Key issues and factors for success

What are the key issues and factors for success, which underpin the identification of individual needs?

In the previous section we identified three important areas of ICT, which are especially relevant to pupils with severe and complex needs. However, making good decisions in these areas is interdependent with other key issues and factors for success. These can be identified as follows:

• physical abilities
• sensory abilities
• cognitive abilities
• chronological age
• ICT Assessment and Review – a Continuum of Need
• teamwork
• funding of equipment
• training and support of pupils, staff, and parents
• time

Physical abilities

This is a good starting point when assessing individual ICT related needs, especially where a physical difficulty impacts on a pupil’s performance. Establishing the optimal means and level of physical control provides a concrete baseline from which to progress. It opens doors to other areas of ability. It enables many pupils to experience a quality of independent success they have never before attained. It can reveal levels of cognitive and linguistic ability, which might otherwise be overlooked.

To identify the physical abilities of pupils with severe and complex needs, a checklist of three important principles needs to be completed:

Key issues and factors for success

• seating
• positioning of the user
• positioning of ICT equipment

Seating

In the case of pupils with significant physical disability, optimal seating is critical to the success of introducing and developing ICT skills. The degree of seating support required to maintain a good position is dependent on the pupil’s physical abilities. Seating should always be the starting point when identifying individual ICT needs. Even where a pupil uses standard school furniture, a conscious effort should be made to ensure that a good seating position is maintained.

The degree of supportive seating will vary from pupil to pupil and will depend on the pupil’s physical abilities (see illustration).

Above all, the seating system should allow a pupil to concentrate on the ICT activity and the movements required to operate an input device. It should not result in the pupil struggling with the instability of their seating in order to maintain balance and gain some minimal control.

Good seating will:

• ensure that the pupil strikes a keyboard, manoeuvres a joystick, or presses a switch more accurately and consistently
• improve posture
• enable the pupil to achieve much more with much less effort (reducing fatigue)

Identifying correct functional seating for use with ICT involves collaboration between school staff, therapists (physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists), pupils and parents. Sometimes the seating varies from environment to environment; yet despite this the pupil is expected to use the same ICT! A well co-ordinated, multidisciplinary approach will reduce such anomalies.

Positioning of pupil

The positioning of the pupil is inherently bound with correct functional seating and the appropriate positioning of ICT equipment (see below). With good seating in place fine adjustments can be made to the positioning of the pupil in relation to their ICT activity. This may vary from day to day or from activity to activity. A pupil may require positional adjustments when tired or when moving from a communication aid to a computer. Whatever the case, a simple checklist of questions should be asked from time to time:

• Is the pupil correctly supported and, above all, comfortable?
• Can the pupil easily see the screen or device they are using?
• Is the pupil still able to see and interact with peers?

The following adaptations are needed to this seating position in order to achieve maximum control of the computer:

• hip position is poor due to lack of firm back and bottom support
• left tilt of upper body needs to be prevented – this may be achieved by improving back and bottom support
• a slight forward tilt of the upper body from the hips
• a tray to give elbow support
• the foot-rest needs enlarging because his feet slip off

In the powered chair some of the adaptations mentioned above have been addressed. However, further adaptations are needed:

• the temporary cushion, to help with the forward tilt, needs to be replaced with a permanent adaptation
• the tray gives good elbow support but needs enlarging to accommodate his communication chart
• the foot-rest still needs enlarging

Access to ICT equipment

Reliability and consistency of access are important, yet often neglected, areas of ICT intervention. They make all the difference between success and failure, comfort and pain, motivation and fatigue. Once again a number of practical questions can be posed:

Is the ICT equipment (monitors, keyboards, joysticks, switches) in the optimal position agreed by the multidisciplinary team?

This implies correct height of tables, position and angle of monitors, and location within the classroom. It is usually recommended that equipment be placed on height-adjustable tables / trolleys, particularly if a pupil is using more than one seating and positioning system.

Are the pupil’s access devices (for example, keyboard, joystick, and switches) reliably, yet flexibly fixed?

With physically complex pupils fine adjustments of position need to be made from time to time. The fixing of input devices needs, therefore, to be solid and robust but not necessarily permanent.

Is the classroom lighting good?

This is a simple but often overlooked question. Reflection of light off computer or communication aid screens, direct sunlight from behind monitors, and poor screen background lighting can make life more difficult for pupils with severe and complex needs.

Choice of access

Many pupils will use a variety of input devices during the course of their ICT experience. At times (and with some individuals), these may be used in parallel – perhaps a joystick for ‘point-and-click’ activities and switches for writing. Alternatively, it may be more appropriate for some pupils to move sequentially from one access device to another – for example, from switches to a modified joystick. This may be due to an improvement in their muscle tone, greater maturity, or higher cognitive abilities. What matters is that there is a consistency of approach and delivery of service to the pupil. This must be based on a clear understanding and mutual agreement of what is most appropriate for the pupil at any instant.

A summary of this philosophy would be this. Look for access, which is…

• preferred (particularly by the pupil)
• easy
• quick
• reliable
• safe – in the sense of not compounding or causing physical difficulties / damage
• successful!

This ICTS website is maintained by Inclusive Technology.