The UATT team was formerly known as UAAACT which stood for Utah Augmentative, Alternative, Assistive Communication Team. A couple of years ago, thankfully, the name was shortened across the state to UATT.
The UATT team was formerly known as UAAACT which stood for Utah Augmentative, Alternative, Assistive Communication Team. A couple of years ago, thankfully, the name was shortened across the state to UATT.
"The State of Utah is divided into 28 regional teams with a UATT team serving each region. In some cases the team will serve multiple school districts, and in other cases the school district may be large enough to have more then one team. Teams consist of, but are not limited to, speech pathologists, teachers, psychologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, administrators, computer specialists, audiologists, and vision specialists."
The UATT team has a budget that is funded by federal and local grants through USOE (Utah State Office of Education). Therefore, we follow the state guidelines set up for UATT teams.
"Utah Assistive Technology Teams (UATT) support school LEA's and IEP teams to evaluate, acquire, and manage assistive technology for students with disabilities."
The Utah Assistive Technology Teams (UATT) serve as a resource for assessment and development of communication and technology systems for students with disabilities. These students may need adaptations to access their communication and educational curriculum. UATT has been established for the purpose of assessing student needs and for providing consultation to both IEP and 504 teams regarding assistive technology. UATT does not provide direct services or therapy.
Our UATT team does not provide direct therapy. When a student receives an assistive technology assessment from the UATT, the team will provide the IEP team with the results of the assessment. The decision about which assistive technology devices and services a student requires and how they are included in the IEP is the responsibility of the IEP team.
Our Canyons District UATT team is made up of 6 members. Most of us have our own full-time caseloads and UATT is an additional part of our jobs:
Becky Boyack, SLP Britta Scullion, OT Heidi Owen, SLP Lindsay Jones, SLP Stephanie Broome, SLP and Julie Michaels para-professional and the glue that holds us together!!
We all are supervised by supervised by our respective principals, but our UATT team is supervised by Maria Hawley who is the speech and motor team supervisor (SLPs, OTs, APEs, Audiologist, Teacher for the Deaf and Blind and Vision specialist).
Our office is housed in Jordan Valley. All referrals and other paperwork is sent there and Julie Michaels, our para-professional, is there daily Mon-Thurs.
As stated earlier, the UATT team does not provide direct services. We provide support for the IEP teams who are providing direct services for students on an IEP/504.
So, we assist you and your IEP/504 team in determining if assistive technology would be appropriate for a particular student as it related to theirIEP goals or 504 accommodations.
We do consultations for teachers/teams. If you would like to ask some questions or feel that you need some training in a certain area like Bookshare or writing apps, we can consult with you and do some training. To request a consultation, you go to the UATT forms place on the Weebly and fill out a request for consultation form and send it in to the UATT office. One of our team will get back with you as soon as we can.
We do evaluations. If you have a student that you feel needs more than just a consultation, you can send in a referral and we will come do an individual evaluation for that student. What areas can we evaluate?
Communication. We have many students across the district who have difficulty with communication. Sometimes assistive technology can be beneficial in supporting these students with their overall communication. We have a variety of assistive technology that we have available for trial with these students.
If a student is in need of some picture icons to help them communicate, we can help you create the picture/icons or we do have some district-owned Boardmaker CD's available for checkout so you can create a picture icon exchange system for your student.
Switches. We have several different switches available for trial. We have single-message switches, multi-message switches and switches that activate other toys/activities. These types of switches are generally used by students in Pre-K, DK, Extended Core, Jordan Valley and sometimes Accommodated Core.
This is another type of communication support we have available through UATT. This is called a Go-Talk. This one has 9 buttons, but we have Go-Talks that are smaller with fewer buttons and some that have up to 20 buttons. Some people may ask "Aren't these types of AT are outdated?" and I will tell you that they are not. There are many students that a "higher tech" option, like the iPad, is just too much for. AT like this one is completely appropriate for these students. Usually we see these checked out used in Pre-K, Extended Core, DK, Jordan Valley and sometimes ACC.
There are many communication apps available for the iPad. In our district we have licenses for a few that we can put on an iPad for a student. Some of the most common ones we use include the LAMP, Compass and TouchChat. iPads are a great option for some students, but not for everyone. iPads are a little more to manage with internet, restrictions and guided access, but we have many students across the district who the iPad works well for.
A dedicated communication device is just that-dedicated to communication. These devices differ from iPads, because their sole purpose is communication. Kids can't access internet or other apps on this, so it is more easily viewed and used as a communication support. With the access most kids have to iPads at school and home, it can be a difficult challenge to help them understand the value of an iPad as a communication tool only. You may get students trying to get out of the app to try and go play games and get on the internet. And while we can implement restrictions and guided access, the students mindset of using an iPad for other purposes can create an obstacle for them to use it as communication.
We have a district license to use Bookshare. Bookshare is a non-profit organization that provides text-to-speech access to textbooks and other books that are used in a student's education curriculum for students who have been determined to have a print-disability.
There are several apps/extensions that are available. Some we've used in the district are: *snap & read *read2go *Google Chrome Speak It Extension
It's getting to be that text-to-speech is available in the accessibility features of Chrome or iPads, so now they don't cost money, you just have to know they are available.
Many students struggle with writing and especially as they move into middle and high school, may benefit from AT for writing. This usually comes in the form of typing or speech-to-text.
Portable keyboards are one option that we use a lot. We have Neos, AlphaSmarts and Fusions available. Again, some people wonder if these types of AT are applicable in 2016 and they definitely are. The one feature that makes them useful is that they do not connect to the internet, and this is very important for particular students.
If a student can manage an iPad, we do have licenses for Co-Writer and iWordQ which cost money.
Some free writing/notetaking apps are 1-Snap-Type 2-Notes in an iPad 3-My Script apps 4-Evernote 5-Google apps (docs, slides, etc.) 6-My Script Memo
A free speech-to-text app is 1-Dragon Dictate
This doesn't always work at school because of the noise factor, but could be a good solution for particular students. They have to be able to speak clearly and articulate well so Dragon Dictate picks up the correct words.
Find the "UATT forms" at the bottom and click it. It will open up a variety of tabs and you can access the referral form in the UATT referral form button.
Once received, someone from out team will contact you and set up an appointment. We will also need a permission to test before we come out, but we will let you know when we are ready for you to obtain that from the parent.
We will come out and do the eval, which generally takes 30-45 minutes, depending on the student. We then complete a report that includes 1-Why the student was referred to UATT 2-What we did in the assessment 3-Recommendations for AT
Once you have the recommendations and report, we assist the IEP in implementing the recommendations. A recommendation can be something like "This student would benefit from access to a portable keyboard for typing longer assignments". Now your school may have equipment that the student already has access to, so that would be the best. If your school doesn't have the equipment a student can access, we can assist you in finding that equipment. The equipment may be available for check-out from the UATT team, it may be available in your school somewhere or we may have to search a little harder for it. I will tell you right now that our team has 2 chromebooks that we can check-out for trials for a student, so if the IEP team decides that a certain student needs access to a chromebook across their day, that would be a discussion to have with a teacher specialist. We may recommend a portable keyboard, but the IEP team will have to determine what that looks like for each student.