Athletics Carnival

Another fine day with a crisp wind was the order of the day for our School Carnival. I have never been to other school carnivals but I'm always impressed by the friendship and support given to all athletes by their peers at our school. There is continued encouragement given to the stars of the athletic track but more importantly the kids struggling to finish their race, with older kids running on the track to encourage the younger kids who find out it's a long way around the oval when others have left you behind.
My kids love competing in the carnival, Missy particularly like the running races which she drives her chair in. This year Missy went in the 100m, 200, 800m races. She sits excitedly with her hand struggling to hold on to the joystick and waiting for her startle reflex to go off when the starter's gun goes. After that Missy will shove her joystick with her hardest pressure to ensure maximum speed in Gear 4, she will have total concentration but still smiling, when races get close Missy will start to move her legs in a running movement  to assist the chair in top speed.
H-Ho also had a great day, running in the 50m, 400m, and being picked for house team relay.

Everyone had a great day and my kids look forward to hearing  if their yellow house were the Carnival winners.

 

Eye Gaze, Naplan and Catch Up

Sorry It's been a while since I blogged. There has been lots going on.
Not long ago Missy sat her Naplan tests, these are National Literacy and Numeracy Assessments for school kids in year 3, 5,7,9. There were four tests all up, done over three days, Missy did them in Year 3 also, when she was one of the first students to make use of the then, new PDF Interactive Test File.
This year she also accessed the PDF version of the tests on her Laptop, along with her Dynavox via the Infared Access It, also the I Pad and eye gaze charts.
Currently Missy is going thru some structural changes from her ABR Therapy and a growth spurt and while it shows she has an improvement in her structure it doesn't always bring improved function immediately(I will blog about this another time). So since she has been struggling with the use of her arms and hands, we have been expanding her use of eye gaze charts. Hopefully the picture shows how a number of forms of communications/technology can be used to get answers onto a test . Eye Gaze can be time consuming but at the moment without that Missy would be very frustrated by just trying to use her Dynavox.
We will continue to give feedback to Naplan Authorities about the need to provide a variety of adaptions of materials, testing conditions and accessibility of the test.

I was very proud of Missy efforts in the Naplan test, she showed great concentration and determination to get thru all the tests.