Engage My Brain

Independent typing is a very important skill for Meaghan to master. For one thing, she loves to type. And for another, regardless of how verbal she may become, she wants to communicate with others through the internet and social media. She had told us several times that she wants her own blog and she wants to be on Facebook.

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Beyond both these reasons, I firmly believe that being able to type her thoughts has helped Meaghan to broaden her speech. And I think that, as we work on slowing down her verbal output and connecting it to her thoughts, it will help her to pace her typing better. Each form of communication will help support the other.

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Because we are going to be removing all support, forcing Meaghan to dive into the deep end, we have to go back to the shallow end with building her typing skills. We have to cut down the visual clutter to a bare minimum. So, we will begin by just having her type simple words in a single row of keys. When she masters typing the words in all three rows, we will move on to more keys and longer words, then two words etc.

 

"Eyes First and Then Finger" - Key Prompt

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It is very important that Meaghan does not start hitting the keys randomly, which she might do if she doesn't pace herself. So tell her to take her time and reset or pull her arm back in between keystrokes. I can't emphasize enough how important it is that you do not let her impulsivity take over. If she starts to make mistakes, pull the iPad away from her and tell her firmly that she cannot type until she is ready to "look at the keys." If she starts to fool around again, immediately move on to a different educational activity.

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In an effort to keep her impulsivity in check, I have devised a kind of reward for her after she types a certain number of words independently and successfully. If you scroll down on each page you will see circles with a ? in them. If Meg clicks on these she will see pictures of her favorite people. This should make her happy and give her the motivation to carry on. The more encouragement she gets, the more successful she will be.