An excerpt from Adapting Creatively by Rose-Marie, July, 2012.
...Introduce screens with
the end result in mind.
How many
buttons on a page will a child be able to access in the future? No one has a
crystal ball, so you’re just going to have to make an educated guess based on
your child.... The more buttons per screen, the
fewer hits are needed, whether you are accessing words through categories or
semantic compaction.
Take the
screen that is your end goal and hide
all buttons except the [number of] starter words/categories your child is using.
He still has access to the same eight selections as the large keys filling the
screen. Yes, these buttons will be smaller, but they are surrounded by plenty
of null space that won’t activate if he hits it. You might be surprised how
fast he can learn to target the smaller button size.
When
it is time to add vocabulary, you UN-hide hidden words or categories. They
won’t change anything your child has committed to motor memory; they simply
begin to fill in void space.
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Child begins with these words and category...
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...and ends with this 9 x 6 Sono Lexis display over time.
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Remember
learning to touch type in your keyboarding class? You started with the home row
of keys: asdf jkl;. It wasn’t much; you
were limited to words like “fad,” “ask” and “lass.” But after a few days
(weeks?), the teacher introduced “e” and “i,” and that opened up a huge new
world of words! Now you had command of “alike” and “fleas” and “skidaddle!” The
good news is that you didn’t have to relearn where the home row keys were
located; they stayed consistent while new keys were added. Eventually, you
mastered all 26 letters of the alphabet, along with some punctuation and
formatting keys. That’s at least 40 keys...more for the kids who mastered the
number row and got an A in typing.
This
same concept is what I am asking you to try...
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