Provincial Integrated Support Program
The Provincial Integration Support Program (PISP) is an outreach service mandated to assist schools throughout British Columbia in meeting the educational needs of students with multiple severe physical and cognitive disabilities. A team, consisting of a teacher, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, and speech-language pathologist provide support through a variety of services.
PISP and CanAssist work together occasionally to provide innovative solutions to support PISP's client base.
Adapted iPod project
The inspiration for CanAssist's adapted iPod project can be traced to the corridors of Ashley Cook's school in Mission B.C.
Chris Jenkins, a teacher-consultant, had arrived at Heritage Park Secondary and was preparing to meet with Ashley and her teachers, to create a special curriculum for the girl. Chris is one of a small team called the Provincial Integration Support Program. Part of the Ministry of Education, PISP has a caseload of more than 100 kids who have been deemed the most severely disabled in B.C.'s school system.
Like many kids with challenging disabilities, Ashley's curriculum included learning to hit a large single button - called an accessibility switch - that would turn on a tape deck or other device, a crucial step in learning cause and effect as well as a means of controlling one's environment. For years, tape decks were used by the PISP team, since CD players didn't work well with accessibility switches.
"I was sitting in the hallway, transferring a High School Musical CD onto a cassette tape for Ashley," Chris recalls. "There were all these kids walking by, staring at what I was doing because they didn't understand the technology I was using."
Not surprisingly, many of the teens were carrying Apple's ubiquitous iPod and wearing earphones.
At that moment, Chris realized that the way he and his team
were using music to teach the kids with disabilities was antiquated, cumbersome
and tended to isolate them from their peers.
"I remember thinking, we've got to do something to update this," says Chris. "It's got to be current, portable, and something that their peers can identify with."
Of course, given his role with PISP, there was one more fundamental requirement. "It's also got to have the capability to be a teaching tool," he added.
*******************************
Chris had already heard about CanAssist at the University of Victoria, which for the past 10 years had been developing customized technologies and innovative programs for people with special needs.
Typically, a technology project undertaken by CanAssist is
the result of a request from an individual or their caregiver. If the device
requested doesn't already exist and the idea is viable, an engineer or
programmer will be assigned to create a one-of-a-kind technology. Sometimes, a
particular device will become popular and be requested by several clients.
But the iPod project represented new territory for CanAssist.
In this case, the request came from an organization rather than an individual. Instead of developing for a single client, CanAssist would be building for more than 100 severely disabled children attending schools in B.C.
Before the engineers began working, CanAssist administrators went looking for funding. In April 2009, the team was thrilled when Variety - The Children's Charity generously offered to cover the cost of building 125 adapters, the iPod nanos to go with them, and each child's choice of speakers or earphones.
*******************************
With funding secure, Carl Spani, an electrical engineer at
CanAssist, began working in earnest on a prototype for the iPod adapter.
The adapter was built to connect to an iPod and an accessibility switch or button. Operating the iPod involved repeatedly pressing this button, which would activate a series of voice prompts built into the adapter. These prompts guide the user to control functions such as Play, Pause, Skip and Volume adjustment. (Voice prompts are especially important for the children with vision impairments.)
In addition to ensuring that the device was small and portable, Carl programmed five levels of complexity from which each user could choose. The simplest level requires children to use a single switch and teaches them how to turn their music off and on. The most complex enables a person to use two switches to scan through music and menus more quickly. Several other ingenious settings were included, each supporting the requirements of different disabilities.
Following weeks of testing by Carl and other CanAssist engineers, a second design was sent to three disabled children in Victoria who provided them with valuable feedback. Not long before the December unveiling, a contest was held to name the new device. The winning submission came from 18-year-old Jesse Hoffman of Sooke, who called CanAssist's invention the podWiz.
"Delivering the iPods and watching the kids use them for the first time was amazing," recalls Carl, one of several CanAssist employees who lent their support during that first delivery at Ashley's school.
"Seeing them smile when they realized they were controlling their music was fantastic. It was like magic for these kids."
Since the delivery of the first 125 iPod systems, several other organizations have provided funding to CanAssist to build additional units, bringing the total number of deliveries to about 200 by the end of 2010.
Today, Chris and his colleagues are using the iPod systems
as part of the curriculum for all the kids in their program. He says the iPods
are proving a versatile teaching tool in the classroom. Importantly, the device
is also a means of socialization and inclusion for kids with disabilities.
"If you're using the same device that everyone else is using, you can be more involved in life," Chris explains. "You can be out in the common area in your high school and you've got speakers on the back of your wheelchair. People can come up to you and say, 'Hey what have you got on your iPod? Play us something'."
As for Ashley, despite ongoing health problems that have kept her away from school in recent months, the podWiz that sits on her wheelchair tray has been a source of daily happiness and respite from her discomfort."When we brought it home, her brother took the liberty to fill it with all kinds of music," says her dad. "She has a permanent smile and often laughs out loud while listening to her iPod."
Return to the Services for organizations main page
Go to Top