Students help TRPIL create assistive devices
Maintaining or increasing independence for individuals with disabilities is one goal of the assistive technology program at TRPIL, Transitional Paths to Independent Living. John Flaherty, TRPIL’s assistive technology specialist, took that concept to Washington Junior/Senior High March 20 with TRPIL’s youth coordinator, Ken Evans.
About 20 students from Josh Barrette’s gifted education classes spent a large part of their morning measuring, shaving, shaping, gluing and covering heavy-duty but lightweight cardboard into useful stools and bookstands. Barrette’s students were given a brief overview of how different devices in assistive technology can make the impossible possible. Small adjustments and looking at situations from a different perspective can be the solution needed. Everyday items taken for granted by most can be made useful for individuals with disabilities, who only want to fit in.
“The Intermediate Unit 1 has agreed to a school pilot project for assistive technology for their students with disabilities who request individualized items that can be made to increase their school participation and make their school experience more inclusive,” said Flaherty.
Flaherty has been working on many assistive technology devices himself for children and adults through TRPIL, but when the pilot program requested six stools and six bookstands to be done as quickly as possible, he knew he had to have help finishing the work. Evans works with youth with disabilities from the area, so a natural partnership was to contact the schools for volunteers to assist with making the devices.
Bookstands, pictured above, and stools were created for Intermediate Unit 1 students.
“Without volunteer help like this, we can’t assist as many who need the equipment,” Flaherty said. “We look at how to make something at a low cost and with volunteers from Wash High or Washington & Jefferson, we can teach them about assistive technology and have them volunteer the man-hours to create the items. Some of the technology would run into the thousands of dollars, so adaptive design with cardboard is one possible solution we want people to know about.”
Student volunteers learned to use power tools to properly shave and shape the pieces of pre-cut cardboard to make the seats of the stools. They cut dowel rods into two-inch “nails” and pounded them into the seats to keep them firm and properly situated on the bottom cardboard legs of the stools.
The bookstands also required accuracy in shaping, gluing and molding to be as sturdy but lightweight as possible. Some of the students who would be receiving the items asked for finished ones, while others wanted to be able to paint their own or oversee the painting of their bookstands or stools.
Gifted students from seventh and eighth grades were the primary workers, but others from the senior high made their way down to the large group instruction room, where the sound of sanding and hammering made the work area seem like a mini-factory. Time was of the essence. Students listened to their instructions and got to work, realizing the importance and necessity for doing a good job in creating the items – to lend a hand up to a fellow student.