E62: Assistive Technology Evaluations
Have you ever wondered what Assistive Technology is, what you can do to see if your child would benefit from it, and how to request it from the school? This week we are talking about assistive technology evaluations! **Warning** how every DISTRICT does this is different!
Can assistive technology help your child? Do you know what assistive technology is? Have you ever even heard of assistive technology? If not, don’t worry! We are diving into all things assistive technology to help you decide if you should advocate for your child to get an assistive technology evaluation!
Today, we are looking at what assistive technology is and helping you decide if you think it would help your child better access their curriculum and education. We are covering how to request an assistive technology evaluation, what the process looks like, some challenges you may face, and amazing, FREE resources to help you throughout the process!
Still have questions about assistive technology? Join The Parent IEP Lab Insiders Facebook Group! You’ll be part of an amazing community of parents (and me, of course!) who are happy to help answer your questions! And, as always, if you found this episode helpful and informative, please SUBSCRIBE & SHARE to help other parents be the best advocates they can for their child!
Looking for more support to help you effectively advocate for your child? Grab your FREE ticket for The Parent IEP Advocacy Summit. You’ll have access to 17 on-demand videos, Q&A sessions, an exclusive Facebook group, and raffle prizes!
In this episode, we cover:
- What assistive technology is
- How to request an assistive technology evaluation
- What the process looks like and what your role is
- Some common pitfalls in the assistive technology evaluation process
- FREE resources to help you in getting your child an assistive technology evaluation
Connect with Beth:
- Grab your FREE ticket for The Parent IEP Advocacy Summit
- The IEP Lab Intensive Waitlist
Resources Mentioned:
Related Podcast Episodes:
- #38 - Assistive Technology Tools for Dyslexia [Listener Request!]
- #33 – How to Help Your Child with a Communication Device with Courtney Burnett, SLPA
Beth 0:00
When I say the words assistive technology, do you know what I’m talking about? And have you heard about the assistive technology that’s out there that could really be helping your child access their academic curriculum?
Well, today, you are in luck, because we’re talking about how you can ask for an assistive technology evaluation, what all that entails, how to get one, some pitfalls, and of course, resources.
If you’re getting some pushback, stick with me, because today, it’s all about assistive technology evaluations.
You are listening to the parent IEP lab, the podcast that helps you get an effective IEP plan for your child so you can get them supported and learning in school. I’m Beth Liesenfeld, occupational therapist who started to notice trends in parents who got effective IEP s for their kids. My mission is to help you turn insider knowledge of the system and school culture into effective parent advocacy for your child and create the best formula for success for your particular child. Let’s get into the episode. Really quick, I wanted to make sure that you have heard about the parent IEP Advocacy Summit, it is free until September 22 2022. And I’m super excited to bring you 18 speakers on different topics all about IEP advocacy for this year. So if you’re looking to step up your parent advocacy and avoid some major fighting with the school team, by understanding the process, and more about your rights as a parent to step up for your kid, then go to the IEP lab.com/summit. And the link is in the show notes as well, we’ll see you there.
I have been looking forward to doing this episode on assistive technology evaluations for such a long time. And that is because I think that most parents don’t even know what this is. This is just kind of an awareness podcast. But it’s also a process podcasts on how you can get this for your kid.
Once you understand what assistive technology is. And the examples that we’re going to go through today, I think you are going to see that this is way bigger than even education. These are tools that can help your child both preserve their self confidence and build their self confidence. It can keep that really big curiosity that they might have, or they may have had when they were younger about learning in general. And this can just make the burden of school and how our educational system is not set up well. Relieved for your kid,
we’re talking about not only screen readers and computer programs to help people overcome their barriers to learning. But we’re also talking about communication devices and really complex tools that your child can learn to use to not only access their education, but also use into the future to participate in life in their community. So I’m so excited to finally be doing this episode for you.
Because I think it’s going to make a huge impact in where you see your child right now. And the capabilities that they have, and breaking down some of those barriers to access to education for them.
So just to give you a general outline of how today’s podcast is going to go, we’re going to talk about what assistive technology is and what an evaluation looks like for assistive technology, what the process is to be able to go through that assistive technology evaluation, we’re going to talk a little bit about pitfalls. Because just like a lot of parents don’t know about assistive technology evaluations, there’s a lot of staff members out there who work for schools that also don’t know how to do them. And that leads right into some free resources that I have. There’s an amazing organization that has all of these forums to enable you to be more directive in what you’re asking for from this process. And also helping the school team actually do a really good assistive technology evaluation.
So we are going to jump in to start talking about what is assistive technology? Don’t you love all these big words that we have in special education? It’s, it’s pretty confusing, right? So this is just kind of what it sounds like. Once you hear the definition, you’re going to be like, Oh, okay, that’s it. Now give me some examples. And we’re going to do that too.
So Assistive technology is any type of material or equipment that increases learning, working or daily living skills for people with disabilities. So oftentimes, we talk about this being a compensatory measures. So, you know, if we’re working on reading skills, but we decide that, oh, we don’t really want him to miss all of this opportunity, learn about science. So we’re going to do a screen reader in science so that he doesn’t miss out on this particular subject matter. Right. And so the screen reader is a piece of assistive technology. A lot of times these assistive If technology pieces will get put into the IEP as accommodations, so they’re really, really closely related, but in the assistive technology, we’re talking about the actual thing that might be in the accommodation, right? This is a piece of equipment and program. Like it’s something, it’s a tool that your child can use that can be put into the IEP as an accommodation as well.
So, in my experience, as an occupational therapist in the schools, most frequently, I saw assistive technology evaluations being done when someone needed to be assessed for an augmentative alternative communication device. So this is like a talker. Or it could be done with somebody who needed help with ambulation, or walking. So like a wheelchair, or a walker, there’s many different kinds of wheelchairs, there’s many different kinds of walkers. And so this evaluation piece would be done with them to determine the best piece of equipment that could be recommended from the evaluation. Okay, so there’s different types of pieces of assistive technology, I guess. And so we’re gonna go through some of these right now.
And I am going to link this up in the show notes, because I’m relying a lot on this website, called atia.org, or the Assistive Technology Industry Association. And I just looked them up, you know, to look for the definition of assistive technology just to have a more formal definition. And the resources on that page are just really amazing. So it was like, oh, yeah, like, let’s talk about this part, too. So when we’re talking about these definitions, or these categories of assistive technology, that’s where it’s coming from is the ATI a.org. And I’ll link this in the show notes as well.
So the first category is low tech. So this could be a communication board. So maybe it’s not this like computer like device or iPad like device. But it’s like this piece of cardboard that has pictures on it that your child can interact with. And that’s the way that they may prefer to communicate.
The next category is high tech. So this would be computers, AAC devices, anything that has like a program installed on it is going to be considered more of a high tech tool.
The next is hardware. So things like prosthetics mounting systems. So like this is how the talker gets mounted on a wheelchair or something that holds something else. Positioning devices, those are all in the category of hardware for assistive technology devices.
The next is computer hardware. So this could be switches, which I don’t know if you know what a switch is, I didn’t know until I went to OT school, a switches basically like a button. And there’s different kinds of them. So a lot of times when we’re talking about mastering or having control over environmental design, so if somebody in a wheelchair, or doesn’t have a lot of mobility function wants to turn the lights on and off, then they might have a switch to do that. So there’s things like proximity switches, where like it has a motion sensor, and then they can use it to connect to their device and turn on and off the lights or whatever they need to do really, this can also be something like a keyboard. So for people that are visually impaired, they might have a high contrast keyboard, they’re like yellow, and they have huge black letters on them. Okay, well, that’s a tool. That’s a piece of assistive technology.
The next category is computer software, which I used a ton when I was working in schools. So these are things like we already said the example of screen readers. So screen readers, co writer is one that I really like. And that one is to help kids with handwriting so they can type instead, or if they don’t have great spelling skills. It has like a predictive text feature on it. So that would be considered a computer software. And this can also be a communication program. So it’s not enough for somebody to have an assistive technology device, or an AAC device, a talker, essentially, to have that iPad, it needs to have some sort of communication program or app on it. And so that would be considered the computer software part.
Then there’s all kinds of like, lifts, pencil grips, eye gaze, head trackers, math, computer programs, you name it, like this is why this is so complicated. When you bring it to a team and you say I want an assistive technology evaluation. They can say, well, what are you thinking? Like? Can you give us some examples of what you think might be helpful because there’s so much out there, especially with this day and age with just our technology advancements are so amazing, that they might need some guidance to what you are thinking and we’ll talk about that in a bit too. So the opportunities are just endless.
So many times again, now that you have some examples in your brain many of these things and Being accommodations in the IEP. So if they need, you know that pencil grip all the way up to the screen reader that can be listed in the accommodation section. Now, when we talk about the assistive technology evaluation, we’re also going to talk about a component where there’s specialized instruction or teaching of the use of the thing involved in the IEP plan as well. So that should also be a result that you’re looking for at the end of this evaluation is, okay, so we have the tools. Now, we probably need some training of staff and of students in how to use this thing, right. And some things are very intuitive, some things don’t need any training. But some things really need a lot of training, like an AAC device needs a lot of training for staff and for the student to be able to use that as well.
So now let’s transition a little bit into the process of how this works. And this is where it gets a little fuzzy, because it’s an evaluation. So you would think that every school goes through the evaluation process in order to do an assistive technology evaluation. But it’s not a typical evaluation that’s used for like re evaluation or qualification under a category. So that’s why every district is a little bit different in how they approach these assistive technology evaluations.
Now, if your child is going to a bigger district, they probably have a pretty set process. Like I know in Colorado is an example, we look to Douglas County, which is south of Denver. It’s one of the biggest districts that we have in the state. And we could find their assistive technology evaluation process. Even online, they did a training for state of Colorado, they shared some additional documents for us. But they had a pretty well oiled machine, when it came to this process of assistive technology evaluation. They had all of the resources, they were super knowledgeable, they had a set apart team to do these assistive technology evaluations.
Now, in the district that I worked for, we were just developing a system. So we didn’t really have a good or solid system. When it came to doing these assistive technology evaluations. Sometimes it would be all hands on deck. And we would all pitch in between speech therapists and OTs and special education teachers, we would all kind of pitch in and be on the team to try to problem solve what assistive technology tools would be really good for the student. But it wasn’t necessarily the same team all the time. And they were trying to get more focused with the process now, what ended up happening and what our district determined to be best practice. And I’m not sure if this is done everywhere. But in the five years that I was there, this transitioned into, hey, well, it is an evaluation, we should really go through the evaluation process.
So of course, that starts with somebody bringing up that this evaluation needs to happen. So if it is a parent request, if you are going to go to your team and request this assistive technology evaluation, then it’s really similar to my advice when it comes to really requesting an evaluation. For anything really a reevaluation, for anything, or an initial evaluation, it’s best to always do some requesting in writing so that you have a clear paper trail of when you requested this evaluation. And also try to be as specific as you possibly can on why you want this evaluation to happen.
And this is the hard part with this particular topic. Because there’s so much that even the last one that I did, because I was still contracting with the district and doing these because I love them is that parent came up to me and I said, Okay, well, what do you want us to look at? And she was like, Well, I just, I’m worried that we’re missing something that would be helpful for her. So I want you to look at everything.
And just like with a regular evaluation, that’s really hard for the team member to just pick up and say, Okay, we’re gonna look at everything, when you don’t have even one specific challenge that you’re making sure that you’re addressing. So as the parent, the more specific you can be with why you’re requesting that A, the more likely you’re actually going to have it happen, right? If you’re just vague. And you’re saying somebody told me to request this, this assistive technology evaluation, they’re not going to hold that with very much weight. And they’re going to deny your request because they do have the right to deny your request for this evaluation.
But the more you can back up your ask, the more the team can be like, oh, yeah, that probably would be good to look at that. Let’s go ahead and do that. It also just helps out the team with just knowing a bit about what you’re concerned about. So again, make a little list of the concerns that you have that you think oh, maybe there could be something to help with this. Maybe there could be something to help with this challenge, then that just gives the team a little bit more focus with what they’re actually looking for.
Now, if you’re having trouble with doing this, this is when I have that really cool resource at the end. And let me go into it right now, actually. So there is this really amazing free resource online, and it’s called Wati. So it’s WATI.org. And this is the state of Wisconsin put together this team of people that put together all of these forms to do an assistive technology evaluation, it’s pretty epic. And you can download all of the forms, right from their website, there is an initial intake form that has all of these different areas where it can be helpful as far as school goes. And it’s kind of like a checklist.
So I’m going to link this specific page up into the show notes so that you can start there. So if you are like that, I don’t even know, I think I need one for my kid, I think it would be beneficial, I really want to see what assistive technology would be helpful. But I don’t know where to start. Go ahead and start with that page. Because as you go through it, it’ll say like math, and it’ll say like, are they having trouble accessing the physical aspects of math? Or do they need help with a cognitive part of math, and so you can break it down, so that you can really formulate your request for this evaluation and be as specific as you possibly can with why you’re asking for this evaluation. And again, do it in writing.
So that is the first step, right, just an awareness of the team that you want this.
After they receive this request, and they decide to grant your child and assistive technology evaluation, they might go through the formal process of sending you a permission to test and this is, again, I think, best practice in my particular opinion, so that you can give permission for them to look at these areas. Now we came up with a little blurb that you put in there, because in State of Colorado, they have like checklists like communication is being assessed and motor is being assessed, which would be occupational therapy, or physical therapy. And so there wasn’t really a checkbox for assistive technology, because it’s not really related to eligibility, right. For special education, it’s something extra.
So it’s more actually similar to an FBA or a functional behavioral analysis, where it is not necessarily determining eligibility, but it is determining supports and services even to so we just came up with a little sentence or paragraph to put on that permission to test to just say, Hey, we are doing this, because of this reason, and this is what we’re going to look at, and then the parent would sign off on it and send it back. And then we would have 60 days to go through that and to conduct this evaluation.
Now, here’s the thing, and you’ll see this in a second, when we’re talking about assistive technology, this is very much a trial and error process. So again, it goes back to the name of the parent IEP lab, right? Where every child is different, every child is going to respond differently to different tools, you can’t just say, my kid has dyslexia, they need this in this accommodation, because they might not actually need that kind of accommodation, they might need something different. Because everything is different, because our children are all different. And our situation in schools, schools, the school district district is all different. So it’s this tweaking process of trial and error to find out what’s going to work for them and get their opinion.
So those 60 days can go by really fast from a team perspective, because we’re bringing in trials of things, we have to really send out for the equipment if we don’t have it so that we can trial it with them and see if it’s going to work. And my recommendation is we always have to make sure that if we’re putting something in the IEP as an accommodation, we want to have a pretty good reference point. And we’re pretty sure that this is really going to work well for them. They don’t just say, oh, yeah, like this vague thing goes in the accommodations, you really want to be as specific as possible. And you want to make sure that that tool is actually going to work for them enough to put it in the IEP and say they need this right. And accommodation should really be they need this in order to access their education. So it’s a pretty serious thing.
But those 60 days go by real fast, because sometimes we’re waiting to get equipment, and sometimes we’re waiting to trial things. And so it’s just this big trial and error process. Okay. So that is kind of the next step is just the evaluation phase.
Now, in WATI which is that amazing website that has all these forums, there is a lot of room for parent input on these forums. So you even have I do believe there’s a parent interview section, where I actually sit down with a pair And and say, Okay, how are they doing with this? What do you think about this tool, and we really break down what your concerns are. So that those are included in the evaluation as well. So that process is the longest process. And the more vague you are with your concerns, the less focused that this time is going to be. Right? If you’re saying, just look at everything and make sure that we’re not missing anything, well, then we’re going to be trialing this piece of equipment that they might not even need, right. So you have to look at that whole picture. And again, the more focus you can bring to your team in the beginning, the better results you’re going to have at the end, because we’re just looking for really good tools that are going to enhance their access to the educational curriculum, right. So that’s, that’s what we’re there for.
So now, you know, then you sit down as far as the process goes, once that evaluation process is over, then you will sit down and have this meeting. Now it’s it’s not an official IEP meeting, necessarily, it might be considered an other meeting and might be considered an IEP review meeting, it just depends because again, you’re not going to change the eligibility category of your child and say, Oh, they’re not eligible for an IEP or they are eligible for an IEP, this is kind of outside of that process.
So when we sat down, we always did a review of the huge report that I wrote up from all of the body forms that we had put together, all of the information from the trials, touching base with every single team member who had trialed something, you know, getting their input and their report into that really long report that came out of the assistive technology evaluation at that point, and I always tried to have this ready before we sat down and shared with the parent before we sat down for this evaluation meeting. Because it’s the plan moving forward. Okay, what kinds of things do we need to put into the IEP? Do we need to have a support plan in place for training of staff, and of students to use these tools? It’s not enough to hand them co-writer, which is that program that helps them you know, predictive text, right, they can use it on their computer, and it predictive texts, when they’re typing, it’s not enough to just like, install it on their computer and give them a password, they have to really know how to use that.
So if we were going to recommend a tool, we always said, okay, can they use this on their own? Or do we need additional support to teach them how to do this? And this is where those services, you just have to use your really rational brain and say, Does that seem like enough time for them to learn this tool? Or do they need more, a lot of this assistive technology service can be served, you know, by an OT, if they’re already on caseload, or it can be somebody that is just part of the Assistive Technology Team for your district, they might not even really work with your child on a regular basis, but they step in to do this additional training on this particular piece of equipment with them.
Most often, what I have seen in IEPs, is that that service is in place until the student can demonstrate proficiency with that tool. Now, with something like an AAC device, that’s going to be a really long time, that actually might be written more like paraprofessionals that work with your child every day, demonstrate proficiency with things like modeling the device, and being able to reprogram the device or add a button or subtract a button, that kind of thing. So that they are kind of transferring those skill sets off to people who are going to be with your student every single day.
Remember, somebody who is on the Assistive Technology Team who doesn’t necessarily work with your kid, it’s not practical for them not to have some Console service so that they can teach other staff members because if you have something like CO writer or something like a device that they’re using to talk with, it’s not enough to have somebody you know, come in and teach your child how to use that device for like an hour each week. That’s not enough. So the person who is with your child most often is going to be the one that needs most help in knowing how to use it, how to teach your kid how to use it. So that is imperative that some training component in something as complicated as that now if it’s a pencil grip, it probably doesn’t need any specialized instruction or in any teaching or any consult service to use that, that pencil grip, right.
But if it’s something that’s big that requires training, then think about okay, can they automatically use this? Is this something that they know how to use intuitively or do they need some help in using this tool? And so that should be part of the plan as well. Now, if that makes it into the IEP, that’s amazing. A lot of times they’ll say in that, you know, paragraph version of the Services section, they’ll put in, you know, specific training specific minutes for this purpose. You and it will be continued on a weekly basis until either the paraprofessional or aide or the student demonstrates competency with that tool, and then they will stop that service. Hopefully you will get notified of that. So you can write that into the IEP and the parent input statement as well that you want to be notified on how this is going as well. Right. So that is the plan moving forward. Now, again, sometimes that gets into that AP, sometimes it’s a different document, just like an FBA and a VIP. So the FBA, again, is the functional behavioral analysis. So if your kid is having behaviors at school, they might do an analysis, which is that evaluation process to determine, like, what what’s happening, why
are they so upset? Why are they having these reactions? And what can we do about it, and the VIP is the result of that. That’s the plan. That’s the Behavior Intervention Plan. And it’s the same thing with assistive technology, you’re going to have an assistive technology evaluation. And then the result of that should be some sort of assistive technology plan where either that gets incorporated into the IEP by adding those accommodations, those tools into the accommodations, and the services, or it’s a separate plan that says, hey, this is what we’re doing to be able to say, yes, we’re, we’re giving these services, we’re giving these assistive technology tools. And this is what we’re doing to support that.
So that’s a little bit longer of a process, because it’s so different from the regular evaluation process. And again, here’s that disclaimer that your district might be doing it differently. And so these are things that you can ask your team at the start of it to say, hey, I want an assistive technology evaluation for this purpose. Do you guys already have a system in place and you can get a lot of information from your district, by just having good relationships with your team members and asking questions like that?
So you say, how can I work with the system instead of going against the system and feeling like I’m fighting with the system all of the time, because we don’t want that, right? That is more emotional energy than you need to expend. So just a little side note about some pitfalls of this assistive technology evaluation process, right. One of them is the glaring one that I’ve already talked about. And that’s because Id a law, the federal law that determines special education services, and define special education doesn’t necessarily talk about assistive technology, specifically in the law. So that means it’s left up to interpretation.
And in Colorado, at least, that goes all the way down to the district level, there’s not really any regulations for the states through assistive technology, we do have an assistive technology hub for the state. And that’s where people can go to get education, we also have a loan library for a lot of his pieces of assistive technology so that we can trial it before we actually purchase it for a student. And that is really helpful. But again, it takes about five days, between when you order that and when you get it. So again, this is like the time piece of it all. So there can be a lot of resources through your state. But it’s not necessarily regulated like a regular timeline, or a regular evaluation is regulated by the federal law, there’s just not a lot of regulation, which is why it just depends district to district, right, that’s really the glaring issue that I see is like, when we talk about different districts, they might do it differently, they might have less resources.
And then the second thing that I’m going to talk about is that resource piece, where if you don’t have somebody that has really good experience with assistive technology, then the quality of your evaluation is really going to be pretty poor. You know, and I would say that I’m relatively experienced with, with devices with a augmentative and alternative communication devices, because I worked in a clinic first that specialized in this. And I would say, I’m pretty familiar with what’s out there, at least what has been in front of me and what I’ve used with kids. But if you would ask me to do an AAC evaluation from scratch, I’m not qualified to do that. We have to refer that out to somebody who does that all the time.
There’s also this piece of just knowing what’s out there. I know, one of the ones that I was involved in, they were worried about, you know, this girl didn’t have really good motor control. So she was on grade level. But when it came to math, she couldn’t really do the math problems on paper. And so turning in assignments and things was really difficult. Well, I don’t know what’s out there for assistive technology for math for handwriting and math together, right? So I had to do a lot of digging to say, okay, oh my gosh, like I don’t even know where to start. Let me research some of this and you as the parent can research some of this as well if you have a specific concern, and you can help out the team and be a really good team player and to say,
Hey, I found this apple You guys purchase it, right? Because ultimately you’re looking for a long term solution, you might have to step in and do a little bit of research to help as well and really work with the team to figure out what is the best option for my kid, because there’s a lot out there, there’s a lot out there to sift through that it’s like you think you found the amazing app that’s going to do exactly what you want. And then you get a trial of it. And you’re like, oh, that doesn’t do exactly what I need it to do. Okay, like back to the drawing board. And again, this is like that lab part where it’s like trial and error, a lot of research to get to the result that you want, which is then being able to use this tool so that they can access their curriculum so much better. And it works. So well. When you get a tool that works. It’s pretty incredible.
The last thing that I’m going to talk about as far as pitfalls go is funding. So funding is a big pitfall. Because things can be expensive, right? And the training can be expensive, too. So it’s really time resources. And it’s also money and funding. Now, for assistive technology, I know that we as a state get some funding from the state for assistive technology to the district. Now, again, we’re in Colorado, I don’t know how that works for any other state other than Colorado. But I will say that there’s probably some funds somewhere that a school can access to get assistive technology for your child, right? When it comes to communication devices, AAC devices, these can often be paid for by Medicaid. And in Colorado. Again, Colorado is an example. I can’t speak to every single state, but you can get these assistive technology. AAC devices funded by Medicaid and Medicaid in Colorado has two different arms. One is income related and the other is disability related. So this frequently comes from the disability related arm of Medicaid in Colorado. And if you have somebody who knows the system again, then they will know how to navigate this for you. Right. So this, these are things that you can ask, because if the district itself purchases the AAC device, and Courtney Burnett talks about this on her episode together, if you’re wondering more about AAC devices, go and listen to her episode, or she’s in the summit too. And she talks a little bit more about the funding in the summit session as well. But when we’re talking about if, if the district purchases anything, a AC device, a stand anything a big computer screen, that is is property of the school district, and so you can’t take that home with you necessarily. The laws are a little bit wishy washy on this where, you know, they really should be able to take that AC device home. But if you move away from that district, if you change schools for any reason, that’s not necessarily going to follow your child. Now, if you get things funded outside of the district, so like Medicaid pays for something that’s yours as a family, so that gets taken into school, they use it at school, they can do training on it, they can modify it as they need it for school purposes, but then they get to take that home with them. And as we know, communication devices are access to their voice. And it really should be followed from school to home be available at home because that’s their voice. So there are some barriers as far as funding goes. But there is like in Colorado, we have a whole database of funding opportunities and grant opportunities. And those come from some of the universities that we have in Colorado have an assistive technology program or resources available to them so that they have, you know, Easterseals, you know, will grant funds for specific assistive technology devices, you know, and you have to apply to get through this and the school staff should be able to help you navigate like, okay, whose responsibility is this to apply for this is that the district is that the parent like and just work together? This is a major, major component of this assistive technology evaluation is that the more that you can work together on this, the better if you have any sort of conflict, if you are up in arms with each other before this, you probably aren’t going to get the best result from this assistive technology evaluation because there’s so many ifs involved in the process. But again, I have seen children with dyslexia, come in and get a screen reader and all of a sudden, they are just thrilled to learn again, like this is all about making learning easy and making it fun, and making it less of a chore for them. It’s already worked to learn. But if they have a disability on top of that, that makes learning even harder than the more that you can do to break down that barrier and make it fun, make it exciting. Bring back the curiosity into learning the better that your child is going to do in school and the better access, they’re going to have to that educational curriculum as well. So hopefully, this was really helpful to you, I have a lot to link up in the show notes for you. So in the description underneath this in your podcast player, you will see a link to the show notes, make sure that that if there’s any resource, like the Wady, that you want to access for that kind of pages that you can download that really guide your team through that
process of assistive technology evaluation, make sure that you’re getting a hold of that resource. And also, I have linked up in the show notes, just a couple resources about what assistive technology even is, and like the list and the definitions and the categories of the assistive technology tools as well. So as always, if you need help with any of this, if there was a question that you had, as I was talking through that, that you need more clarification about, hop into the Facebook group and ask that question. Or if you’re looking for, Hey, what should I even ask for, for my child? Or hey, can you send me that Wady evaluation form, I would be happy to do that jump into the Facebook group, you can find that [email protected] lab.com/podcast. And at the top, you’ll say, join the Facebook group and click that link to go ahead and apply for the Facebook group as well make a new post ask for exactly what you need. And we will all jump in to help you find those resources as well. Now, just my last thing that if you don’t have your free ticket to the summit yet, to the parent IEP Advocacy Summit that’s happening September 22, to 25th, go ahead and go to the IEP lab.com/summit. And again, that link will be in the show notes below this as well. And in the podcast description, so that you can grab your free ticket if you’re listening to this after the summit has happened, you can still go check out and see if you want to purchase that VIP pass. Right now as this podcast is getting released. It is the early bird pricing for that VIP pass so that you can have access to that all year round. And you also have audio versions of all of the summit recordings too. So you can just replace your podcast listening with that for a week or two, and get through all of the summit sessions that you want to get to as well. So let us help you launch into this year with really good practices and information to enhance your parent advocacy as well. So thank you so much for listening. I so appreciate your time and sticking with me through this really complicated topic. Let me know if you need anything in that Facebook group and we’ll see you same time, same place next week. Thanks so much.