There are just a few days left before the Consultation of the Doran Review closes (Friday 16th March).  Please - Scotland only - all parents of children with complex additional support needs, and all professionals who work with such children  -   send in a response to have your say! 

Your input could have a huge effect on the kind of changes to be made to educational provision for children with complex additional support needs in Scotland, for the future.

There is a form to fill in here or you can send in your own letter or email, with your answers and comments on the 4 key questions:

* How satisfied you are with the processes to identify your child’s care, health and learning needs.* How well informed you feel about schools and services that could help their child.* How well nurseries or schools and other services such as Health and Social Work are meeting your child's needs.* How well supported you and your child feel when he or she is preparing to leave and settling into a new school, or leaving school to go on to adult services.

Children and young people with complex additional support needs face multiple barriers to their learning and development.  These factors may relate to the learning environment, family circumstances, disability or health needs or a combination of these.  To make progress and achieve their potential, the children and young people with complex additional support needs require assistance from specialist professionals in addition to parents/carers and staff in schools and education authorities.

The Doran Review is currently looking at how best to provide for the needs of Scottish children and young people with the most complex learning needs.  Children and young people with additional support needs may attend a mainstream nursery or school in their local education authority or a specialist nursery, day or residential school, within or outside their home area.  Children and young people with complex additional support needs require individualised programmes of support from educational services and other services such as health, social work and voluntary organisations.  The Review will consider how well the assessment, support, funding and decision making processes that already exist locally and nationally are working. The Review Group will use their findings to make recommendations to the Scottish Government by Summer 2012 as to how these aspects could be improved or changed.  

Jane Farrall in Melbourne Australia has just published on her blog a really useful step by step instructions for how to get a free book from the Tarheel Reader site into an iPad. Good way to make appropriate materials available without having to make them yourself. (You could also run the book online, which would be even quicker and easier, but downloading it as a powerpoint into iBooks means it can be always available and stay there for the child to enjoy again and again.

If you don't know about the TarheelReader site, go and have a look. There are many short and very simple stories there, freely useable and downloadable, made in Powerpoint, all with picture and speech support, one line of text, ideal for our emergent readers and learners with complex additional support needs. For example , see here, 'my cat is fat' (choose a voice on top left and off you go). (The quality can be a bit variable, so you do need to check before you select a book for a pupil. Some are a bit too 'American- mind you, there's nothing to stop us uploading our own books to the site, good idea!)

Here's a wee film called 'The Case Against Assistive Technology' to get everyone going at the beginning of the new session.

The ICT and Inclusion Day is always a really useful and enjoyable day, so if you can possibly come along, you should!  Book now in case it gets booked out.   It's completely FREE and you are given refreshments and lunch for nothing. You will see ALL the latest hardware and software and hear practical, information-packed (and SHORT) presentations on your choice of topics all geared towards learners with additional support for learning needs. You can focus on  school and  / or Further Education. You will meet and network with colleagues and interesting new contacts including presenters and suppliers. Don't miss it.

Amongst the new things seen at ICT and Inclusion last week were AbilityWorld's new  Uni-tech Voice Symbol and Voice Ink.  What’s innovative is that the special software prints sound as well as symbols and words on to paper (ordinary paper and normal colour printer cartridge). When the user touches the printed word or symbol on the paper with the special Voice Pen, it speaks (choice of synthetic voices). It can also play music/sound files or recorded voice.

With the Voice Ink software, when the user touches each word (or sentence, paragraph or whole page, depending on how the settings you choose) it speaks out, so you can use it just to check you've correctly read a few 'sticky' words, or to read whole work sheets, etc. A true 'talking book'.

The Voice Symbol communication software lets you make symbol boards or book pages, and record personalised messages, so it is a low-tech system that speaks as well! It also works through laminate.

The system is not exactly cheap, but comparable in price to some other recorded voice communication aids. Once you've got the software you can add more V-pens for more users at a reasonable price.

There is a link on the Ability World website to video clips on YouTube where you can see the Uni-tech system in use (albeit largely in Taiwanese...).

Hopefully everyone will now be aware of the cheap deal on BoardMaker software offered through LTS.

Please note that there is a training course on BoardMaker 6 and the new BoardMaker Plus! features in CALL on 25th March, and places are still available. Could be just the thing to get you started! Find out more and book

Act NOW and book a place at one of the forthcoming Scottish Communication Matters Road Shows. It is completely free, and you get a free lunch as well! Choice of three venues (all 9.15am - 3.30pm, or 'drop in'):

• Tuesday 1st December - Edinburgh (Murrayfield Stadium, with CALL)
• Wednesday 2nd December - Aberdeen (Pittodrie Football Stadium, with TASSC)
• Thursday 3rd December - Glasgow (Hampden Park Stadium, with SCTCI)

This is THE opportunity of the year to find out about all the equipment and software available to support people with complex communication support needs. Suppliers of communication technology exhibit their wares and highlight any new products. As well as each giving a short presentation - you choose which you wish to attend - product experts are on hand all day to answer any questions you may have, demonstrate equipment, supply catalogues and literature, give you mini 1:1 tutorials. Unlike with visits from one particular company, you get the chance to 'compare and contrast' systems. Staff from the local specialist AAC services in Scotland are on hand to help to point you to local sources of informaiton and support, and you will also be able to 'network' with like-minded colleagues. Hope to see you there!

To find out more and to book online, go to Communication Matters Road Shows. Or, you can email Communication Matters or ring 0845 456 8211, giving your name, full address with postcode and contact telephone number. You will receive an acknowledgement of your booking.

You are also always welcome to contact CALL for further information, on 0131 651 6235 or 0131 651 6236.

One of the new devices on show at CALL's recent ICT and Inclusion sessions was the rather amazing Livescribe Pulse Pen.

You can see the product description (with video) at Livescribe.com

It has been designed for note-taking and could be useful to students and older school pupils with memory or writing difficulties of speed, legibility or spelling (or all of these). It's not particularly new to have a pen that records audio (though this one is good quality audio and can pick up teacher talk so long as student is at the front of the room) but this device follows through, so you can also quickly and easily transfer the file  to your computer and link the recording to your written notes / diagrams, share notes via email, convert your written notes into a word processor file (with the audio still attached). The special notebook that is part of the pen pack might be an attractive alternative to heaving a laptop around everywhere.

The Livescribe Pulse pen is marketed in the UK, you can find more details at Dyslexic.com It's not unduly expensive at approx. £199

For those with an AAC interest, Karen Janowski from the USA outlines on her Teaching Every Student blog how you could use the Livescribe to create a talking communication book, and links to an interesting article that describes in detail how to do this, see "Augmentative Communication: A Low-Cost and Lightweight Communication Device with Natural Speech."