CViConnect vs ELSB for Older Students

Who is the app for? CVi Connect is an iPad application intended to support parents, and teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs), who work with children who have Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI). The app can be used by parents, TVIs and anyone else who works with children who have CVI. CVi Connect's goal is to aid in the process of improving the visual impairment with this iPad application, and grow the awareness of CVI as a whole and provide educational content related to CVI. What does it do? The application guides the user through exercises of varying difficulty that are intended to help the child's eye focus on graphics on the screen, which stimulates the area of the brain that is most affected by CVI. By stimulating this area of the brain we can support the improvement of the child's vision. Over time the exercises are tailored to each child based on the data that is collected while the child and parent use the application. How does it work? Using the front-facing camera in the iPad the application can measure facts about how the child is responding to the exercises. All of these expertly-determined facts can then be graphed and analyzed by the educator, in whole or in part, across all training sessions. For example, it is possible to graph the time spent, on average, on training sessions combined with the number of times a sprite is touched, showing ways of measuring improvement in visual acuity as well as allowing a teacher to tailor future lesson plans to better match the needs of the student. In addition to analyzing favorite and least favorite lessons, the CVI system has the ability to use information from the training sessions to automatically generate new training sessions that are best for the student. As an example, the system can detect highly touched areas of the iPad and where sprites are commonly touched. Using this information, the system can automatically generate new lesson plans that focus the attention specifically on these areas as well as specifically AWAY from these areas to improve acuity. The system can use facts about the lengths of time spent on average by the user on training sessions to tailor the length of time a typical training session should take place. Where can I get help if I need it? CVi Connect maintains a support forum where users of the app (parents, TVI's and CVI professionals) are supported by leading CVI professionals and CVi Connect technical staff. Users can asks questions and provide feedback in this forum, which adds to the CVi community as a whole by serving as a place where CVI discussions can take place.

Teach early literacy skills to your older students using age-appropriate materials Meet Sam! She's the adolescent character featured in our Early Literacy Skills Builder for Older Students curriculum. Your older students with significant intellectual disability or autism, who still need to develop the foundations of literacy, will have Sam to help them along the way. Using the same scope and sequence as ELSB, this version was specifically designed to give older students who have not been exposed to foundational reading skills, age-appropriate activities to learn them. Seven levels present skills in 14 objectives including the conventions of print, phonemic awareness, letter-sound correspondence, listening comprehension, vocabulary, and writing. Skills increase in difficulty as students progress from Level 1 to Level 7. The app incorporates the best practices of systematic and direct instruction. The app directs the student, provides feedback, and gathers data on the student's performance. Instruction can be conducted with individual students or with groups. Students love creating an avatar to represent them. Avatars also appear on screen to interact with Sam. Sam Stories, describing the adventures of Sam, her family, and her friends, are read to students in the software. They can follow along using the spiral bound book provided. A writing activity focuses on new vocabulary. End-of-level assessments determine when students move to the next level.