Opening doors: how new media helps kids with developmental disabilities

Teenager Tammy jumps up and down by the computer. "My turn, my turn," she cries and expertly flicks the mouse to choose a link, enthusiastically using the pictures to read the page. Yet Tammy has troubles tying her shoes and looking both ways to cross a street.

Computers have become so pervasive that mouse and basic navigation skills have reached almost all levels of Western cultures. Where we once worried about teaching hypertext navigation and theory, now the internet is incorporated into our daily activities and navigation is no longer questioned. Can these skills be used to teach students with developmental disabilities about life, sequence connections, and even literature? Can the new media forays into navigation, imagery, sound, and animation reach these children?

"Computers, multimedia and the internet have provided families, professionals, and people with special needs with an extremely powerful tool to assist in fostering independence, increased access and availability of information," Carl Parson says in his paper 'Communication Technology as a Means of Empowerment.' (Journal of Family Studies, Vol.3, No.1, April 1997).

Parsons is Director of Integrated Services at Port Phillip's Specialist School and teaches educational assessment for students with developmental disabilities at LaTrobe University.

An impressive array of sites has been collected to create new applications and adapt existing applications for working with students with developmental disabilities. Teachers and parents use games to foster interaction and learning. New applications are being developed as computer scientists work directly with special education professionals to develop modules designed for individual learning styles. Using Macintosh Computers with Special Needs Students is a good jumping off point.

Voyager Software has adapted a computer desktop tailored to people with developmental disabilities. IBM's "Watch Me Read" has been adapted to use with students with developmental disabilities.

New media has been at the forefront of new ways of conveying meaning through sound, imagery, navigation, and text. Can we use these conventions and insights to help Tammy and others like her learn associative linking and relationships such as causal, sequence, similar, and opposites?

To find out, I volunteered for a month at the Port Phillips Specialist School in Melbourne, to learn about special education techniques and to adapt new media concepts of imagery and navigation for students with developmental disabilities. I provided four reading activities with groups of students who had IQs of less than 70. Most also had autism or further disabilities that precluded full reading comprehension

New media writing exercises help students understand associative linking (how two activities such as surfing and boogie boarding are more closely associated than other activities such as going to school or eating fish and chips). These exercises can also spark enthusiasm for writing and the repetitive reading needed for reading practice as well as sound and word recognition.

Seven group members, an assistant, and I sat in the computer room to write a story. I suggested writing about the beach, as this was a familiar place for all the students. We discussed what the students liked to do at the beach, and chose seven sentences. Each student chose one sentence for another to illustrate.

After the students had drawn their pictures, we discussed associative linking. For example, one sentence was "I like to catch fish in the sea." We asked what else we did in the sea, and linked that page to "I swim in the sea." We also linked to "I like to eat fish and chips" as this was what we did with the fish. After reading the story, several students spontaneously suggested more links (each with a corresponding rationale).

I scanned the drawings and created a hypertext. Before reading on the computer, we reviewed our story the next day. Students chose a different page to read than the page that they had illustrated, and we again followed the links. This reading provided a way to repeat the reading lesson while keeping the material fresh. Students chose a different navigation method from the first reading, so that each page was read in a different context.

The students spontaneously suggested four more activities that they would like to include in the story. These new activities were directly related to the previous ones, indicating that students understood the concept of association and similarities. I made other suggestions that were not directly associated with beach activities. The students voted these down. The group did an admirable job of articulating rationales for links: 'There is beautiful sand at the beach' should link with 'We build sand castles at the beach' because sand castles are made from sand. I made suggestions for non-associative links; the students voted these suggestions down, indicating an understanding of associations.

The students were enthusiastic about reading and re-reading the story. They applied very abstract concepts of similarity and difference and time sequences to their linking.

Writing exercises can also be adapted to work one-on-one with students and in groups to provide more individualised attention. I worked with six 6-to-8-year-olds. Two could write a dictated sentence, one could read without comprehension, and the rest could read if the teacher sounded out most of the word for them.

I worked at first with each student individually. We wrote about the school concert they had participated in the week before. Each student developed one sentence about what they liked in the concert and illustrated it. Each had a different colour page to further differentiate their work and to identify the particular sentence After we had read each page, I then prompted students to link each page. They were unenthusiastic about this, probably because I had not taken the time beforehand to explain what links were and why we wanted to show similar concepts. Linking is a concept one level of abstraction beyond the already difficult concept of same and different. These children had difficulties understanding link and relation concepts such as same/different, cause/effect, or before/after.

However, the class managed to link each page to one other page. I transferred the pages into Hyperstudio, and kept the colour scheme. I then worked with each child individually to read the story. This text was very simple and kept the children's interest for about 5-10 minutes. One boy clicked on each button to read the text and checked off the list to ensure we had covered everyone's pages. Afterwards, he read the story again unprompted, this time clicking on the links in a different order. This exercise reinforced that children are motivated more when they see their own work incorporated into the reading.

Computer writing exercise

Because many students have some computer skills, and programs such as HyperStudio are relatively simple, students can create their own new-media works. These works can help reinforce sequential events, associative links, or other connective relationships.

I worked with a group of four 17-18 year olds with a Grade 3 reading level to write a new media work that would anticipate an event, and then follow up to add more details about the event after it happened (planning, mapping, memory, and sequencing skills).

The students helped create this hypertext. I showed them how to create cards, and students suggested what to name the cards and what buttons to link to each card. The basic order was pretty simple: a card for the subway route, one for the game arcade, one for the pizza restaurant.

Then I introduced the notion of complexity in time sequences by asking if each student was going to do the same thing at each place. As students were going to have different experiences, they created individual cards from the arcade and the pizza restaurant to reflect their tastes.

After our excursion, the students came back and re-read the material, this time adding pictures that they had taken and text to the main storyline and their individual cards. This exercise gave students control of both the reading and writing aspects. They were able to identify simple linking patterns and choose relevant images and text for each card. Students were enthusiastic about being able to show their experiences immediately after an event - and creating a work that looked like the other works they saw on the internet.

Teachers can also create new media works that help students learn about relationships such as cause/effect, same/different and sequencing ability in a complex task. I accompanied the first group as they made Yummy Balls. The group made a list, went to the store, bought ingredients, and followed the recipe to make the treats.

I created a hypertext with these steps and interspersed a question page after each step. Question pages asked 'Which comes first?', for example, mixing or buying ingredients? If the student chose the incorrect button, a sad face appeared with an explanation and a note to try again. If the student chose the correct button, pictures of the next stage would appear, together with a happy face.

Again, students were readily able to point and click and choose the next direction. On the first run through, students were not unduly upset or did not want to stop after clicking on an incorrect button. Because each button was associated with a text and picture, students were able to determine what the button meant and to click on the button. Dialogue with students showed that answers were incorrect as students did not know which came first, mixing or buying, rather than not knowing which button represented mixing and which represented buying.

Reader responses

Students were enthusiastic about reading on the computer. Five out of seven in the first group chose the computer when asked whether they liked reading on the computer or in a book better. One boy who chose books said that there were not enough different exercises on the computer - indicating that if there were a sufficient range of choices, he too might prefer the computer.

Could the almost overwhelming preference for the computer be ascribed to the customised pictures and drawings? "Pictures make it a personal account, enabling the reader to remember more and be more engaged," notes Carl Parsons. This is a great advantage in the computer setting, as it is easy to add pictures of the students or student drawings to a professional looking layout. However, this group also had several custom made books with pictures of themselves or their drawings and a written sentence. Thus, I do not think that adding pictures is the entire story.

Asked why the students liked the computer (looking at pictures or choosing where to go next), none chose looking at pictures, all of the students chose where to go next. This sense of controlling the story was evident in all of the exercises - most students chose to re-read the story and on the second run through, controlled the reading by choosing where to go.

Three out of six in the second group chose the computer when asked. When asked why they liked computers better, two said they liked computer games, and one said she liked choosing where to go. Computer games have greatly facilitated these children's computer skills and learning expectations. Observational evidence suggests that students prefer interactive sessions - games may be raising these expectations in younger readers.

Three out of four in the third group chose the computer, citing reasons such as surfing the internet, choosing where to go, and adding their own pictures. For this group, being able to produce quality work quickly was a high motivator. The work produced looked exactly like the work that they had already seen on the computer, placing their efforts on a par with the professional efforts of web developers.

These exercises were merely to see if new media techniques could be applied to reading exercises for students with developmental disabilities. The experiment was enthusiastically received by both students and teachers, and I believe there is a great deal of potential in applying these techniques for reading at this level. Future inquiries are needed to provide an underlying pedagogical theory base for effective application.