Callie Herrenbruck & Mindy Waugh

School

Perry Township Education Center

Grant Title

Assistive Technology and Transition Fair Assistance

Synopsis

Our grant will assist with our Annual Assistive Technology and Transition Fair. This fair is geared toward students who receive special education services and their families. Assistive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. Students’ needs to assistive technology affect them at school, but also follow them home. Our fair allows teachers a chance to work with families on how they can support their child at home with technology they already have and are already using in their everyday lives. It also will introduce community services that will help with getting more technology assistance at home. Transition is an important piece of special education services where options for the future are discussed and where opportunities are set up to learn skills that will potentially help students with a working income or teachers them some skills to live independently. There is an obvious need for parent involvement in this process. Their understanding of the needs of their child and the options in our community to help their child be successful is important. Our students’ disabilities not only affect them at school, but they follow them home to the real world. The Assistive Technology and Transition Fair is our attempt to increase the communication between school and home and help educate parents of the supports in the community in hopes to transfer what is being taught in school to real life and to increase the success of our students once they’ve graduated.

Our fair aims to reach families in an informal setting. We have around 25 booths representing a variety of assistive technology and transition services. These booths include representatives from ARC, Easterseals, and Vocational Rehabilitation. Our fair also includes six expert presenters including a technology specialist from our district. The newest addition to our fair is our two activity rooms. These rooms are where families will be shown how to implement ideas from therapy services at home and how to use assistive technology available on their school-issued technologies.