Using ICT to Motivate Children with Special Needs and Learning Disabilities
This article reproduce the chapter about the use of ICT for children with special needs from the document Early Learning in the Knowledge Society.
The first European conference on ICT in early learning was held in Brussels on 22 – 23 May 2003 organised by IBM. The conference recommended that pre-school teachers integrate ICT effectively into early education settings. Over 100 early education specialists from 19 countries also concluded that the introduction of ICT in early education settings is leading to a host of innovative professional practices, expanding children's early development.
In the workshops and plenary sessions several practitioners and researchers highlighted the extent to which ICT can help combat social exclusion by motivating children with special needs and learning disabilities. Kenneth Spence, manager at Gilmerton Children’s Centre in Edinburgh, reported success in using computers to help autistic children to count. The ability of the computer to repeat the same sequence of events as often as the child desires is often exactly what autistic children require and enjoy. Computers providing colours, lights, sounds and music, together with screens that respond to a child’s touch, can also catch the attention of children who are difficult to engage by other means.
Children with special or atypical needs at Gilmerton have also benefited significantly from the use of switch activated toys, particularly children with severe motor difficulty. One simple touch is all that is required to get a toy to move about and play a tune. Even a child with severe cerebral palsy can hit a switch and watch the screen change on a computer. As pointed out in this presentation, this could be the first time the child feels that it has had an impact on the world around it. The most amazing things about computers, according to Spence, is that “children who are often not interested in anything else – who do not even watch television – are interested in the computer because it is an interactive two-way experience.”
Ronald Kemeling, a consultant and researcher from the Netherlands, underlined this issue in his presentation on the MIMIC programme. This unique multimedia computer software, which can be used to build up an interactive space by means of a simple video camera and a computer, allows children to receive multi-channel feedback on their movements. Colours and subsequently emotions can be linked to a movement towards a specific spot. Language and communication exercises can also be composed that involve the discovery of words and letters or the structure of sentences. The software was designed for use by children with a development problem such as autism and psycho-pathological disorders who experience difficulty in exploring their environment and for whom positive feedback is often lacking. Using MIMIC, practitioners can work with children on spatial orientation exercises, body scheme development, matching exercises and behavioural therapeutic approaches. Once again the use of ICT allows children to feel in charge of their world. As Kemeling reported: “The children seem to discover that they have a grip on what happens around them and that they have the surrounding environment under control”.
Improving communication between pupils who might not share a common language
Another innovative approach to ‘interactivity’ was highlighted by Max Kruitwagen, ICT Coordinator in the Helmond Education Service Centre in the southern part of the Netherlands where there is a large immigrant population and a need to support children whose first language is not Flemish. Here the challenge for the Halloween project was to use ICT to encourage communication between the practitioner and the pupils and between groups of pupils who might not share a common language. At the same time, there was a desire to ensure that the practitioners and pupils were virtually unaware of the ICT equipment being used. According to Max Kruitwagen: “We did not want two and three year old children sitting behind a computer - we wanted to make the children themselves the ‘pointer’ in the software program”.
The Motion Activated Interface (MAI) that was developed allows the child to interact with the ICT system simply by moving around in a projected image on the floor. The technology involved appears quite complex and includes a multimedia projector, a motion detection camera, audio equipment and a computer. The software, however, simply invites the children to play and walk around, and the computer responds to the child’s activity by triggering a video, voice, sound and animation. In short, the children ‘learn with their body, their heart and their head’. The evaluation of the project will continue over the next couple of years but both practitioners and pupils are reported to be enthusiastic about this system which the project leaders believe ‘shows how ICT can be given a natural place in children’s learning’.
Children in the hospital
ICT also has the ability to help children when they are ill. Hester Stubbe from the Utrecht University Children’s hospital in The Netherlands showed how 20 IBM laptop computers and an educational local area network can provide web-based lessons for chronically sick children who require continuous medical care and regular treatment in hospital. Here ICT can both help to prevent children from falling behind in their studies and preserve the child’s social context by ensuring that they can keep in touch with classmates and friends using e-mail, online chat and Webcam connections, the last of which is particularly suitable for young children.
The conference confirmed that the potential impact that ICT can make in this sector is difficult to overestimate. Many practitioners suggested that they were continually surprised and impressed by the doors that ICT can open up for children with special needs and the contribution that new technologies can make in the lives of these children. As Kenneth Spence observed, “My conclusion is that KidSmart has been a great leveller. Our experience at Gilmerton has been that children with high levels of disability have sometimes actually been the best when it comes to using the computer. Where previously their participation in activities was low, they are now actively sought out by their peers and their self-esteem is boosted by being able to help others.” It may be difficult, of course, for policy makers to fully appreciate what the current generation of technologies can offer these children, particularly if their own experience of ICT is limited. One of the challenges will be to find ways to capture the imagination of policy makers and help them see that new technologies are already a part of these children’s everyday lives and provide them with opportunities for communication and control of their environment that we could only dream about a decade ago.
