Achieving Independence in Home, Work, and Community Settings

Students with disabilities who are not planning to attend college also need to develop the necessary skills to transition from high school to adult life. Students who have autism, cognitive disabilities, or multiple disabilities need to be able to achieve independence in the home, community, and at work. AT can help these students develop skills for living and working in the community.

Below are a variety of AT devices that can be used to teach functional skills.

Laureate Learning

• My House: Language Activities of Daily Living
• Teaches students vocabulary for items in 6 rooms of a typical home (living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, utility room)
• Teachers can select vocabulary to meet students' ability levels
• My School and My Town are similar programs that focus on vocabulary that students are likely to encounter and use in their schools and communities

Attainment Company

• First Money
• Teaches students to identify money names and values
• Spending Money
• Students go from store to store to buy items on a shopping list
• Making Change
• Students act as a store clerk and practice making change
• Time Scales
• Students learn about hours in a day, minutes of the hour, and moving from time to time on a clock

Conover Company

• Functional Skills System
• Teaches students the reading of signs

Visual Supports

• Picture Schedule/Activity Sequences
• Sequential, pictorial representations of events or tasks that signal a student to complete them

Social Stories

• iCommunicate/Boardmaker
• Teacher or parent authored short stories written to help a student learn social information that he/she may be lacking

Simple Technology for Self-Care and Leisure Activities

• Adapted Switches
• These switches can be connected to tabletop appliances (hair dryers, fans, kitchen mixers, etc) to allow for students to use them

Resource: Dell, A., Newton, D., Petroff. (2012). Assistive technology in the classroom: Enhancing the school experiences of students with disabilities. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.