Special education and assistive technology for OS X

Apple has revised two pages on their web site related to special needs (adaptive, assistive) technology:

• Apple - Education - Special Education
• Apple - Accessibility and OS X Accessibility
• Third party solutions for OS X

The first two are now current with Snow Leopard, though I'm personally deferring an update to that Intel-only platform until either April 2010 or a new machine.

I don't see anything equivalent to Don Johnston's Co:Writer word prediction software, however 10.6 includes a new (I don't think this is in 10.5) word completion feature:

... Students can avoid spelling mistakes and reduce keystrokes with the word completion feature of the Mac. After typing a few characters, pressing the Escape key opens up a menu of words to choose from beginning with the characters they typed. It highlights correct word usage, and it’s available in most applications...

Co:Writer might work in an XP or Win2K VM, though I was unable to find any data on that.

Update: There is an OS X version of Co:Writer, it's being updated for 10.6. I realize that Don Johnston sales are almost entirely to schools, but I do think he might market it a bit. At the very least it ought to be listed on Apple's accessibility site. I'll write him about that.

The homework workstation account

My 12 yo is a computer problem. He has trouble getting off the computer when his time is up [1] and, if not supervised, he visits inappropriate web sites.

On the other hand, his computer skills are a relative strength now. In the future they'll be the foundation for the cognitive aides he'll live with for the rest of his life. So I want to build those skills.

He's long had his own user account on our MacBook, with OpenDNS filtering and Parental Controls logging. He can use that with close supervision, but it's not appropriate for lightly supervised homework.

So I've created a new "homework" account that's really locked down ...

Be the Best You can Be: A simple English wikipedia

... I subsequently configured a user account on the family MacBook restricted through Parental Controls to Tar Heel Reader and Simple Wikipedia. This is effectively a homework account, in addition to the web readers it includes Calculator, Grapher, Dictionary/Thesaurus, Google Earth, AppleWorks and the weather, time and calendar widgets...

The homework account is useable with much less supervision than a standard account. In time I might make this available to all the children without time restrictions.

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[1] I do too, but I'd hope right off if I faced the consequences he gets. The inability to adjust behavior to consequences is one of the gravest disabilities for many "explosive" children. That's why the fights we have are also valuable. If he can learn to manage the timed computer intervals, then he will have acquired a critical skill. Lately he's done quite well with an iPhone Timer running next to him. He likes the look of it, and the way the numbers move down. Even the alarm sound works. With this setup, and years of struggle, he's doing pretty well. Timer skills are key for him, so this is a double win.

A simple English wikipedia

The Simple English wikipedia was designed for people learning English ...

Simple English Wikipedia

This is the front page of the Simple English Wikipedia. Wikipedias are places where people work together to write encyclopedias in different languages. We use simple English words and grammar here. The Simple English Wikipedia is for everyone! That includes children and adults who are learning English...

Of course simple words are also helpful for many special needs readers.

This resource is worth further exploration.

Update 11/21/09: My 12 yo is comfortable reading the simple Wikipedia articles. That's not to say he volunteers to read them, but he's willing and able to read them to earn stickers towards Wii or web time.

I subsequently configured a user account on the family MacBook restricted through Parental Controls to Tar Heel Reader and Simple Wikipedia. This is effectively a homework account, in addition to the web readers it includes Calculator, Grapher, Dictionary/Thesaurus, Google Earth, AppleWorks and the weather, time and calendar widgets.

There was one catch. Simple Wikipedia (and wikipedia) are not compatible with Apple's "Parental Controls". It took all my geekery to figure out a solution (see last update).

IQ and reasoning - not quite the same thing

This Scientific American article was written about smart people who don't reason very well (Mensa specializes in this group)...

Rational and Irrational Thought: The Thinking That IQ Tests Miss: Scientific American

No doubt you know several folks with perfectly respectable IQs who just don’t seem all that sharp. The behavior of such people tells us that we are missing something important by treating intelligence as if it encompassed all cognitive abilities. I coined the term “dysrationalia” (analogous to “dyslexia”), meaning the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence, to draw attention to a large domain of cognitive life that intelligence tests fail to assess.

The converse, of course, would be people with lousy IQs who still reason fairy well. They are able to solve real world problems much more effectively than IQ test problems.

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