SWAAAC Team Member's Favorite Sites

SWAAAC Team members have contributed the following sites they found to be useful:

AAC Intervention.com - offers activities, shortcut sheets and teaching tips for teaching AAC use to children both in and out of the school setting. There are also numerous links to information about conferences, workshops and support groups as well as handouts from workshops put on by the authors.

Abilitation.com - provides a platform for the creation, administration and analysis of a wide variety of tests or assessments for anyone with access to the Internet.

Bookshare.org - this membership site allows the user with a documented print disability (blindness, low vision, reading or mobility disability) to legally share scanned books. Membership can be attained through school districts/groups or individuals for a fee. Books are available from grade three through adult. Text reader software as well as embossed Braille copies are also available with membership.

Cogent Systems, Inc. - a mainstream developer of products to aide in coordinating and sharing information. Products include: the ISAAC system, a small, fully individualized, battery powered and wearable cognitive prosthesis.

Colorado Therapy Associates - is an AT practice run by Brian Simms, CCC, SLP. Brian specializes in interfacing AAC devices to the computer to access homework, email and the Internet. Meegan Vanstraaten likes his website because of two of its features--a section called "AT Bay" for listing and selling AT devices for re-sale or donation and within the "Resources" section you will find a "Forum" for Coloradoans who want to discuss AT topics.

www.dyslexia.com/helpread.htm - this website devoted to Dyslexia provides five free downloadable text-to-speech readers for text documents and the WWW. The downloads are only available to PC platform users.

Enchanted Learning - a website with resources on all the topics that kids love. It is loaded with art activities, rebus stories and nursery rhymes, arts and crafts suggestions, and bilingual materials. It has a membership fee but much of the information can be accessed for free. Contributed by Maureen Melonis because it is very kid-friendly and has many good resources for doing school projects.

I Love That Teaching Idea - contains downloadable lesson plans, ebooks and teaching materials for a nominal fee (most were around $5). There are also free teaching tips (not directly related to AT) and links to other teacher resources. This site seemed to be mainly geared toward PS and early elementary school aged children.

Intellitools- look within the Intellitools vendor site under the heading of "Support" for the IntelliShare section with free shared activities for use with Intellitools products. This site has downloadable "Players" for Mac and Windows to support student using the products after they are created.

Internet Resources for Children and Teens on ERIC - has links to over 50 web sites for children and teens in grades 3-12 that are both fun and educational. Available in both an html version, with links, and a PDF version for printing and photocopying. Contributed by Brian Simms because this is a great resource for teachers, librarians, parents, and kids for exploring the core curriculum of math, science, language arts, and history/social studies, as well as art, health, media/information literacy, and music.

QIAT - is an acronym for Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology, pronounced like the word quiet. Check out all the resources related to the ongoing process of identifying, disseminating, and implementing a set of widely-applicable quality indicators for AT Services in school settings. Contributed by the SWAAAC Web committee.

WATI - the website for the Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative is full of great resources. Their mission is focused on ensuring access to AT for kids. You will find free downloads of resources and materials for evaluation-- both in English and Spanish. Contributed by the SWAAAC Web committee.

WheelchairNet - a resource at the University of Pittsburgh with many useful resources for those interested in the topic of wheeled mobility. Contributed by Mary Ellen Buning who is the person who worked to develop the site before she moved back to Colorado.

If you would like to contribute websites and web resources that you have found helpful to this page, please contact SWAAAC team member, Ann Scott , with your suggestions. Give her the address of the site and tell her what you liked about the resources you found there.

Last updated: July 3, 2008