Assistive Technology Lab Expands, Plans for Future Feb. 23rd, 2005

AT Lab manager Hui-Ching Ko in the Early Childhood area's new space.

The Assistive Technology Lab, jointly managed by the Department of Special Education and the Learning Technology Center, displays and demonstrates the use of a wide variety of assistive devices to accommodate the needs of people with disabilities. Orientations demonstrating these devices are given each semester to Special Education and teacher education students. In recent semesters, the number of students the AT Lab must serve has grown rapidly. There are also many more devices that the AT Lab could display or demonstrate more effectively if there were additional space.

To accommodate this need for growth, the AT Lab has recently embarked on a plan of expansion. In its first phase, the Early Childhood area of the AT Lab has moved into a previously unused portion of the adjoining room, 536N. The move provides much needed space for the display, demonstration, and storage of the specialized toys and equipment used to work with young children with disabilities. The new space can better accommodate Dr. Melissa Green’s “Early Childhood Intervention” students, who recently began using the AT Lab’s early childhood equipment. Construction will soon begin on a wall that will permanently separate this part of the room from the remaining section, and storage cabinets will be placed along this wall. The Workplace area, where assistive devices commonly used in the workplace are displayed and demonstrated, has expanded by moving into the area formerly occupied by the Early Childhood area.

Eventually, the AT Lab hopes to remove two wall sections, which will combine the new Early Childhood area and the rest of the AT Lab into one large L-shaped room. “This will allow all areas in the lab to expand. Our Home Settings area will look more like a home, and we will be able to more comfortably accommodate larger groups of students in our orientations,” explains Hui-Ching Ko, Special Education graduate student and manager of the AT Lab.

Hui-Ching Ko at the AT Lab's science learning center on plants. The lab will display more learning centers in its Classroom area when additional space becomes available.

Hui-Ching is particularly interested in expanding the Classroom area. The additional space will allow the display of learning centers which can demonstrate the use of assistive devices in specific content areas, such as reading, writing, and math. Several learning centers have already been created by students in Dr. Brian Bryant’s “Instructional Design using Assistive Technology” course, but cannot currently be displayed due to the lack of space, and more will be developed by future students of Dr. Bryant.

The display of augmentative and alternate communication devices will also be expanded. Funding provided by the University Co-Op will go to the purchase of several high-tech communication devices. In addition, students in ALD 326 “Language for Exceptional Children,” taught by Helen Canella, also work on producing low-tech examples for this area.

Teachers are encountering more and more students in the schools with special needs. The AT Lab’s mission to familiarize preservice teachers with the assistive devices that will help these students can only become more critical in the future. The expansion of the lab’s capabilities will ensure that this mission will continue to be fulfilled.

—Laurie Caldwell, LTC Communications Coordinator