2012 AT Conference

Thank you to all who attended the 2012 AT Conference On Thursday, November 29th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. It was another successful conference with approximately 350 persons in attendance and50 vendors demonstrating new technology.

Presentations were held throughout the day and included URI Capstone Design Projects on AT; Living with Vision Loss; Advances in Hearing Aid Technologies; App-tastic Classrooms and Apps for Autism; Providing Common Core Standards Based Curriculum to Students with Significant Needs; Eye Gaze: From Switch Scanning to Direct Selection; Brain Wellness Platform for Independent Aging; Emergency Devices: Options to Preserve Independent Living; IL Systems - The New ECUs and EADLs; Low Tech Ideas for Students with Significant Learning Disabilities; Improving Executive Functioning Skills with Video Games and Other Digital Media; Increasing Access to the Home with AT; Using Technology to Manage Behaviors and Build Competence of Young Children; Digital Literacy for ALL; and Learn, Loan and Leave: AT Devices for Educators and Therapists. There were also User Presentations throughout the day given by people who use technology in their everyday lives. There was even an iPad Playground set up to learn about various apps available for Augmentative Communication, Reading, Writing, Blindness/Low Vision, Early Learning, Cause & Effect, and Therapy supports. If you missed this years' event, you'll see you missed a lot of great information!

At this years' welcome breakfast, past ATAP Program Director, Kathleen Grygiel presented the 3rd Elizabeth M.Dalton Assistive Technology Award to Judi Hammerlind-Carlson. This award was a well-deserved award for Judi as she co-authored the RI Tech Act Grant that established the RI Assistive Technology Access Partnership (ATAP), as well as co-founded Rhode Island's annual state-wide conference on assistive technology in 1988 in collaboration with the awards' namesake.

"From her early career as a science teacher, to her work at Meeting Street School, to her personal discoveries of the power of augmentative communication for her father after his stroke, to her many years of leadership at TechACCESS of RI and the annual RI assistive technology conference, and her work to help establish the RI Assistive Technology Access Partnership (ATAP), her contributions in the field of assistive technology have touched many thousands of Rhode Islanders – making a TRUE DIFFERENCE in the lives of so many…."

Congratulations to Judi Hammerlind-Carlson for this well deserved honor.

The 2012 ATAP Assistive Technology Conference also would like to thank their sponsors of the conference:

Rhode Island Office of Rehabilitation Services (ORS)

Assistive Technology Access Partnership (ATAP)

Adaptive Telephone Equipment Loan Program (ATEL)

ATAP Child & Youth Resource Center at East Bay Educational Collaborative

Ocean State Center for Independent Living (OSCIL)

PARI Independent Living Center

Cambium Learning Technologies

HMEA, Inc.

Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities at Rhode Island College

Rhode Island Department of Education, Office of Student, Community, and Academic Support (RIDE)

Rhode Island Department of Health Disability and Health Program

Rhode Island Rehabilitation Association (RIRA)

Rhode Island Relay

Rhodes to Independence

TechACCESS of RI

Interpreters Compliments of:

Rhode Island Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Rhode Island Office of Rehabilitation Services (ORS)