Celebrating with a Giveaway! (closed)

A heartfelt WELCOME to our 100th subscriber following Adapting Creatively! Thank you, thank you! The support  of all our readers means so much.

And in celebration of this milestone, I'm giving away one copy of the brand new program donated by Judy Lynn Software -- "Turn Taking!" You can read all about it here at the Judy Lynn site and even download a free trial copy (10 plays) at the bottom of the page.

A screen shot of a puzzle I made in just a couple minutes
using a photo of last spring's kid goats 

This is a motivating program for kids to learn to wait their turn, to work cooperatively, and to practice accessing the computer through any number of input devices. As with other excellent Judy Lynn programs, the screen and graphics are clean, the challenge level is highly customizable, and the results collected in useful data reports.

You can use Turn Taking right "out of the box" with the many pre-made puzzles or make it even more fun for your students by importing personal pictures and videos. What kid wouldn't love to reveal a picture of a favorite singer and watch a clip of that star's pop hit? Or uncover their own photo followed by a short video taken when they crossed the finish line at a track event?

How can you win your own copy of Judy Lynn's Turn Taking? Simply...
      1) Leave a comment below by midnight (Pacific Time) on July 4th, 2012
      2) Be sure to include your email in "disguised" format to keep spyders from stealing it (ie: spell out @ as "at" or put the word "dot" in place of the little period) so I have a way to let you know that YOU are the winner
      3) If you are so inclined, let me know what topics you would like to see covered here at Adapting Creatively. I'd love to hear!

I'll notify the winner on July 5th and delete the comments once the prize is awarded so your carefully-disguised email is removed.

Thanks so much to Judy Lynn software for this generous donation!!!

And thanks to the faithful followers of Adapting Creatively who inspire and question and suggest ideas and make blogging worthwhile--thank YOU! You guys are the best!

Congratulations to Pennie! She's our lucky winner of the Judy Lynn software, Turn Taking. Enjoy!!

Pennie, I'll email you for your mailing address and get the disk in the mail pronto. Thanks so much for your question on adapting materials for access for those early learners who don't use switches yet. Great topic; I'll get on that!

We have a software winner...

and the lucky winner is Alison! Congratulations! Thanks to every one of you who entered. I hope to have more software to offer in the future, so keep watching.

Alison, I'll be in touch at your email address to get your shipping address.

Have a wonderful week ahead,
Rose-Marie

Hurry to catch the software giveaway

It would be great if you (yes, you!) won the fabulous Listen and Respond (Professional Version) software!  Judy Lynn Software has kindly donated a copy of for one of our lucky readers here. You can read more about Listen and Respond Pro here or on the Judy Lynn website.  

Screen shot from Listen and Respond (Pro)

But you need to act soon...the deadline is Saturday, September 17, 2011 at 9 pm Pacific Time. Simply leave a comment on the Giveaway Page with your email (disguising the address, of course) to be entered.

If your child has different needs than the software addresses, please tell a friend or teacher who has students that might benefit. They might just be the lucky winner!

Celebrate fall with new software...and a giveaway

Happy back-to-school days! Let’s kick off the new school year with a look at a great new program from Judy Lynn Software Inc.:  Listen and Respond.

This simple-to-use program places students in the role of a retail clerk, filling customer orders. When customers ask for one or more items, the student clicks from an assortment of buttons to give them these items. Students have to listen closely to the order being given, remember the item(s), and locate them from the choices. Teachers can select options to customize the difficulty of the task to meet the learning needs of the student.

There are lots of things about this program that I really like.

1) This game is perfect for junior and senior high school students, or even adults in vocational programs, with access and/or cognitive issues. Anyone working with older students knows how hard it is to find excellent age-appropriate software that doesn’t require fine motor finesse and lightning reflexes.

2) It is easily accessed using a mouse, touch screen, head mouse, eye tracking, switch scanning, a keyboard, or other alternative input devices...all at the students’ own response speeds.

3) The layout and tempo of the game is calm, supporting students who are easily overloaded by sensory input.

4) The feeling tone is quite positive. Successful attempts are acknowledged and errors are corrected with constructive encouragements.  

5) So many features are customizable, making the game useful for a wide range of skill levels. It can be made extremely simple or really push memory skills with long strings of items.

Caption: Here is a screenshot from the Judy Lynn site highlighting customizable features in each version

Easy to use set-up menu from the Pro version

5) Customers in the standard version have animated mouths, making it highly motivating.

6) In the professional version, you can import customers from your own photo gallery. When we played this at home, we even brought in a head shot of our Golden Retriever! That certainly got a smile from my girls. Imagine the school principal, a favorite teacher, or a hot pop singer shopping at the store where you students work. Talk about engaging and motivating!

I added Carrie Underwood as a customer using an image I found online

7) The program tracks performance data, making it easy for you to monitor progress.

If there was any one thing that I found less than ideal, it was that my sluggish old computer with its antique processor responded pretty slowly during the video instructions and in presenting new sets of button choices. This should not be a problem for the vast majority of you having newer, racier computers.

Take a look at helpful video previews of both the Standard and Professional versions here.

I do need to disclose that I got to be involved with the development of Listen and Respond. It was a terrific project to watch come to life. My participation is completely voluntary, although I did get copies of the software for my daughter and her school.

In addition, the company has generously donated a copy of Listen and Respond (Professional version) to give away here at Adapting Creatively. If you have a Windows computer and would like a copy for your classroom or your student at home, please leave a comment on the GIVEAWAY PAGE. This giveaway will close at 9 pm Pacific Time on Sept. 17^th, so don’t wait!

A Merry Christmas to You...and a PONCHO GIVEAWAY!

May each of you have a blessed Christmas...enjoy your family, your health...all the gifts in your life! May you be especially blessed by Christ who is the Reason we celebrate!

For the next week and a half, I'm going to take a break from blogging to spend more time with my husband and kids. It seems like many of you are doing the same...so it's a good time to join you in just savoring this family togetherness. I'll still check comments, just won't put up any posts until January (unless, of course, there's something too good not to share!).

It's also a great time to share a fun GIVEAWAY of a lovely blue wheelchair rain poncho, perfect for either a boy or a girl! Here's the fabric...isn't it beautiful?

The outer fabric is a buttery-soft "utility" fabric, a plastic coated nylon that drapes beautifully and folds flat. I'd describe it as "ocean blue" with a bit of a shine. The inside is a soft coordinating blue-and-aqua batik flannel. I will custom-fit the snaps for the winner so it works well for their child.

Since folks are spending more time with family than online (yay!), I'm going to leave this giveaway open a little longer than usual. You have until January 3, 2011 (2011 feels very odd to write), Monday night at 9 pm PST. See all the details on the GIVEAWAY page if you think your child or grandchild might be able to use a wheelchair rain poncho. I'll announce the winner on Tuesday, January 4, 2011. Go ahead and sign up for the wheelchair poncho giveaway...you might just be our lucky winner!

I'll see you again in the new year. Until then, enjoy your family and good luck on winning the rain poncho!

A Merry Christmas to all...God bless us, everyone!
Rose-Marie

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In case you missed it, here's a tutorial for the wheelchair rain poncho

Announcing our Winner of the Playtime Communication Book

...and that would be...

Ann Marie! 

Congratulations to you and your little girl! I hope you have many fun hours of communication practice PLAY together with her dolls. Enjoy!!

I appreciate the clever ideas folks shared for why the book of playtime symbols would be helpful at their houses. Your little ones are fortunate to have such dedicated moms.

My only regret with the giveaway is that I haven't enough communication books to give everyone who entered. That is a hard thing for me; I want to be able to give something to each person who participates.

Thanks for joining the fun. And do keep checking back...there are more giveaways coming up!

If you want to get notified of those giveaways so you can enter in time, sign up to follow Adapting Creatively! It's free, fast, and easy! Just click the FOLLOW button on the top-right and Google will step you through the rest.

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If you missed the giveaway, you can still make your own Playtime Communication Book. Enjoy playing with your precious little ones!

Playtime Communication Book...and GIVEAWAY!

After posting last week about how we can help our kids build communication skills during play, I thought you might want to see a sample vocabulary notebook. Today I’ll show you some example pages and talk you through building play vocabulary at home.

My sample activity is a “baby book” I made years ago as a gift for my daughter and the new baby Annabelle doll Santa brought her. In keeping with the play theme, I used special paper printed with nursery items and made an “intro” page for pictures and the baby’s “birth” information. We want this to be fun and tickle the imagination! What kind of fun, theme-oriented storage could you use for your child’s favorite play activity?

I began by brainstorming all the activities my daughter might want to do with her doll. Hmmmm, what do other little girls do with their dolls? They feed them, rock them to sleep, change their outfits, give them pretend baths, play imaginary games with their babies…the list goes on and on!

Then, with one major activity in mind at a time, I began to think about the sort of things a little girl might need to help her baby (a diaper, a dress, a bottle, a blanket) and the actions she would carry out on her own (snuggle, feed, lather, etc.). Those would become the words my daughter would use to direct me to help her act out with her doll. Of course, we need to know how baby is feeling, so there are lots of feeling choices, and comments and questions a junior mama would say to her doll, such as commenting about baby’s dirty diaper being “stinky” or telling her baby “sh-h-h,” time to “settle down.” Baby, why are you “crying?” Do you want to “read [a] story?”

Next came time to make symbols. When I made this sample, I wasn’t yet using colored borders; sorry about that! My daughter typically needs loose symbols, so I cut out individual symbols after they were cold-laminated (no fear of edges peeling with cold laminate). Hook-side Velcro went on the backs.  

To keep the symbols organized, I printed labeled grids on sheets of the pretty nursery paper, slid them into plastic page protectors, and stuck loop-side Velcro on the squares. This makes it easy to put the symbols back where they belong and see right away if any are missing (check your socks, your sweater, the dolly’s outfit…it’s probably stuck to one of those).

So, what if your little one doesn’t play with dolls? In a nutshell, you would simply go through these same steps to create a vocabulary notebook for your child’s favorite playtime activity:

1) Think about how typically-developing children carry out the play activity. What situations do they create? What things do they say? What motions do they make?

2) For each main category, brainstorm a list of words that includes:

·        Things needed in the activity (car, road, stop sign…)

·        Actions that happen during the play (race, drive, crash, stop…)

·        Feelings the players have (mad my car got hit, excited I won the race…)

·        Comments (and sound effects!) that fit the scenarios (I won! Good race, Lightning!, Oh no, Vrooom!!!)

·        Questions related to the play (Race again? Ready? Need gas?)

3) Make your symbols and a creative, playful way to store them that inspires the imagination. A simple frame of activity-related clipart can dress up plain storage pages and a clever cover will help your child identify the communication book when it’s time to play.

Keep in mind that your child will not be able to use all this new vocabulary at once! It takes repeated exposure during play, especially if the vocabulary words are not used across his day. But you can use them expressively to model the conversation skills you hope your child will one day master. Trust your child; he is taking in more than meets the eye!

Now, for the GIVEAWAY! If you know a little girl (or little ones in a classroom) who would love a way to be able to communicate with and about her doll, head over to the Doll Play Communication Book Giveaway page for your chance to win the sample notebook from this post. This might just be the ideal giveaway for you!

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Other posts related to this topic:
Building Communication Through Play
Getting Ready for Non-Verbal Communication
Eye Gaze Techniques

The Winner of the G-tube Jammies is....

The lucky winner of the g-tube jammies giveaway is Dawn! Congratulations! I hope your little one sleeps all snug and toasty in them.

Thanks to all who entered. I appreciate your interest very much and hope you will stay tuned for future giveaways. I'm hoping to offer some good things over the next months.

A great weekend to all!
Rose-Marie

G-tube Jammies Giveaway!

I'm excited to announce that I'm giving away the size 4T g-tube jammies featured in Tuesday's tutorial! They are so soft and snuggly. Wouldn't they look cute on your little one? And if you don't have a preschooler with a g-tube, I'll hope you'll tell a friend who does so she can get in on the giveaway.

 

The one thing I ask is that you enter to win only if your child has a g-tube and wears or will wear a size 4T at some point. If you are interested, please go to the
G-TUBE JAMMIES GIVEAWAY.