I’ve always thought that’s how everyday should start, with camp songs and smiles. That’s my favorite.
WADE WINGLER: Wendy?
WENDY STRICKLAND: I agree with Nicole. I think that the camp songs in the morning are the best, especially after you get a few days of camp in and the kids are remembering the songs and how to do all the movements. It’s a long day for the kids, and they are all exhausted at the end of the day. Getting up and coming the next day, some of them come in very tired, will have their heads on the table. But the minute we start the camp songs that they are up out of their chairs and dancing and doing all the movements and singing along and just smiling. I agree that I think we should have camp songs every morning wherever we are.
WADE WINGLER: There you go. The one thing that I want to mention as we’re talking about memories, Nicole, one of your jobs at camp is to make the memories. Talk to me a little bit about what you do during camp and what you do at Christmas.
NIKOL PRIETO: I take pictures and video throughout the day. We capture every moment –
WADE WINGLER: Every kid, every activity.
NIKOL PRIETO: Every kid, every activity. So my goal with the still pictures is to get each activity and have one quality picture of each camper. And then try to get snippets of video in there. We take all that, and on the parent program, we invite the parents to come in on Friday to come have lunch with the campers, see everything they have made, and then view this video. So the video will have lots of still pictures and it will have video clips of all the activities. The challenge is to make sure that we get every one of the campers and activities, get that information. We end up with probably 900 pictures from the week. Then we will take all that, show them on that Friday to the parent program, the video. Then at Christmas we will send out a desk with all the pictures and with the video. That way they can print off any of the pictures they have and can relive the memory of that. We just feel like that’s a nice thing to look back on and have a Christmas.
WADE WINGLER: Instead of having interviews and news today on assistive technology update, we thought since we are at camp, we would take you to camp with us a little bit and give you a glimpse into what we do with gadget camp every year. Another disclaimer: we aren’t taking campers, and this isn’t something that’s available, but we really hope that by listening to this discussion, you guys can get an idea of what would happen at a camp like this. You wouldn’t normally think of 15 kids who are nonverbal and use augmentative communication as having a traditional summer camp experience. But we are proud and thrilled to be able to provide that each year. If people have questions and want to know about some of the logistics or have additional questions about what we are doing, so that you might do something on your own, I’m going to do just putting you on the spot, Nicole. People can go to our website which is www.eastersealstech.com and click on the staff page. They can find your picture and contact information there. Then they can send questions via email. We would do our best to help them with that. I think that our conversation about camp today. Wendy, thank you so much for being with us.
WENDY STRICKLAND: Thanks for having me.
WADE WINGLER: Nicole?
NIKOL PRIETO: Thank you.
WADE WINGLER: Brian?
BRIAN NORTON: Thank you.
WADE WINGLER: Next week we will be back with our regular format of news and interviews and those kinds of things. We hope you enjoyed at least this glimpse into camp as much as we enjoy doing gadget camp. Thanks, everybody.
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, shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject, or check us out on Facebook. Looking for a transcript or show notes from today’s show? Head on over to www.EasterSealstech.com. Assistive Technology Update is a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. Find more shows like this plus much more over at AccessibilityChannel.com. That was your Assistance Technology Update. I’m Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana.
