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Communication styles are learned skills, developed over a period of time. That’s good news for us because that means it’s never too late to change for the better! For example, if you have developed a deferring communication style, and wish to change to become more assertive it can be done with some practice. How do you communicate under stress? Refer to the Communication Style Chart below to determine your communication style.
Stressful Communication Styles Chart
Assertive People
Aggressive …

We all have different learning styles. We all learn at a different pace. What works for one person may prove to be completely ineffective to another. For example, Student A might master her multiplication tables in one month using flash cards, while it takes Student B 5 months to get his multiplication down. However, give Student B an iPad with a mathematics mobile app, and he could be a multiplication master in a month too!

In the world of education, delivery is everything. Even the best curriculum in the world is useless if you don’t have a way to deliver that lesson to students in a way that is engaging and relevant.

One of my job responsibilities is to serve as a leader of the Self-Determination Team for our locality. Self-Determination is knowing who you are and what you want your future to look like. It’s also about having a support system in place to help you take control of your life, whether that’s an encouraging set of parents or an educator.

You’ve probably noticed, there is a pretty sizable anti-bullying movement sweeping the nation right now. While that’s great to have such a wide-spread initiative, many anti-bullying programs target the bully. The problem with that is, the bully is the wrong person to target. To give you a comparison, think about a community located in a tropical climate that has a history of getting hit with bad hurricanes. It wouldn’t be very effective to fight this problem by trying to change the weather. …

As many of you know, we recently came out with a communication application for the iPad called the Functional Communication System. I won’t spend a lot of time talking about this app (you can read more about it in a former blog post), but basically it’s a communication tool that uses real-life images and videos instead of symbols. It’s also customizable, allowing you to create your own items and categories, take your own pictures, record your own voice – even shoot your …

There’s a saying that says, “If you’re not networking, soon you’ll be not working.” Today, I’d like to examine this from the perspective of a parent of a child with special needs. One of the major difficulties facing these parents in the past was finding a support group where ideas, success stories, and tips could be shared with others in similar situations.
Thankfully, that is changing, and there’s one less thing that parents of special needs children have to …

I just returned home from the M-Enabling Summit, a global conference that focused on accessibility for aged populations and persons with disabilities. There was a lot of focus on apps, and in particular Android apps. People often ask The Conover Company if we have considered developing Android apps, and the short answer is yes. However, there are several significant challenges with developing for Android:

There are currently 6 different versions of the Android operating system, and they all do things differently. Therefore, to develop an …

I just got back from the M-Enabling Summit in Washington DC, a global conference that focused on accessibility for aged populations and persons with disabilities. There were over 300 attendees from from over 30 countries, including representatives from some rather large companies (Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion, IBM, and HTC to name a few). It was very interesting to see whatʼs coming next in the area of accessible technology, but it also opened my eyes to the fact that weʼve got a long way to …

The following is a guest post from Courtney, a Wisconsin educator who has worked with The Functional Skills System and believes in its value in the classroom.
I am so impressed with the Conover Company’s Functional Skills System. I had the opportunity to work with a young adolescent with his math skills and greeting others for a short while prior to his family’s move. When I started to work with him, he had a base understanding of identifying coins and …