Talbot Specialist School provides education for young people from ages 11 to19 with a wide range of learning needs. Cheryl Gaughan, the Vice Principal, told us about the immense impact Clicker is having on students there:
“We’ve used Clicker with children who are non-verbal, giving them a voice, like a communication tool. These are children who are non-verbal not because they can’t speak, but because they’re choosing not to speak. We give them Clicker and tell them that when you put a period after a sentence it will talk for you, and because of that we’ve had lots of lovely reactions, like lots of smiling, lots of hugging, lots of high-fiving. We’ve had children who are starting to speak and say simple words, gaining confidence by having given them a voice and realizing that they are having that input into the lesson. It’s given them confidence to think, “I’ll give it a try now…”.
Although I use it a lot with children who have special needs, the good thing about Clicker is that you can use it with both children who have special needs and those who don’t. A child doesn’t have to have a disability or a need to use Clicker because it’s useful and engaging for every child. I think that’s the nice thing about it - it’s not seen as something that only special education students can use, but all children in any setting, too.”
Read this wonderful story in full here.
