Students with Disabilities and Assistive Technology

Grade: 3

Lesson Plan Theme/Topic: Assistive technology and breaking down disability stereotypes

Standards Addressed: SC.35.CS-PC.2.5

Goals: (What do you expect the students to be able to know and do?)

Students should be able to recognize that people with disabilities are not necessarily "dumb," but that there are all kinds of diabilities people can have. They will learn that there are kids like them who have to use computers to talk because of their disabilities. They will learn about some of the assistive technologies that help disabled students do things.

Formative Assessments: (How will your students demonstrate that they have met the goals? How will they assess themselves?)

Students will fill out a graded worksheet to go along with some videos. They will also answer some questions and write something they learned as informal knowledge checks.

Key Content: (What key elements will be learned or practiced?)

Vocabulary: Disability, assistive technology.

Skills: Writing, acting (for activity), listening skills.

Resources, Instructional Materials, Technology: Videos, worksheet, photo, sticky notes, article (for extension).

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Anticipatory Set: Who has seen someone who looks like this?

Credit to Cincinnati Children's Hospital for this photograph.

Don't answer out loud, but I want you guys to think about this boy. He is probably around your age.

Give the kids a few seconds in silence as you pull up this video. If they whisper to one another, let them, because they are likely discussing the disabled child in the photo.

Announce that the video is about a girl named Pheobe and she and her mom are going to tell the class a little about her.

After the video, ask the students what they thought about Pheobe. Ask about some of the things she likes to do and comment about her being pretty. Ask how Pheobe felt about being "baby-talked" by other people. Ask if they would like if someone baby-talked them.

Hand out the worksheet (under Assistive_Tech_And_Answers). Inform the students they will be watching another video and that it is old, so now people with disabilities have even better technology. Tell them after this video they will watch a more recent video about a girl like Pheobe who also uses a computer to talk, and to pay attention and answer the questions.

Once they have finished the worksheet and turned it in, show them the picture of the disabled boy again and ask them what they think of him. Call on some students. Ideally, there will be positive responses, such as, "He probably doesn't like to be baby-talked."

Ask the kids what device they thought was the coolest in the videos.

Possible A: Dynavox, computers that help people talk, wheelchair skis, the joystick instrument, voice software, or the eyebrow wiggle machine.

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Closure (Reflect or Cool-Down Set): Ask the students to turn to their face partner and have even numbers pretend to be an animal and odd numbers try to guess what animal they are acting out, but the person pretending to be an animal can only use his/her head and one arm to act it out. Give them 40 seconds or so to do this, and then have them switch, but now they can only use their face and they have to act out the same animal. Give them another 40 seconds. Note to the class that while this may have been a fun activity for a few minutes, someone who would only be able to use certain body parts all the time would not have a lot of fun doing it.

Make sure you point out that there are many types of disabilities, some where people can't walk or talk, others where they can walk and talk just fine but have siezures; some where they're born unable to think as well and are less smart, and others where people are just as smart but can't think the same way. Some are caused by awful things that happen to people, such as getting an arm bitten off by a shark, while others are on the inside, such as anxitey can make someone super scared to talk to other people. Ask the students to name some disabilities they can think of.

Possible A: Autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, paralysis, permanent injuries, being blind or deaf, muteness, epilepsy or other siezure problems, athsma, anxiety, MS, ADHD, dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, etc.

Be sure to discuss with the students that having a disability does not degrade someone's value, and that disabled people can do a great deal of things. That is why we have assistive technology--because the tech are tools that allow disabled people to better contribute to society. Most are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and others, working full-time jobs, and living a long, fulfilling life. We don't need to feel sorry for them, but we should do our best to help disabled people when they need it as a courtesy, because if we don't have disabilities, we do have advantages that people with them do not. We should respect disabled people just as we would any other person, and be aware that they may have some extra needs.

Have them write one thing they learned on a sticky note with their name and turn it in.

Adaptations (For Students With Learning Disabilities): Students with certain learning disabilities will likely be able to relate to these kids in the videos better than the other students. For students with ADHD, they may need to sit closer to the front of the room as the videos are being shown. Some students with learning disabilities may need help with the worksheets as well. You also may want to speak to your students with disabilities to ask if there is anything they would like to share about their disability while you teach the lesson (you can ask if they would like to talk about it themselves or if they would like you to share it for them).

Extensions (For Curious and/or Gifted Students): To further prove that people with disabilities can be as smart as non-disabled people, this video on a short biography of Stephen Hawking could be a great video for some students to watch during down time in class. This article was published in 2018 and talks about some ways assisted technology helps students and could be an interesting read. Finally, one more video on service dogs and how they help people with disabilites is also going to be something very interesting for kids to learn about.

Possible Connections to Other Subjects: Technology is the obvious connection, but also history of assistive technology, reading and writing about the advancements and issues.