For nonverbal students, speech therapists program buttons on portable fanny packs to help them express their needs. Nonverbal students in wheelchairs may have laptop computers with customized keyboard covers for different times of day. At recess, the board might have computer games, and at meal time, it might have pictures of food and drink choices. It's their turn to talk. In the past, students with limited verbal ability wouldn't have been able to sing with their classmates.
Students touch a series of pictures to activate each line of a song.
In one class, the teacher had never seen her student so excited, Jobin said. Concord High Senior Dan Hebert, who has muscular dystrophy, has followed the school district through its technology evolution as a student. Hebert, who has difficulty hand-writing, started typing in kindergarten and remembers what a difference his first laptop made in sixth grade. Hebert also recalls when the district purchased software designed for giving large screen visual presentations. For Hebert, it was the difference between asking his parents to help him glue and draw on poster board and doing it all on his own.