Children with severe and complex disabilities often succeed in using switches and touch screens to develop and generalise their understanding of cause and effect. Through the use of battery operated toys, mains controller boxes and simple but engaging software, children learn that by pressing the switch or touching the screen, they can make something happen. Once achieved, a student begins to understand that they are able to extend influence and control over their immediate environment. Most educators and therapists would agree that this is an important foundation stone on which is built all future learning and the development of communication skills.

However some students seem to struggle to move on beyond this stage. It seems there is no clear step-by-step progression path in the development of switch skills beyond the cause and effect level. Experience tells us that each learner has abilities and challenges that will heavily influence the complexity of the journey they make and how far they may travel. How best then to move them on?

Drawing on experience and practice from schools around the world, this session will demonstrate a road map of teaching practice and practical activities that will help our students to acquire and generalise the skills they need to move toward more independent choosing using scanning techniques. We’ll look at new ways to build on single switch skills which are not reliant on the student pressing the switch within set time periods and we’ll address the ‘one switch or two’ debate which so often is a source of frustration for both teacher and student.

We’ll finish by looking at how our students are currently using two switches and examine a variety of different classroom activities we can use to move them closer to using more mainstream switch applications such as Clicker 5. Delegates will leave enthused and armed with a CD packed with teaching ideas and practical activities, including hundreds of free switch and touch screen programs they can use in their classroom the very next day.