♪ ♪ Hello and welcome to Carolina Classrooms.

I'm Laura Ybarra.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are more than 1 million people in South Carolina who have a disability.

That accounts for 29% of the population.

There are many forms of assistive technology to help with everyday tasks.

On this episode of Carolina Classrooms, we'll take a look at some of the tools and technologies used to make education accessible for all students.

The South Carolina State Department of Education offers professional development on document accessibility.

Madalina> This is part of a statewide effort.

We're providing a lot of district trainings and also regional trainings that are meant to create awareness about accessibility and amongst teachers and other professionals in school districts.

We want to make sure that everybody hears about the basics and and then we follow up with whatever specific topics they may need to hear about more.

Just because you don't have somebody in your classroom right now that's using a screen reader doesn't mean you won't have one or that the parents that you send that flyer home to is not a screen reader user.

There's different ways we can talk about accessability, but anything that's easy to use, easy to access.

From a different perspective, we can look at accessibility being any content that is compatible with assistive technology.

That's part of the efforts we make to ensure that everybody in every district that's providing services to our students are aware of how to make things accessible because they do provide this content to their students every day.

Courtney> An easy way to tell is really to look at things like color contrast.

Is it easy to read the text on the page or is the text in a weird font that maybe is slanted?

Or is it, is it a different color that makes it difficult to read?

That's a really simple way.

Also, any websites that have automatically playing videos that don't have like a stop or pause button or anything that automatically plays music and you can't stop it.

That's not going to be an accessible resource.

One of the key things to that you can do to make sure that your documents and presentations are accessible is to use at the top of your Microsoft Word document or your Google document, you'll see a ribbon that has, you know, where you select your style font and your size and all that stuff.

Using that can actually make your document easily accessible.

So making sure you're using the button that has the bullet points instead of using the dash on your keyboard, that creates an actual list of items that you mean to be a list and everybody can see that and go, okay, I know this is a list of things rather than, you know, there's a dash there, there might be some missing information.

♪ Shannon> There's a lot more than I ever imagined being involved in accessibility.

So it's really been eye opening.

Justin> Know the accessibility guidelines.

Put yourself in perspective.

If you had those limitations with all those abilities.

How would you how would you want to navigate things or see things differently from different abilities?

Shannon> I think there are resources out there that can benefit everyone.

Justin> And we also use our district personnel, like our district technology coach and the people in our technology department.

When we come to a roadblock, we go to them as well.

♪ Madalina> I cannot tell you how many times we've sat in IEP meetings and had to bring in medical reports because the child was struggling to the point where it impacted grades.

But let's talk about the cause and the cause was well, he can't hear well or he can't see well and therefore he can't read.

Therefore he cannot understand what you're saying.

Therefore, he's not going to answer correctly.

Therefore, you're going to give him a low grade.

Therefore, he's going to act out.

See how that works.

We all know how that works.

So this is very, very important.

Well, it absolutely changes the learning outcomes.

So when a student cannot access their content, they are less likely to be able to process and provide answers to questions about that content.

There is less inquiry about follow up anything of the sort.

This also in turn affects the child's image of themselves.

They're more likely to to exhibit behaviors, unwanted behaviors.

They're less interested over time in the learning process because if the barriers are always there, no matter how hard they try, they cannot get the same results that other children can by the virtue of the fact that the barriers are there for them.

So it's very important to make sure that we don't put them in those situations, especially not repeatedly.

Laura> For more information, contact the South Carolina Department of Education.

South Carolina Talking Book Services is a free program offered by the South Carolina State Library.

Patrons can access books in large print, digital audio, or Braille formats.

♪ Computer voice> Player on.

Press any button to learn about its function.

Tyler> Talking Book Services was founded in 1931 as a service for veterans coming home from war.

A lot of them were coming home with injuries from mustard gas or warfare.

So this service was kind of to help them acclimate better into civilian life.

We offer talking books, large print and braille for those who are blind, physically handicapped, but also those with print disabilities,such as dyslexia, autism, ADHD.

♪ Computer voice> Two books.

Tyler> The digital player is mainly how we serve our patrons.

It is a device where we can upload books onto cartridges.

Upwards of 25 about books.

And we use that to play our cartridges as an audio book.

Computer voice> Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World by Linda Colley D.b.

Tyler> We have a wide range of books.

Any book you can imagine we have.

We partner with the National Library Service in DC and they're producing upwards of 2,500 books for us a week.

And they do that by contracting out books with recording studios.

So they're recording these books and giving them to us so we can give them to our patrons for free.

We serve all South Carolinians regardless of age or income.

So my youngest patron right now is 6 years old and my oldest is 103.

Over 4000 patrons are using our service right now in South Carolina.

When you apply for Talking Book Services, you would fill out an application and then you would mail it to us or email it to us.

From there we call the patron and then we let them know about the program and what they can expect from us.

From there we mail it to the house and actually all of our mail goes through the post for free.

All of our mail is marked free matter for the blind and handicap.

So there have been no cost to our patrons at all.

The machine they can keep until they're through with the service, the cartridges they keep for three months at a time.

But they can have renewals if they need it.

It works kind of like a cycle.

So as you're done with your cartridge, you'll mail it back to us and once it gets back in house, it gets checked in and it prompts our system to create another cartridge.

And then it gets mailed out to you.

We originally started out with our digital book player, but as we've evolved, we now have the app called Bard, which stands for Braille and audio reading downloads.

So it is an app that can be downloaded onto a mobile phone, an iPad, and it works with both Apple and Android products.

It's a little bit more tech savvy, and I find that the younger patrons tend to enjoy it more and it's a little more seamless with their peers.

The app gives you the same access to our collection where you would download books yourself and you actually get to keep the books that you download so you can build your own little collection.

I help patrons find materials that are going to best suit their interest.

So I ask them questions like What kind of genres do you like?

What things do you not want to see in your books?

Are we offended by strong language, for instance?

And then I help them find materials that kind of spark their interest and keep them going with the service.

So a large part of my outreach is working with our Assistive Technology Petting Zoo or ATPZ.

And I go out into the community to libraries and schools and showcase the assistive technology that we offer, which are things from like Wonder books all the way up to our human ware, Texas Speech Reader.

♪ Usability is definitely important when you talk about accessibility services and assistive technology.

You want something that is going to be able to be used by your patrons coming.

You don't want something that's going to cost them even more stress.

Laura> The State Library also provides accessibility training for other libraries across the state.

For more information on Talking Book Services and other resources, contact the South Carolina State Library.

Students at the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, use technology to communicate and prepare for their future after they graduate.

Allison> As the Assistive Technology Coordinator, I work with students across our campus, so I work with students who are deaf, who are blind, and with some of our students who have some complex needs and may need help communicating.

And working with assistive technology, you are basically finding the technology that is going to work for them to help them learn, to help them access the education, to help them function in their daily lives, and to teach their teachers as well about the technology and how they use the technology.

Valerie> So in South Carolina, we're still following state guidance with standards using a similar textbook adoption that other schools use.

So we're trying to find ways to make that accessible.

So it could be we're needing to increase, increase the reading for large print or Braille options of those materials.

But we also are looking at assistive technology.

We have a great specialist on staff.

We have a wonderful IT department on campus that helps bring the actual tools and equipment to our children and helps educate our staff so that we are proficient in troubleshooting and making it come alive in instructional time.

Allison> This is a focus 40.

It's a refreshable Braille display.

Our students learn at an early age how to type using this style of a keyboard.

And then once they are learning how to type, they can use the refreshable Braille display to help them read, follow along and access their books that are used in the classroom and access what is on the Internet to be able to use some of the apps that we use from day to day.

It just gives them the opportunity to see like we do.

The refreshable Braille, how it works is it connects to a device and our devices can be used as screen readers.

And once it's connected to a device, you can move some of the buttons and the refreshable Braille will move over what the device says.

This is a Braille writing guard.

We use this on our typewriters for our students who are learning how to Braille and they put their fingers inside so that they can't cross their fingers when they're learning how to type.

They can't move their hands over one another.

And this is something that we're able to 3D print here on campus rather than going through another resource.

Our students who are blind are learning how to navigate and orientate themselves to an iPad, and if you think about being blind, you don't know what an app is, you don't know what the apps will look like on an iPad.

So we can 3D print maps, we can 3D print the technology that they use.

And this one is used for very early beginners to show them.

When I have you at the first item and we do a left or right slide like this here, jumping from this app here to this app here, or if I teach them other shortcuts, it's basically a tactile example for them to connect the dots.

She is using the Mantis.

And this is a type of refreshable Braille display where she has a normal keyboard.

And then on the bottom is the Braille.

So whatever you hear the iPad saying, it is demonstrated or shown on the refreshable Braille display.

This is a pretty new device for us.

We got it this year.

Heilyin> It has been life changing, especially for me, because the beginning of the school year, I did struggle with knowing what's on my screen.

But now that I get to, you know, see what's on my screen with the Mantis, it's easier.

And, you know, it's less complicated.

Valerie> But we also have in the visual impairment community something called Expanded Core Curriculum, and that's ECC.

We have nine standards and that's when we bring in daily living, self advocacy.

So we're pairing those types of skills with state standards and an ongoing partnership throughout the day so that kids are able to see the why of what they're learning and bringing meaning to their daily life, but also the academic goals that they have.

Allison> Yeah.

We were working on writing her resume, and that was interesting because us who can see don't think about how hard it is to get all of the paragraphs aligned and the bullet points in the right place and going from the top to the bottom of the document.

That was hard and that took us a while.

Heilyin> It took us like two days.

Allison> Yeah.

Heilyin> Or three?

Allison> That was hard.

Allison> Accessibility to me means that you are able to see, touch, be part, interact with whatever is in front of you.

Basically being accessibility is being able to work and being able to participate.

Laura> Programs and resources at Able South Carolina assist students with the transition from high school to college and career.

Troy> Able South Carolina is a disability advocacy organization.

Our job is to equip, educate and advocate alongside the disability community.

Lindsay> One of the things that I focus the most on is our capable and ready Career Boost program which provides those employment transition services with the goal being that we are providing staff who are experts, they are generally peers, so they have a personal connection that they can form with the students, they can build a really nice rapport and they're going into schools with the intent to build up that student and prepare them by giving them the necessary skills for transition out of high school into employment or into post-secondary education, as the case might be.

Troy> We also are lucky enough to partner with several agencies and host a youth leadership forum every summer.

So that is a multiday overnight program hosted on a college campus where students get to sleep in dorms, eat in the school cafeteria, meet with peers from around the state, and during the day they are actually taught classes by peers to really get a foundation for self-advocacy, really get a foundation for creating a fostering a sense of disability pride, and then even moving forward to talk about larger systemic advocacy.

So what youth can do to change rules and change laws.

Ella> I work with youth with disabilities and I go into schools for something called Equip Club and with Equip Club, I go in about once a week or once a month, depending on the school, and I speak to the special education classes for about an hour.

And we do lessons on disability pride.

We do disability rights, we do accommodations.

We talk about goal setting, which is really important because a lot of them really haven't thought about their goals and what they're going to do after high school.

We also, in Equip, we also do community events so the past several community events have been.

We did an event at a cooking station here in Greenville.

We made homemade pizza.

We also did an event with Greenlink and taught the youth how to ride the public busses and then we also do virtual hangouts, in-person hangouts.

And I also work one on one with consumers.

So we do a bit of peer mentoring as well.

Lindsay> But the really cool thing that I really love about our programs is that we also talk about some broader topics that are so crucial to students, successful transition, things like self advocacy, things like standing up for yourself in an IEP meeting or being a part of the process, being an active participant in decisions that are being made.

These are really important pieces of a student's journey through the transition process that oftentimes are not addressed because everyone likes to zero in on employment, but we like to focus on the whole student and make sure that they feel prepared not just to transition into employment, but all the things that are going to come along with that transition because it's not just moving to a job, it's moving from being a youth to being a young adult, being an adult, and that comes with a lot of different transitions as well.

So we like to make sure that in our curriculum we're also providing some basic tenants that are going to help them with that transition as well.

Laura> For more information, contact Able South Carolina.

♪ Service dogs are trained to assist with a variety of tasks.

At PAALS, the pups go through two years of training school to prepare them for the job.

Melissa> PAALS is Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services.

And our corporate mission is to train service dogs to enrich and enhance the lives of individuals with varying disabilities.

Our areas of focus as an organization are PTSD, autism and mobility.

We also have dogs out in facilities, that are with ministers, schools, teachers and even the sheriff's department locally.

And we're part of Assistance Dogs International, which oversees different training organizations.

We're actually accredited through them.

In fact, we're the only accredited organization in South Carolina.

So our dogs come from within this larger group.

They start their formal training at between eight and ten weeks.

We just have a new girl that arrived, Heidi.

She's now 11 weeks old and is just doing beautifully in the training process.

By the time our dogs graduate our program, they know over 70 cues.

We really train like a school.

We have a curriculum.

It starts in pre-K and the dogs go all the way through college and we test them along the way to see if they've passed first grade into second grade, second grade into third grade.

And there's very specific thresholds that they have to meet.

They have to be able to, you know, be in a down for a certain amount of time or be able to sit for a certain amount of time, be able to have the trainer step away from them, say maybe six feet, 12 feet and not move.

We work with two breeds, Labradors and Goldens, and they love to do the work.

We don't force a dog to do anything they don't want to.

The dogs really kind of show us as they're going through the training process, what their strengths are.

And that's really how we determine kind of the path for that dog.

Some dogs are more warm and fuzzy and want to do the cues that will help bring heart rate down or help calm someone down.

Allison> That's a girl.

So using her body weight on the tops of my thighs to put pressure and also to lower the heart rate.

Good girl.

Kiss.

Yes.

Good girl.

Thank you.

Melissa> Other dogs really just want to do tasks.

They want to open doors, they want to turn light switches on.

They want to do things for someone.

And that dog really shows us that they have more of an inclination to be a mobility dog.

Dori> Wait.

Good girl.

All right.

All right, Tug!

Atta girl.

(door slamming) Good girl.

Yeah.

Good girl.

I love PAALS Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services is like my second family.

I have been involved with PAALS since 2006.

I started as a volunteer.

I had a service dog from another organization.

I wanted to volunteer and give back to the community.

And I also wanted to mentor other individuals who were service animal users as well as people with disabilities.

And then it came to where that service dog, it was time for them to retire.

And I applied for a service dog with PAALS.

I went through the whole interview process because even if you've had previous service dogs, each dog is unique.

You go through the interview process, you find, we call it speed dating.

It's where you actually go for three rounds at three different times and you actually spend time with multiple service dogs.

And you some of it's just cuddling and spending time.

Others of it's actually doing cues and skills with that dog and getting to see which dog might be the right match for you.

And people think it's like sometimes that you just get this cute dog and you have to go home.

It's about three weeks of training.

One on one with you, with your dog, and then constant follow up, whether it's at your work place, which I've had and then in your time when you're not working and you're at home, you're doing constant training because if you don't do constant training, then you and your dog, your relationship will not stay as strong and connected and they won't have the cues to be able to support you in your everyday life.

I tell people, I've been married for 25 years this year.

My service dog relationship is probably even closer than my marriage with my husband of 25 years in July.

My service dog and I spend 24/7/365 together on good days, bad days and in-between days.

And when you have that, there's nothing like it.

I can't describe it to people.

I get emotional if I describe it to people, but it is the most important relationship I've ever had in my entire life.

This dog gives of her time, effort and energy, no matter what the circumstances.

I was sick last week and this dog didn't leave my side, made sure I was there, brought me water, whatever I needed.

She is just a remarkable being and how fortunate I am to be a part of an organization that facilitates that.

♪ Laura> For more information, contact PAALS.

♪ Thank you so much for joining us.

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