LEARNING DISABILITIES & ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

STRATEGIES/SOLUTIONS WEBINAR

~ MARCH 16, 2010 ~



CAROLYN PHILLIPS: All right. Welcome. Welcome.

Welcome, everyone. So glad that you're with us this

afternoon.

Martha and I have been working on this

presentation, and we're very excited to spend this time

with you and share knowledge with you.

We see this as more of a dialogue, if you will,

even though a webinar is not always the easiest way to have

a dialogue, but a conversation that will continue over

time.

And so if you have questions, feel free to ask us

during the presentation. We got a bit ambitious. I think

we have almost 90 slides. So we probably won't get all the

way through every single bit of this.

But we will be posting this presentation online,

and you also will be able to get the archive and the

transcript -- if you're interested in that -- off of our

website.

We've got Kimberly with us. Kimberly, welcome. So

glad that you're with us. Kimberly Griffin is a

transcriptionist, and she does an outstanding job in

helping us make our webinars even more accessible. So glad

you're with us.

Welcome to all of you. Glad that you're with us

spending this afternoon with us. And I wanted to give you

just a brief tour of our webinar system. We've been using

this webinar system for about three years. We've had great

success with it, and it continues to grow and evolve. So

I'm just going to give you a quick tour so you have an idea

of what all is going on here.

Over to the top right is a public-chat area, and

that area you'll see things will get posted up there.

I'm going to actually post something right now so that you

can see what I mean by that.

So I just said, "Hello, everyone. Glad you're here

with us." And I gave information about the CEUs that are

offered, and they are free.

This was one of the things that we heard that you

wanted, and so we wanted to go ahead and be able to offer

those to you, continuing education units.

You can get those through our partner at the

aacinstitute.org. You can go to their website, and they

have all the information there as to how to go through that

process.

If you go down to right below the public-chat area,

there's another box, and it should have a cursor that's

flashing there. You can type into that box and hit

"Enter," and whatever you type in there will go into the

public-chat area.

We do keep an archive of the public chat. So just

be aware that everybody will be able to see that

information and that we'll archive it.

If you go down to the next box, there's a listing

of everybody who is on with us today. If you see somebody

that you want to communicate with behind the scenes, if you

will, you are more than welcome to do that.

All you have to do is double click on the icon next

to their name, the person -- it looks like a little

person -- next to each person's name.

If you double click on that, then it will bring up

a text box where you can do instant kind of chatting with

somebody. And you just hit "Send," and it will go straight

to that person.

If you would like to record this session, feel free

to do that. As I said, Kimberly will have our

transcription up in a couple of weeks on the Tools For Life

website, but you may want to record this and keep it.

That's no problem.

What you would do is go up to the main menu and go

over to "Recording." And that pulls down a drop-down menu,

and then you can hit "Start Recording." And when you're

finished recording, you can hit "Stop Recording." And

that's how that works.

You should right now see our main slide, our first

slide, which is the Learning Disabilities and Assistive

Technology Strategies and Solutions slide. My e-mail

address is there, carolyn@gatfl.org. It stands for Georgia

Tools For Life.org. And then Martha, obviously her address

is right below there, martha@gatfl.org.

We welcome your comments. We welcome your thoughts

about this presentation and look forward to hearing from

you.

I'm going to go pass this over to Martha just so

she can do a brief introduction and welcome everyone

herself.

Martha?

MARTHA RUST: Thanks, Carolyn.

I hope everyone can hear me. I'm just glad to see

that all you guys have joined us for this webinar.

Just wanted to let you know on my end here the

office has got some crazy wasps flying around. So they're

trying to get them, so I might have to jump in and out.

But hopefully everything will be okay.

Again, I am with Tools For Life. I am the

assistive technology specialist/services coordinator for

Tools For Life. I'm very glad that you all could join us

today.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: Excellent. Martha, that's a

very interesting problem. Hang in there, and don't get

stung.

All right. So our agenda for today. We're going

to spend a little bit of time exploring learning

disabilities with you, just kind of laying the foundation

there.

A lot of people think that they know exactly what a

learning disability is. But we find out that, you know,

not everybody has the same definition or is working from

the same framework when it comes to defining what learning

disabilities are.

A lot of people think that learning disabilities --

that it stops whenever a person gets out of school. That's

definitely not true. A lot of people think that it's just

a young person -- it just affects young people. Once

again, not true.

The oldest person that I've worked with that was

just diagnosed with a learning disability was in their 70s.

And it was amazing how eye-opening that was to the person.

It made them feel, you know, good to have that knowledge.

And the youngest person that I've worked with with learning

disabilities is four and a half.

So we're going to also talk to you about the

neurobiology, just touch on it a little bit. You're really

getting a scaled-down version of a two-day training that

I've done in the past. So we're going to hit the

highlights, if you will. And if you want more information

about any of this, happy to share it with you.

We're also going to talk about universal design for

learning. How many of you have heard of universal design

for learning? Just give me a little, "yes," you've heard

it or, "no," you haven't -- if you want to put that in the

public chat. Okay. Great. All right.

So we're seeing yes, yes, yes and some noes, noes,

noes. All right. No problem. Okay. So we're going to

cover some of that.

And then we're also going to talk about assistive

technology, obviously. There's some really cool updates

that are out there; some really amazing tools, as

technology has evolved, that we want to share you; and then

also some great resources.

So Martha is going to cover some of the defining of

learning disabilities and also go over some of our

statistics.

So, Martha, take it away.

MARTHA RUST: Thank you.

Yeah, we wanted to start off with some statistics

for you about learning disabilities. We got our resources

from Redder and also LD Online. That's where our

statistics came up.

We wanted to just start off with this with you

guys. I'm not sure if you know this, but 15 percent of the

U.S. population, or one in seven Americans, has some type

of learning disability, according to the National

Institutes of Health.

And then within that, 18 to 20 percent of people

with LD are fully employed, 20 to 25 percent of people with

LD are underemployed, and then 48 to 55 are unemployed or

out of the workforce entirely. And that's a huge

percentage of people.

Adults with learning disabilities work fewer hours,

command lower wages, and earn less annually. The median

annual earnings is only about $10,000. And 58.1 percent of

median earning of those not having an LD is 17,000. So

that's a huge difference.

There are about -- up to 60 percent of adolescents

that are in treatment for substance abuse were found to

have LD. Learning disabilities and substance abuse are the

most common impediments to keeping welfare clients to

becoming and remaining employed.

So 31 percent of adolescents with LD will be

arrested three to five years out of high school. And then

50 percent of females with learning disabilities will be

mothers, many of them single, within three to five years of

just leaving high school.

There have been reports that show that learning

disability and ADHD tend to run in the family. ADHD is

often overlooked --

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: And it looks like that Martha

was bumped off. So I'll just continue here.

A lot of people do wonder what causes learning

disabilities. There's all kinds of research that's been

done in this area.

Problems during pregnancy and at birth may cause

learning disabilities. There's some illnesses that maybe

the birth mother had that might cause learning

disabilities. Also use of drugs or alcohol during

pregnancy, low birth weight, any of those things can be

contributing factors.

Also incidences after birth: head injuries,

nutrition, exposure to toxic substances -- lead is one of

the examples that we've given here -- can contribute to

learning disabilities.

We're finding that people that live near landfills

actually have higher incidents of learning disabilities.

The thing we do know is that learning disabilities

are not caused by economic disadvantage or cultural

difference. And we want to make sure that we're clear

about that.

We also know that learning disabilities are not a

lack of education. A lot of people will say, "Oh, gosh. I

just didn't have enough school, and that's why I have a

learning disability." Nope. That's not the case.

We also know that it's not a psychological

disorder. A person could have learning disabilities and

psychological disorders going on, but that's not

necessarily hand in hand. That's not a given.

Same thing with physical disorders. A lot of

people for years thought that people with learning

disabilities had some type of brain damage. And I was one

of the folks that actually participated in a Harvard study

where they looked at MRIs, and they expected to find that

our hemispheres of our brains were not very connected, and

they also expected to find some type of abnormality in our

brain. But it simply was not true.

So there's no physical disorder, if you will, to

having a learning disability. Once again, there could be

some co-morbidity where a person could have cerebral palsy

and a learning disability or some other type of disability

and a learning disability, but it is not a physical

disorder.

It's also not a lack of intelligence. In order to

have a learning disability, you have to have average or

above average IQ.

Once again, defining what something is not often

helps us to define what it is.

And I see that Martha is back on.

So, Martha, take it away.

MARTHA RUST: Sorry about that. I just got kicked

off for some reason.

So what is a learning disability? Well, a learning

disability is a neurological disorder that does affect the

brain's ability to receive, process, store, and respond to

information.

It's not just a single disorder. "Learning

disability" actually refers to a whole group of disorders,

and we're going to cover that along the way.

A learning disability, again, is a neurological

disorder. And it's just a result of a nervous system

that's just been wired a little bit differently.

The brain is clearly not damaged, defective, or

retarded in any way. But in just a certain area it

processes information in a different way than it's supposed

to do.

And again, what Carolyn was saying, sometimes

there's other problems relating to brain function that

might exist along with learning disabilities, and those are

co-morbidity just like having cerebral palsy along with a

learning disability.

This is kind of interesting. Carolyn found this.

It was in the Time magazine 2001 edition. And we all know

that English is a tough language to learn, but this article

actually shows that English has 1,120 different spellings

for 44 homophones. And the Italian language only has 33

different spellings for 25 homophones. So it really

doesn't make sense, our language.

Ouida and Keisha, I've moved my mic a little

closer. Is that a little better? Can you hear me now?

So the next slide should have five different types

of learning disabilities. They seem to be the most common

ones. And I'm sure some of y'all are familiar with them.

The first one being dyslexia, is really a

language-based disability in which a person has trouble

understanding written words. It also is referred to as a

reading disability or a reading disorder.

Lots of times individuals hear "dyslexia" and think

just letters backwards or numbers backwards. Sometimes it

actually can be like the sentence backwards.

Dyscalculia is a mathematical disability in which a

person has a difficult time solving arithmetic problems and

grasping just the concepts behind the math, like word

problems.

Dysgraphia is a writing disability in which it's

hard to write in a particular space. Like using wide-ruled

notebook paper, sometimes it's hard to get between those

lines to write.

The next one is auditory and visual processing

disorder. And these are sensory disabilities in which a

person has difficulty understanding language despite normal

hearing and vision.

And my younger sister actually has an auditory

processing learning disability. And she often has

described it where what goes in her ear kind of gets

flipped upside down so she doesn't necessarily always

understand what is actually being said.

And then nonverbal learning disabilities is a

disorder which originates in the right hemisphere of the

brain causing problems with visual-spatial, organization,

and holistic processing functions.

So there are actually two things we're really going

to be talking about today with learning disabilities. And

that's the auditory perceptual deficit and then the visual

perceptual deficit.

The auditory perceptual deficit is just having

trouble receiving accurate information from the sense of

hearing, which is what my sister has. It's just trouble

with how the brain interprets what it hears, such as like

oral instructions. You may hear it one way when it's

actually supposed to be done another way.

Differentiating between similar sounds and hearing

one sound over a background of another noise. So having

like background noise can be a real challenge.

The visual perceptual deficit is difficulty

receiving and/or processing accurate information from the

sense of sight. That means picking out an object from the

background of other objects or seeing things in the correct

order that they're supposed to be in.

We divided these in two groups for you guys. And

the first one is the visual processing. And that would

cover the visual discrimination, sequencing, and the

memory, motor processing, closure, and spatial relationship

that are all visually.

And then with the auditory processing we'll cover

the auditory discrimination, auditory memory, and auditory

sequencing.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: Excellent job, Martha, covering

those basics. Good information.

I was just -- I flipped back to slide No. 10

because, as many of you know, I have learning disabilities.

And I say that plurally, that I have disabilities.

I have dyslexia, dyscalculia, and auditory

processing. So once again, it's a unique mix. Everybody

has their own mix. And so that's mine. And if y'all have

any questions about that, happy to share that information

with you.

I wanted to talk to you about social skills because

a lot of times that's one of the areas that a lot of folks

with learning disabilities -- there's a gap there, and a

lot of times people don't pick up on that gap.

About 10 percent of people with learning

disabilities have these nonverbal behavior, if you will,

where there's maybe a difficulty when it comes to knowing

how close to stand to somebody or what's appropriate or not

appropriate to say in public.

You know, maybe not always knowing exactly how to

dress or wearing clothes when -- and I do this all the time

actually where I'll be -- I'm not very familiar with

temperatures.

Even though I know that 30 degrees is cold,

sometimes I go out in shorts in 30 degrees. And, you know,

I just don't realize it because I don't really understand.

So there's this disconnect.

And so there's about 10 to 15 percent of people

with learning disabilities that this affects. So wanted to

make sure that we cover that.

And, Pat, I just saw that I sound like I'm too

close to the microphone. I just pulled it away. So

hopefully that will sound better.

So we can give you more information about nonverbal

learning disabilities if you would like more.

Self-advocacy. There is a strong connection here

that we need to make because we find the folks that do

really well, especially in the area of assistive technology

that have learning disabilities, they need to have that

self-advocacy piece to it.

And one of the things that I do when I'm working

with somebody with a learning disability, no matter the

age, I talk to them about the FAST track.

And almost every person that I've worked with with

learning disabilities, they know about this FAST track.

And it stands for -- it's an acronym that Christopher Lee

and I came up with, which is frustration, anxiety, stress,

and tension. And if you're on the FAST track, you're going

to go really fast, and you're going to go nowhere.

And so a lot of times what I do, whenever I'm

working -- first starting out working with a person with a

learning disability, I'll say, "Tell me about what's going

on."

And sure enough there's anxiety or they're

stressed, or they're frustrated about something, or they're

really tense about something. So we try to zone in on that

so that we can alleviate some of that through assistive

technology strategies and solutions. Sometimes it can be

as simple as a spell-checker that will get somebody off the

FAST track, if you will.

I also talk about succeeding. And I do believe

that success breeds success. And if you can help somebody

feel a sense of success in one area, then that can move

over into other areas. A lot of people with learning

disabilities have a tough time feeling success because of

the way that, in my opinion, our educational system is set

up.

A lot of folks with learning disabilities don't

necessarily do well in those environments. So I talk to

them about succeeding. And here's some key pieces to what

that means to be successful and some tips on how to do

that.

So developing a support system. So who's the

circle of support? Who can help in various areas of -- if

it's a young adult, knowing, you know, what college they

want to go to; or how they're going to pay their bills; or

how they're going to find where their classes are if

they're going to college; or what have you.

If it's somebody that's in elementary school, you

know, not having all the support on one parent or the other

parent but dividing that support out amongst a lot of

people and developing that system of support.

Also knowing what accommodations are out there and

what are appropriate accommodations for that individual. A

lot of times people will say, oh, you know, I need extended

time on a test to take a test and do really well or

extended time to do a project at work. That's fine, just

as long as you can know exactly how much time that person

really needs rather than just saying unlimited time. So

knowing what's the appropriate accommodation for that

person.

Also discovering learning style and coming up with

creative ways of learning. And we're going to talk a

little bit more about that.

Finding the right job match or the right school

match, the right tutor match. And that's all part of

success.

Knowing what assistive technology solutions work

for the individual. Once again, I see -- almost everyone

that I've worked with with a learning disability, they all

have different solutions, a different mix of solutions, if

you will.

And then also motivation. Motivation to learn and

embrace and learn more about themselves and the technology

solutions that are out there.

I also talk to people about a strength sandwich,

which is a way of telling people about their learning

disabilities in a way that is empowering as opposed to

saying, oh, I have learning disabilities. And a lot of

people may not understand what that means.

So I'll give you an example here. So I could walk

up to you and say, "Hey, I'm dyslexic, and I can't spell

worth a toot." Right? And that may or may not mean

something to you.

The other way that I could tell you about my

difficulties with spelling is to say it this way: "I know

a lot about computers, and I actually know quite a bit

about Microsoft Word because I have learning disabilities,

and I have to go in and create abbreviation expansions and

some macros so that I'm able to catch my own mistakes

because some of my spelling errors are pretty unique.

"And so I'm able to catch my own mistakes, and I

use the computer to get out newsletters and e-mails and all

kinds of developmentive websites and stuff."

And so what did I just tell you? What I told you

are my strengths. I told you, yes, indeed I have a problem

and difficulty with spelling. That's kind of the meat

here. But I sandwiched that in between my strengths, which

is you now know that I know quite a bit about Word; that I

know the behind-the-scenes of how to program Word; I know

about abbreviation expansion; I know a lot about computers;

and that I actually could probably share some of that

information with you.

So that's part of understanding the power of

knowing yourself, that self-advocacy and knowing who you

are in the world and what your true strengths are.

Here are eight ways to improve self-advocacy

skills:

Understanding your disability and being able to

describe your learning disability. And I would challenge

each of you to ask people that you know with learning

disabilities -- just ask if they can tell you what their

learning disability is.

I think you'll be surprised to find out that a lot

of people with learning disabilities have heard that they

have a learning disability, but they don't know how to put

that into words.

And that's hard if you're thinking about their

future employer, their future teacher, their future

partner. If they can't explain it to you, are they going

to be able to explain it to these folks where it's really

critical that they're able to explain that they do have a

learning disability and exactly what it is.

They also need to be a central part of the decision

making. So whether it's the type of assistive technology

solution that you're selecting; or whether it is a strategy

that you want to try out; or whether it's a school that you

think they ought to go to; or, once again, a career.

So finding that right school and that right job,

absolutely important when it comes to self-advocacy skills.

Knowing the rights and responsibilities under the

law. When do you disclose that you have a learning

disability? What type of accommodations are due? What

fits when it comes to your specific learning disability

under the law?

Also making sure that you are aware of support

groups and resources that are out there that are related to

learning disabilities.

Learning how to manage time effectively. This is

key. This is a very important piece when it comes to

self-advocacy because a lot of times, especially with

people with learning disabilities, this can be an issue.

And then also learning how to minimize distraction,

learning yourself so well that you're effective in any

environment to be productive and to be able to move

successfully through school and work and other

environments.

There's a whole lot more to self-advocacy, but we

just wanted to touch on that a little bit.

The next piece is considering universal design for

learning. I am so excited about universal design for

learning. This is a concept that's been out there for

quite a while, but I'm starting to see it pop up in

legislation and in university settings where they're

actually doing teacher instruction and in other

environments.

And I think this is going to be really good,

especially for those of us with learning disabilities and

those of us that are assisting folks with learning

disabilities.

I go back in my mind to when I was in elementary

school, middle school, high school, college. And a teacher

would say, "I need you to show me that you know this

information, and everyone needs to write a five-page

paper," or, "a 30-page paper."

And I, sure enough, would go up there and say,

"Hey, rather than writing a paper? Can I do a poster? Can

I write a song? Can I do an interpretive dance?" Can I do

anything aside from writing this paper, is pretty much what

I was trying to do.

And, sure enough, research shows -- and I often was

allowed to do those things because I asked. But research

has now shown that that is an effective way to show that

you know the information, which is great.

So what universal design for learning does is it's

a practice of embedding flexible strategies into the

curriculum during the planning process so that all students

can access a variety of learning solutions. So it's pretty

much allowing an individual to show in many different ways

that they know the information.

I actually saw this cartoon, and I thought it

applied well to these principles and to this topic.

There's an image here of several animals -- a fish in a

fish bowl, a dog, a seal, an elephant, a penguin, a monkey,

and a bird -- all facing a person who is sitting at a desk.

He looks like a teacher, could be a teacher. And there's a

tree in the background. And he says, "For fair selection,

everyone has to take the same exam. Please climb that

tree."

And for somebody like me with learning disabilities

and like a lot of folks that we work with, that is not a

simple task, climbing that tree. It's great for the

monkey, but pretty much everybody else would have been left

out of that.

So there are some basic principles, if you will,

when it comes to universal design for learning. And here

are the three that we'll talk just briefly about.

The first one is alternative means for engagement.

So it means that you're coming up with another way for

somebody to engage in the information and get the

information.

Alternative means for representation, meaning that

you're going to be able to represent the information in a

different way.

And then alternative means of expression, meaning

that I will then be able to express to you that I

understand this information, once again, in a different way

than a traditional way.

There are some cool tools that are out there. How

many of you have seen Glogster or have been on

glogster.edu? EDU is actually the educational website for

this. They also have glogster.com.

Basically what you can do here is you can create a

multimedia poster. I remember, once again, back when I was

in middle school, wishing for a tool like this.

And I actually have just used this with my daughter

for one of her projects, and she got an A on it, which was

great. I also used it during a training that I was doing

out in Salt Lake City when I was facilitating a group that

everyone was supposed to make a poster, and some people

used Glogster to be able to do that.

Once again, looking at representation. You can use

video, audio, images, text. You can present curriculum

information in an engaging and interactive manner so that,

once again, you're getting that multimodal approach.

Expression. Once again, it can be collaborative.

You could have a group work on this, or you could do it by

yourself. And the presentation can, once again, be

alternative and customized.

So I'd encourage you to check out Glogster.

Flickr, Picasa, and several other -- there are

several other tools out there like this, but Flickr is the

one I'll talk about here. It's an online photo- and

video-sharing tool. And the way that this would work with

universal design for learning is that you can use it to

make -- you can make notes on photographs. You can present

ideas visually. You can have creative ways of expressing

your ideas.

There's a website out there called Creative Commons

that you can actually download all kinds of images, which

is great. A lot of us are visual learners. And so this is

a great way for somebody to learn. That goes back to that

"a picture says a thousand words."

When it goes to expressions -- so, once again,

going back to the "I can express that I understand the

information to you" or to a teacher or to a boss -- you can

use this collaboratively or with the individual. They can

write notes just like I was saying. And, once again,

alternative presentation formats. So there's all different

ways that you can do that.

Etherpad.com. How many people have used this out

there? If you have, let me know. I'd be curious. I

actually like this tool. It's a shared word processer.

And it's very, very cool because you're able to, once

again, use it collaboratively with other people. And

that's -- when you think about your work environment, how

many of you really and truly work all by yourself? Very

few of us actually work all by ourself.

A lot of us work in these collaborative

environments. And so Etherpad is one of those tools that

can help us both in the school system or in trainings or in

the workforce.

So you can use it for brainstorming activities.

You can use it to work remotely with others. Just like

Martha and I are not sitting in the same space right now,

but we could work collaboratively. If we wanted to use

Etherpad, we could do that.

And then you can also use color coding. And the

answer -- you asked, are these sites free? Yes. I love

free. And so all the ones that I just shared with you are

free.

All right. I would also encourage you to think

visually. It's important to think in different ways, but

when you're working with folks with learning disabilities,

a lot of us are visual learners.

Steve Jobs has a learning disability. One of the

big successes of Mac was making icons. And, once again, if

it wasn't for somebody thinking visually, we would still

all be using DOS. And I'm not so sure that computers would

be as successful if we were based not on visual but on

text. So it's nice to think visually.

Part of why we want to think about visual ways of

presenting information is that auditory information is

transient. Part of the success of the webinar, for

example, is that some of you are going to remember my

voice -- when it's not cutting out, some of you will

remember my voice. Others of you will remember seeing

these slides. Then others of you will remember both. And

that's why we wanted to make sure that we present in a

multimodal way.

What would be even more cool is if we could

actually interact and manipulate this webinar together.

But that's for the future.

So auditory information is transient, meaning that

it comes and goes. Everybody has their own interpretation

of what is said, necessarily.

Visual information remains present for as long as

you need it, and it eliminates the guesswork, making the

messages more clear and more concrete. And that's very

important when it comes to strategies and working with

people with learning disabilities and also with universal

design for learning.

Some of the problems that visual supports can solve

include communication breakdowns, reduced anxiety and

behavioral meltdowns. When I have a visual, it definitely

reduces my anxiety. Having my calendar be visual where

it's color-coded, that really helps me.

You can also use it to help with transitions, teach

instruction, organize expression, and also teach

independence. And we can give you more examples of that in

a little while.

So now we're going to talk about assistive

technology and considering assistive technology, building

on, once again, those definitions that we just had of what

is a learning disability; then moving into and thinking of

how do you get people off that FAST track; and then

incorporating universal learning design into this success

of working with individuals with disabilities; and then now

we add assistive technology.

Assistive technology, as its defined by the AT Act

in public law, it refers to a broad range of devices,

services, strategies, and practices that are conceived and

applied to eliminate the problem faced by individuals that

have disabilities.

It's technology that helps an individual to carry

out functional activity. That's basically what assistive

technology is.

It can be anything. It could be Velcro. It could

be a modified pencil. It could be environmental controls.

It could be anything.

One thing that Cook & Hussey presented to us in

their first book -- and I really like this model -- is the

human activity technology model. And it's something that I

would like you to think about when you're applying

technology to the individual, especially when it comes to

people with learning disabilities.

You have to think about the human, that individual.

Just like we were saying, all people with learning

disabilities are different. So you look at their skills

and their abilities of the person.

You look at the activity. So what is the activity,

the task that needs to be performed by that person? So

let's say, for example, it's organization, and you need to

help them organize their day.

So you take the individual. Do they have dyslexia?

Do they have dysgraphia? What's really happening here?

And then what's the activity, which is that organizing.

And then you look at the context. Is it setting -- what's

the setting? Is it social? Cultural? Physical? Context?

What's the environment that this activity must be

completed?

So, for example, if it's in the work environment,

you wouldn't necessarily want to have a huge calendar on

the wall that is color-coded and looks really juvenile.

You might want to go towards something like a smartphone

where they can download Google Calendar and be able to

interact with it and manipulate it really quickly and see

it in a visual way.

And then what are the assistive technology

solutions? Just like I was saying, those strategies used

to bridge the gap. And it may be that smartphone with

Google Calendar -- which is a free tool -- once again, the

Google Calendar -- free tool to everyone.

So using the HAAT model. And we can use this again

and again and again as we're applying assistive technology

to individuals with their specific strengths and abilities

and specific environments.

The other thing that you want to do is make sure

that the assistive technology that you're matching up with

an individual is actually promoting strengths and managing

weaknesses. You want to make sure that it's not creating

more hurdles either.

So, for example, as I told y'all, I have dyslexia,

dysgraphia, auditory processing. One of my biggest

weaknesses, if you will, is actually being able to type

information out. So I use my voice as my hands touching

the keyboard, if you will, as my fingers. And I use my

voice all the time to write e-mails.

So I'm promoting my strength, which is auditory --

you know, I can speak pretty clearly; I'm oral; I can get

it out there -- and managing my weakness, which is what

happens when my fingers meet these keys and how that can be

a big disaster.

There is a cool tool out there called the FEAT,

which is the Functional Evaluation for Assistive

Technology. It's a technology assessment for learning

disabilities. There's some really cool pieces to it.

I actually think it's a little too long, but if you

want more information about that, we can give you some

information about that. And we have some examples at our

state office with Tools For Life.

We do know that technology and learning

disabilities -- it goes -- they go well together. And we

know that technology does help. Multiuse technology. You

want to look for things that can be used over many

different environments.

For example, I use my smartphone, my BlackBerry. I

use it personally and professionally and in educational

environments, all three. And that way I don't have to

relearn technology in order to be successful.

I use high-tech and low-tech solutions all the

time. We're going to talk to you about some high-tech and

low-tech solutions.

And then we also know that technophobia is out

there. There are lots of people that are concerned and

afraid of getting into technology. And it's important to

kind of ease those fears, create success, even if it's

small steps, you know, baby steps.

We also know that access to assistive technology is

extremely important. And that's one reason why we're so

happy about our assistive technology resource centers that

are around the state and the great work that they're doing

to assist people.

So Martha is going to -- we're going to jump even

deeper into some of the technology solutions that are out

there. And what we've done is we've actually divided these

slides -- these next slides up into specific areas.

So this first area is looking at organization and

when it comes to reading and writing and those types of

things.

So Martha, take it away.

Oh, you asked a question, whether or not the FEAT

can be used for other disabilities. It can. You would

have to modify it yourself because it is designed for

people with learning disabilities.

I do know that they are working on that, but I

don't know how far they've gotten. I've just made a note,

and I'll research that and get back with you.

MARTHA RUST: Okay. Thanks. The next couple of

slides are about organization in auditory stuff.

And the first software slide that you see is

Inspiration. Have any of you guys ever used Inspiration?

This is a really cool organizational tool where an

individual can actually put their ideas on the screen using

pictures. It's really good. And then there's also a

button that you can click, and it will actually put it in

outline form. So this is definitely a really good piece of

software.

You can go to the next slide, Carolyn.

The next one should be another one kind of like

Inspiration called Draft:Builder where an individual can

use this program for brainstorming. So they can just -- if

they're writing a paper or doing a report, they can just

use this Draft:Builder to help with their brainstorming and

help them organize their thoughts and put it on paper.

Audible.com is a really cool program where you can

actually listen to -- you download, like, books right onto

your MP3 player. There is a cost to this. It looks like

it starts at about $7.50 a month or about $15 a month after

the first three months where you can just download right to

your iPod to listen to bestselling books, which is really

cool. And they have over 75,000 titles out there.

Next, please.

I'm sure some of you guys might be familiar with

the RFB&D program. This is the Recording For the Blind and

Dyslexic. It's an educational program that works with

students where they can get their textbooks right there or

recorded or in braille or whatever. And it's a really cool

program if you have not checked it out.

Bookshare is another really cool program, too,

where you can download newspapers and magazines and all

types of books. And they'll come straight to you so you

can actually listen to them.

And then the livescribe pen is really cool. I

really like this. This is a pen that you can actually take

notes, but it also records what's going on. There's a USB

connector. So after recording what's going on in a

lecture, you can actually connect that to your computer,

and it will do a transcript of what it heard.

There's an e-cartridge. Some of the livescribe

pens out there also have special paper that you use, a

special spiral that you use to write on, and it can also

record whatever you write onto. So once you put it in the

USB outlet, it will transcribe what you wrote in electronic

format for you.

Okay. Next slide.

Digit voice recorders are very popular. They do

speech-to-text. You can convert your audio data to digital

signals and compress them to record on a miniature card.

So you can actually take notes. Or if you don't want to

forget something, you can write it down or speak into the

digital recorder. And then, when you get home or when you

get to your computer, it will actually convert that to

text.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: Okay. So thank you, Martha.

That's very cool.

I was just going to mention, Recording For the

Blind and Dyslexic, one of the cool things that we've seen

over the years is that they have moved with technology.

They've moved from those, you know, four-track

tapes -- which I actually still get in the mail every day

and I still listen to. I still have my four-track tape

player -- to this more advanced system where you can

actually download books electronically. You can throw them

on a thumb drive. You can throw them on your MP3 player.

I've got one right now on my BlackBerry that I'm listening

to.

And you can just keep on moving with gaining

information and knowledge. Really and truly it's about how

quickly you can acquire the knowledge, is really what it

comes down to with the way that things move.

Bookshare I use, I would say, probably once a week.

It's a great resource. And they've received about $5

million from the Department of Education. So check them

out. They've really grown and developed. So it's a great

resource.

This is Office OneNote, which is, once again, a

great product. Very helpful for people with learning

disabilities in that you can organize very quickly. It's a

way that you can put all kinds of information together, and

you can use it in a way that you can share quickly with

other folks. You can share your ideas with other folks.

And, Penny, I'm glad to see that you're using it.

Yes. Office OneNote is awesome. I agree.

So if you haven't seen it, check it out.

The next tool that we're going to be sharing with

you is Micro Logic. How many people have seen Micro Logic?

It's got several different pieces to it, but the thing that

I really like here is that you can secure all your

information on a thumb drive that's encrypted. One lock.

They've got the keys right here. But they've got the thumb

drive right here where you can actually put all your

passwords and account information and everything else that

you want to keep together in one area.

And they've got it organized with a little piece of

software in there that helps you organize all the different

passwords. It's very cool, very easy to use, and it's one

of those things that you can give a person with a learning

disability, and they'd be able to use it very quickly and

easily. It's pretty intuitive.

That is one of the most frustrating things that I

hear about again and again from my friends with learning

disabilities and the individuals that I'm working with, is

this difficulty with keeping up with passwords and

information, medical information, not knowing what

surgeries they've even had or what medications they're on.

The NEO has actually just reduced their price. A

lot of people are familiar with this type of technology

because it evolved from AlphaSmart.

The NEO, it's got all kinds of cool features

including you can use this up to 700 hours, which is great.

You can use it with a Mac or a PC. And you can also use it

to manipulate information within Excel and/or PowerPoints

and Word. So a lot of people didn't know that it has

evolved to that.

QuickPAD. It's along the same lines. It's a

portable keyboard that also has computer -- it's got memory

involved in there, too, and software. It's very intuitive,

once again. And, once again, it just makes a lot of sense

for a lot of the folks that we're working with when it

comes to flexibility and durability, compatibility. Very

nice.

Talking calculators. I actually grabbed this from

the independent living aids. But there's any number of

different companies out there that are actually using these

and selling these.

There's one in here that -- you can see the range

goes from $15 with this designer talking calculator that

also has -- it's a music box, too, which I thought was

pretty cool. And you can actually -- it offers 15 pieces

of music to enjoy at the press of a button. You can also

use it as a wake-up alarm.

And that's what I'm talking about when I'm saying

use technology that has multipurpose so you can use it

across settings.

And I'm going to turn this back over to Martha, who

introduced me to Ginger, which is a great tool.

So Martha, tell us more about Ginger.

MARTHA RUST: Yes, I'd love to. I have been

Gingering everything lately. Ginger is an online software

that does grammar and spell-check. It checks the whole

sentence for the context-based selection. So unlike

spell-check in Word where it usually just does

word-by-word, it actually somehow checks the whole sentence

to make sure, even though the word is correctly spelled, is

that the exact word you want to use.

It does text-to-speech so you can actually click

and hear it said out loud to make sure it's actually what

you want it to say too.

Again, this is an online program so you do have to

have Internet to access this. But it works on my e-mail,

which is great because I've been using it on e-mail, and

also in my documents that I write.

There is a 14-day free trial right there on the

website that you can click and get ahold of.

Another software is by Quillsoft. It is called

SpeakQ. It is again a speech-to-text or text-to-speech

software that enhances the WordQ program.

Has anyone used SpeakQ or WordQ before?

Are you asking the price of -- I see your question,

Ouida and Keisha. "What was the price of the Ginger?"

Ginger I know runs under $200. There's two

versions. There's a professional version, and then there's

a basic version. So it's pretty reasonably priced.

Next slide.

This should be Dragon, Dragon NaturallySpeaking,

which is what Carolyn uses all the time. Again, you can

get it professionally or the basic version. You can also

get a version -- a really simple version that you can get

probably at like RadioShack or Wal-Mart.

But again, the newest version is kind of cool. The

version 10 actually has southern dialect on there, so it's

able to pick up more of the slang that individuals tend to

have.

And then the next slide would be the MacDictate,

which is their program that does speech-to-text.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: Okay. One of the things that I

did like about Vista, even though Vista was a bit of a mess

for a lot of us who watched that whole thing happen, is

their speech recognition. It had some gaps, but it also

had some pluses. And they did include speech recognition

in the next versions that are coming out, the next

operating systems and everything that they've been

developing. So they do have it and -- yes.

And it looks like Gigi has a question. "What was

the speech-to-text software that came right after Dragon

NaturallySpeaking 9?"

Oh, oh, it was MacSpeech. I think that's what you

were talking about. MacDictate. So there you go.

And once again, all of you can have a copy of this.

No problem.

Adjusting the accessibility options. There are a

lot of accessibility options, and this is a whole

presentation that I know that Tech-Able -- the folks at

Tech-Able, Pat Hanus and her crew do. We also do it at

Tools For Life. And we can talk to you in more detail

about that.

But just wanted to make sure that you were aware

that some of these accessibility options are very, very

helpful for people with learning disabilities. And so you

might want to consider that as you're working with folks,

including some of the features that are in Word.

A lot of people didn't realize that there is an

auto-correct function. So as you're typing, you can

actually have words that will be corrected automatically.

You can also have auto-text. You can have abbreviation

expansion. You can also do auto-summarize where you can

put a bunch of information into Word and then say, "I only

want 10 percent of this," or, "I only want 15 percent of

that."

Some of the templates and the formatting are

amazing. And then, once again, the highlighters. If

somebody uses a highlighter every day, as many of our

people of varying disabilities do, with books and other

pieces of text that they print out, then the highlighter

feature in Word could also be very helpful.

There are also all kinds of little spelling

correctors. Part of why I like this one -- this one, it

was $17. It's even less expensive now. I was over at

Office Depot this weekend and saw one, and it's similar to

this one that you can actually just slip into anybody's

pocket. It's the size of a credit card. It corrects

80,000 words, defines 1,700 commonly confused words. That

asterisk function is very, very cool.

You're asking, Paul, whether this one talks.

This one does not talk, but a lot of the other ones

do. And because speech output has become so inexpensive,

there's some really great solutions out there. And I'll be

happy to share some of that with you.

I wanted to show this low-tech transparent color

overlay solution, literally just cut out transparent

overlay. Usually I tape this to a pencil and then will use

that pencil with the overlay as a way to help somebody

track, if you will. That's the term that we use where they

track. And they're able to keep up with what they're

reading on a book.

If this low-tech solution works for somebody, then

you want to think about some of the higher-tech solutions

that are out there, including WYNN, Kurzweil, textHELP.

Same thing with magnifiers. Magnification for

people with learning disabilities can be the thing that

makes the difference for them. This one actually has a

light on it. So it would help bring the focus back to

whatever it is you're trying to magnify.

Also with a magnifier, a lot of times what people

with learning disabilities say is they just need things to

be bigger, and they need things to slow down. And I know

that's true for me.

So sometimes if I'm really, really sleepy, I just

magnify things on my screen, and I'm able to really take in

the information, which is nice.

And, Martha, you want to take away the next few?

MARTHA RUST: Sure.

The next couple of slides are some of the softwares

that Carolyn was talking about like Kurzweil 3000, which is

a software that helps readers that has highlighting and

different types of features in that.

And then the next slide is WYNN, which stands for

What You Need Now. And it's a really cool program. It has

word prediction. It has a dictionary, a thesaurus, a

spell-check. It reads aloud.

You can actually highlight not only the text that

you're actually reading, but you can also highlight -- if

you're reading something on the Internet that you want to

put in a report or something, you can actually highlight

web pages.

There are four different color-coded toolbars, so

it's very easy for someone with a learning disability to

use. One toolbar is reading, and one goes to writing and

studying and then also the Internet. And that's one of

Freedom Scientific's products.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: TextHELP is another one of those

products that I like to use. One of the reasons why I use

this one for some folks rather than WYNN or Kurzweil is

that textHELP will work with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, any

number of Microsoft or other softwares; whereas, Kurzweil

and WYNN actually work only within their own.

So for example, you can use this textHELP with

somebody who may not be able to understand that -- or it

may be difficult for them to write something in WYNN and

then change it into a format that they can then turn in to

their employer or to their teacher.

If they have trouble with sequencing and things

like that or multiple steps, then textHELP may be the

solution you want to look at.

TextHELP also has the most advanced

word-prediction-program system associated with it. They've

done an outstanding job. So much so that other people have

actually bought it. As a matter of fact, WYNN uses

textHELP's word prediction. It's that good.

InstantText. Has anybody used this? This is

actually -- it's an abbreviation expansion software. It's

very, very inexpensive. And it is so helpful. You can use

it with a smartphone. You can use it with a computer.

Very, once again, inexpensive. And it saves a lot of

headaches for a lot of us that have difficulty with words.

Same thing with ActiveWords. This is one of those

software packages that's out there. Very impressed with

this one. And I would encourage you to check it out if you

haven't heard of it before. Once again, it works with

abbreviation expansion and just using words in a different

way so that you're able to get to what it is you're really

trying to say more effectively.

CleverKeys is another free software that's out

there. And it provides access to dictionaries,

thesauruses, reference materials, and you can actually

download all of that or just visit those websites.

Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. Very,

very cool what they are able to offer there.

The Aurora Suite 2005 professional edition. Even

though it's 2005, which is obviously a few years ago, it is

still one of the best when it comes to several things

working with people with learning disabilities, including

the use of language, defining the language, helping

somebody who's really trying to write on a professional

level.

I have recommended this for many professionals that

I'm working with. It's also got speech output. It's

excellent for a lot of our people who have dyslexia that

are in the medical field and other areas. So check them

out.

And Co:Writer. This is one of those oldies but

goodies. A lot of times people have used Co:Writer, and

they think, "Oh, it's just for school-aged kids." Not

necessarily so. It's very intuitive, very simple. And

I've got folks that are using it in the workplace, and

they're using it very successfully.

I also wanted to make sure that y'all were aware of

some of these start-to-finish books that are out there.

And these are excellent for folks that were just emerging

into literacy. If they have learning disabilities and

they're very, very young, this makes that text come alive

because we know that being able to interact, whether you

actually read it or hear it, it's understanding what's

being taught. And so those start-to-finish books help that

because it's a bi-modal way of learning.

And I'm going to turn this back over to Martha so

she can talk to us about the Kindle, which is a super

cool... (audio skip)

MARTHA RUST: I notice the time. So I know we're a

little over time.

If anyone has any questions or whatever, please

feel free to go ahead and ask.

I just want to go over these. There are tons of

eReaders out there right now. This one is just the Kindle.

It comes in two different sizes. It's really cool. We

have one here at Tools For Life that we'd like to loan out.

One of the things that you need to know about these

eReaders is that the Kindle runs off their own like

cellphone towers. So my friend, who is stationed in the

military, was unable to use the Kindle because she couldn't

download books in Afghanistan; whereas, the Sony eReader

uses another type of Internet program, so she's able to use

that. So that's one thing you want to look at, too, when

you are looking through eReaders.

The ClassMate reader is another program. It's a

device that's portable and is affordable. It's a digit

audio book player, and it helps individuals increase their

reading speed, comprehension, and vocabulary.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: All right. And I see that a few

of you have asked questions about this webinar.

"Will the slides be on the TFL website?"

They're not up there yet, but they will be. We'll

actually put them in a PDF because just the slides that --

this PowerPoint is 15 megabytes because I put so many

images in it. But you can get the Adobe PDF file, and

we'll make sure that you have access to that. No problem

at all.

We're going to just cover a couple of more pieces

of technology, give you some resources, and then we'll wrap

up. And please do let us know if you have any other

questions.

The iPad is coming out April 3rd. And I am so

excited about this piece of technology. You can see there

that the prices are -- you know, it's a bit pricey. But I

think it's actually going to be one of those tools that

will come down in price eventually, and I think that it

will be one of those things that a lot of us will get

excited about and be able to use in all kinds of

environments, including the workplace and other

environments.

And you said that you wanted me to refresh.

We are going to get an iPad. You asked, Paul, if

we have one to loan. We don't. It hasn't come out yet,

but we are going to.

I have interacted with it and sat in on some

demonstrations at some of the conferences. I sat in on a

testing -- it was a testing committee of folks that they

had pulled together and was honored to do that.

Some of the things that I really like about this is

that it does have built-in accessibility features. It

comes with a screen reader. They have playback of

closed-caption content, which is super cool. It's got

other type of universal access features that are out there

that you don't have to buy anything extra, which is nice.

The calendar is amazing on this. And maps. I've

never seen maps with that clarity. You also can just take

notes right there. It has an on-screen keyboard. So it's

just amazing what you'll be able to do with this. So I

would encourage you to check it out.

The other things that are out there that I just

wanted to point out to you. This one is called Snac,

S-n-a-c. And it's a mobile web experience. Once again,

it's very intuitive. And I have found that a lot of people

with learning disabilities do really well with this.

It helps organize everything, all their apps that

are on their smartphone. And they're able to get to some

of those tools, organize them really quickly, and be able

to fully get the benefit from those.

I also usually have them download Merriam-Webster's

free app, which is out there. That's yet another great

resource. And I think that's about all when it comes to

some of those apps. Oh, I have two more.

The WatchMinder is a really cool technology that's

still -- it's an oldie but a goodie. And this one -- it's

still around $100. It's got a large screen, and you can

actually program it to remind you of specific things that

are going to happen.

The nice thing is that it looks like any other

watch. It looks like a Casio or any of the other ones that

you can buy, a sports watch. And you can wear it. It

doesn't draw a lot of attention.

What I have been doing is actually using people's

smartphones to be a WatchMinder, if you will. If they have

a cell phone or a BlackBerry, an iTouch, an iPhone, any

number of smartphones out there and smart PDAs, to use as

tools.

If you do have some of those iPhones, iTouch, other

things like that, there's a whole bunch of apps that are

out there. And that's a whole other presentation that

we're starting to develop. And these are just a few of the

tools that you can get, once again, that are free or that

are like 99 cents or a dollar.

So, for example, you can get the periodic table.

You can get Oxford American dictionary. You can get an

organizational app that helps you know exactly when you're

homework is due. It's amazing what you can do with also

the information that they have when it comes to anatomy and

the body and seeing all the cool things that are out there.

And I see that you said, "Yea, Mac is far above."

Yes, they're leading the pack.

Google has this really cool -- and I'm sure several

of you have been on there and seen Google Maps. The cool

thing about this, though, is they've got this new feature

where it will tell you what's happening nearby.

So if there's a car wreck and it hasn't been

notified to everyone, you know, the police haven't even

gotten there yet -- believe it or not, I've been able to

get information very quickly because I've downloaded this

Buzz, and I know very quickly what's happening if there's a

car wreck or a light that's out.

I used it twice this morning just getting around

Atlanta. And Buzz was the thing that actually told me what

was going on and why there was a delay.

Also the Google SMS messaging. You can actually

text Google. You would actually enter -- and you might

want to try it now or as soon as we're finished with this

presentation. You can text the word "help" to 466453,

which is Google, if you're typing it in, and you can type

pretty much any question in there and ask them a question,

and they'll answer it.

And I've done all kinds of things where I wanted to

know who won a certain Oscar in a certain year or when was

Lincoln's birthday or what is an answer to a certain

equation. You know, any number of things. So pretty cool

what they were able to do and get that information right

back to me. Now who knows if it's correct? But at least

it's there.

This is another piece that I think is pretty cool.

And this was developed by the people who developed and have

further developed Dragon NaturallySpeaking. And it's

Nuance VSuite, which is used for your smartphones. And you

can use it for voice commands and dialing, sending e-mails,

sending pictures, any number of things.

So once again, great for people with learning

disabilities and can cross over into other types of

disabilities too.

So we're going to talk a little bit more about some

of the resources that are out there. One that I find very

helpful -- and for those of you within the AT field, I

would encourage you to check this one out -- which is QIAT,

and it's the QIAT Consortium.

They have a website. It's actually a listserv too.

And it's a grassroots group that literally I can put a

question up there, and in a couple of hours I'll have

people from all over the country and some folks

internationally that will give me advice about all things

assistive technology. So it's very, very helpful. And

it's nice to have that kind of community.

The Job Accommodations Network. Once again, very

helpful with working with all types of disabilities. This

one is designed by the -- this web site is hosted by the

U.S. Department of Labor's Office on Disability Employment

Policy.

But they have some specific information about

learning disabilities, which is great. So I would

encourage you to check them out.

And then I was very impressed with the University

of Buffalo, their Center For Assistive Technology. Some of

the information that we've pulled together for this

presentation I was able to actually capture here from this

site.

And this one is really focused on the playing

aspect, which we want to remember that it is not just about

learning; it's not just about work; it is also about

playing. So I would encourage you to check this one out.

Let's Play! is what it's called. Let's Play! Projects.

And the Learning Disabilities Association of

Georgia, which I am a proud member of LDA Georgia and LDA

National. I've also been on their board before, and we

continue to get good stuff out, publications. We do

workshops, all kinds of things.

But the thing that we do that nobody else does is a

support group, which is a valuable, valuable resource.

And Martha, you want to talk to us a little bit

more about Learning Disabilities Association of Georgia?

MARTHA RUST: Well, yes. You pretty much described

it there. It's really cool. It's got a bunch of

frequently asked questions. You can get your college

transition support right there. There's support groups.

There's lists of meetings. There's also all types of

training going on in Georgia that they list right there in

that website. So it's a really good resource for you to

bookmark.

And then also with the Learning Disabilities

Association of America is a really good resource, too, that

has all types of information about the different types of

learning disabilities; research that's going on with

learning disabilities; a calendar of events of what's going

on across America with conferences and programs and stuff

like that. So that's another really good resource to

bookmark, too, for LD.

And then one that we used a lot, too, to get some

statistics at the beginning of this -- this is LD Online.

There's a lot of stuff that just has basics about learning

disabilities again. It also goes into ADD and ADHD.

And then this is really cool, too, because there's

information on assistive technology laws that are out there

and what's covered and what's not.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: We really appreciate you

spending time with us today. We know your time is

valuable, and we know we went over a little bit on the

time, but hopefully you found it worth it. It's nice that

so many of you stayed with us.

We will have this presentation up and available for

you, as we said. And as we close, we wanted to give you

this back because we do appreciate just this little story.

We appreciate the time that you spend with all the folks

that you work with, but especially I appreciate you working

with folks with learning disabilities.

So this is called the starfish, and it goes like

this:

There was a young man walking down a deserted beach

just before dawn. In the distance he saw an older woman

appear to be dancing.

I love that image, by the way.

As he approached the woman, he saw her picking up

stranded starfish, throwing them back to the sea. The

young man gazed in wonder as the woman again and again

threw the starfish from the sand to the water.

He said, "Why do you spend so much energy doing

what seems to be a waste of time?"

The woman explained that the strain of starfish

would die if left in the morning sun.

"But there must be thousands of beaches and

millions of starfish," exclaimed the young man. "How can

you make any difference?"

The woman looked at the small starfish in her hand,

and as she threw it to the safety of the sea, she said, "It

makes a difference to this one."

And the thing is that again and again we find that

you are making a difference to folks. We hope that you can

use this information to continue to make a difference for

that individual, that person with a learning disability or

other type of disability or just that person in general.

So we have a call to action here. We hope that

you'll take this information that you learned; that you'll

tell somebody else at least one or two things that you

learned today; that you'll spread the word that people with

learning disabilities do have a lot of options out there.

I was just talking to my dad this morning, and I

was saying what an amazing time it is that we live in that

I'm able to do so much when so many people thought that I

wouldn't even make it through school.

So I appreciate you spending the time. Spread the

word. Make connections. Learn, and continue to apply your

knowledge. And we spent all Sunday watching Star Wars, so

I was on a Star Wars theme. So may the force be with you

as you move forward.

So if you have any questions for us, you can ask

them now. We're glad that you asked questions throughout.

That was great. And you can also get in touch with us

later, and we'd be happy to answer your questions.

And I'm so glad to hear that you said it's a great

presentation. It was so much fun to put this together.

Yes, indeed, you will get CEUs. All you have to do

is actually go to the -- and I'm actually going to try to

post that again. Here we go -- to the AAC Institute's

website, aacinstitute.org. We have a partnership with

them, and we actually have a contract with them so that we

are able to offer CEUs. So please take advantage of that,

and let us know how that goes. Hopefully it will be a

smooth process. It's been a smooth process for us.

And Gigi, thank you for the great feedback. I do

hope that this was helpful to all of you.

And Martha, anything that you want to add to this?

MARTHA RUST: No. Just thank you so much for

attending. But also wanted to throw out one fun fact that

I learned about the iPad this morning on the news, that

they are offering a $20,000 iPad that's going to be

available. It will be encrusted with diamonds. So maybe

Tools For Life will be able to get that one.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS: Let's put our name in for it.

That would be great.

So anyway, thank you all.

Glad that you were with us, Scott. Thank you.

Y'all keep in touch.

Oh, Andreena, I didn't even see that you were on.

So glad that you're on.

Good to see everybody. And let us know if you have

any other questions.

Kimberly, thanks again for doing the transcript.

We appreciate it.

Y'all take care.