Alpha Smart

Mari,
Considering his profile, I would suggest an assistive technology assessment performed by your school. There are tools that can remove barriers to academic success that may be better for your son. The assessment and IEP team can determine what will work best and will use a trial implementation period to measure effectiveness.

An AlphaSmart 3000 can be an excellent tool as long as everyone knows its advantages and disadvantages. Check out the community service boards at www.alphasmart.com.

Karen

Thanks, Karen. My son attends an International school that has no special needs services. He has no IEP nor assessment team nor special teacher to help us out. I’m interested in hearing some advantages and disadvantages of the Alpha Smart. Thanks.

I got my son a laptop of the variety they use in his school at the end of his 5th grade year. I also made sure I had the same writing software they used in his school. He does not take the laptop to school, but does to my office (where he often comes after school to do homework.) He is able to bring floppies home with work that he started in school, and finish it at home. He also has e-mail at school, and will sometimes e-mail the files he starts at school to himself so he can finish it at home.

I decided on the laptop as opposed to the alpha smart because of the much bigger screen (he has visual processing issues, and being able to make the letters bigger helps), and the fact that it can do so much more.

My son is now in 9th grade, and still using the same laptop. It should serve him well through the remainder of high school. Even a used older laptop will probably do the word processing work you’re interested in, and should be much cheaper than a new one. Being able to run some writing organization software will also help your son deal with middle school homework. (something like Inspiration…there are others available too.)

Kay

I teach 6-12 LD. I have tried to use them with my students. I would agree that an old laptop would be better. The screen is hard to see. Many times my students would delete the wrong file by accident. It was very hard to see……