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John
F. Gray, "TITLE: PAT's Philosophy on Technology ."
Tuesday, July 22nd
at 9 p.m. (Eastern), Note portions of the text have been edited for
spelling and grammatical errors, while other text with errors was left
in tact in the context of the chat.
My name is Ron Oberleitner, my wife and I are founders of the nonprofit Princeton Autism Technology (www.autismtechnology.org ) , as well as being parents of our 10 year old son Robby.
Our mission is to use technology to improve care, education, and a preferred lifestyle for autistic people, their families, and the professionals that work with them.
We’ve invited some experts from various ‘autism technology related’ fields, not sure if they’ve been able to make it. All are invited to pose views, opinions, and of course questions. We’ll all follow the direction of our moderator, as needed.
We’ll attempt to use this chat to get input on topical applications of technology to help autism, anybody is encouraged to answer questions posed on the chat, and discuss some of the broader technology areas already in use for autism, and other fields – depending on your interest.
Technology areas we can discuss are -- Assistive Technology, Computer Programs / Virtual Reality, Web-based / Distance Learning, …
Information Technology (IT), Telecommunications (aka telemedicine, Teletherapy), neurofeedback, sound therapy, metronome therapy, Other …
Way we break up applications of technology are in two major areas:
1) Tech. To assist people with autism themselves to communicate, to learn, have better life.
2) Tech. To assist caregivers and professionals provide more support and resources.
Our nonprofit, at this point, primarily focuses mostly on #2 due to my experience using technologies like web and telecommunications to connect people, and some database work, to organize what we’re learning.
If questions or comments from others are slow, we’ll share with you a little bit about what our nonprofit does, and some of the priorities we have, and maybe some technology grant areas we’d like to see the autism community and society to push for…
Some accomplishments PAT has had ….
Recently created a FREE Distance Learning Video Presentation Library thru the Internet (six presentations to date).
Why? Per our own statistic, over 80% of the autism community cannot attend conferences because of expense, travel or unique family issues.
We’ve also stimulated at least three grant requests directly from other nonprofits to bring technology resources for the autism community.
Why? We think the autism community is missing many grant opptys. (esp. technology-related) because we never asked.
We were awarded by the Minolta Corporation with grant including special digital cameras to pilot telemedicine services in NJ.
Why? Telemedicine is helping other medical populations, and saving caregivers and professionals money and stress.
We connected YCS (School System for autism out of Montclair, NJ) with manufacturers of videophones. YCS is currently successfully piloting these videophones to give remote assistance to public school autism classes at less cost with growing success.
Why? There is a shortage of knowledgeable autism education experts, and spreading their experience is imperative as cost-effectively as possible.
We exhibited technology at over 10 Autism conferences and meetings to promote uses of distance learning, telemedicine and videoconferencing
Invited by Army’s Telemedicine and Tactical Research Corp. to present with other autism technology leaders suggested solutions for issues revolving around autism
Facilitated Specialty Chats involving various technologies (telemedicine, neurofeedback, sound therapy, metronome therapy)
Co-authored a chapter in Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma entitled: Technologies to Lessen the Distress of Autism (in press).
On ExpertFind (www.talkautism.org/findexpert.asp ), one can search for the following technology-related categories: Products: Assistive/Facilitative Technology, Computer Programs
And Information: Web Sites, Listservs, Databases, Message Boards, and Discussion Boards
Assistive Technology - Assistive Technology for Children with Autism - paper by Susan Stokes http://www.cesa7.k12.wi.us/sped/autism/assist/asst10.htm
www.tacanow.com -- good resources re. computer programs that work.
