ATU623 – Cosmo and Other Tools with Heather Maydak ATP – Westminster Technologies

Hi, this is Heather Maydak, and I’m the director of Assistive Technology at Westminster Technologies. And this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs.

I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 623 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on May 5th, 2023.

On today’s show, we’re very excited to welcome back Heather Maydak ATP from Westminster Technologies. She’s here to tell us about Cosmo, as well as some other really great assistive technology products that are available through Westminster. We also welcome back Amy Barry from BridgingApps with an app worth mentioning.

Listeners, as I always tell you, we’re very excited that you found us and that you’re listening to us today. And if you ever do have any questions, any comments, or anyone that you think we should have on the show, please, please, please do reach out. You can reach us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. You can call our listener line at (317)721-7124 or even drop us a line on Twitter @INDATAproject.

Don’t forget, if you’re looking for a transcript of today shows, you can find those over at eastersealstech.com. Those captions have been sponsored by InTRAC, an Indiana relay. While you’re over at eastersealstech.com, be sure to check out our tech tip YouTube videos and all the other great things that we have there. But right now, let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

After all these months of lockdown, maybe you’re looking for some new podcast to listen to. Well, make sure to check out our sister podcast, Accessibility Minute and ATFAQ or Assistive Technology FAQ. If you’re super busy and don’t have time to listen to a full podcast, be sure to check out Accessibility Minute, our one-minute-long podcast that gives you just a little taste of something assistive technology based so that you’re able to get your assistive technology fix without taking up the whole day. This show comes out weekly.

Our other show is Assistive Technology FAQ, or ATFAQ. On Assistive Technology FAQ, Brian Norton leads our panel of experts, including myself, Belva Smith, and our own Tracy Castillo as we try to answer your assistive technology questions. This show does rely on you, so we’re always looking for new questions, comments, or even your answers on assistive technology questions. So remember, if you’re looking for more assistive technology podcasts to check out, you can check out our sister shows, Accessibility Minute and ATFAQ, wherever you get your podcast, now including Spotify and Amazon Music.

Listeners, I’d like to invite you all to our Web Accessibility Webinar for Developers on May 10th, 2023. Renowned web accessibility professional Dennis Lembree covers an array of topics for developing accessible websites. The training begins with disability and assistive technology basics and an overview of guidelines and laws.

Main topics include content structure, images, forms, tables, video, CSS, and ARIA. Techniques on writing for accessibility and testing for accessibility are also covered.

If you’re interested in registering for this free training on web accessibility for developers, please click on the link down in the show notes or visit eastersealstech.com.

Listeners, next up on the show, we’re very excited to welcome back Amy Barry from BridgingApps with an app worth mentioning. Take it away, Amy.

This is Amy Barry with BridgingApps, and this is an app worth mentioning. This week’s featured app is called Fitbit: Health & Fitness. The Fitbit app syncs with a tracker device worn like a wristwatch to monitor steps walked, distances covered, and calories burnt, but its usefulness isn’t limited to high-activity periods. It also notes when the wearer is resting or sleeping and has settings to track weight, eating, hydration habits, mindfulness practices, and even menstrual cycles. Plus, it can coordinate with other health apps to update data in multiple files.

For individuals with low vision or visual impairment, you can use the Amazon Alexa voice assistant on your watch to read your steps, resting heart rate, sleep score, and many other stats out loud. Or you can install the Fitbraille app on your watch to translate the time and/or current step count to braille and then use vibrations to represent each other.

Fitbit is currently available for iOS and Android devices and is free to download with optional in-app purchases. For more information on this app and others like it, visit bridgingapps.org.

Listeners, we’re all very excited to welcome Heather Maydak, the director of Assistive Technology for Westminster Technologies to AT Update today. She’s going to tell us about Cosmo and some other really cool assistive technologies available through Westminster and how these devices can assist individuals with disabilities. Heather, welcome back to the show.

Thank you, John. Or Josh. Sorry.

That’s fine. We have a Justin that works for us, and my boss still can’t get our names right, so that’s totally fine. Well, hey Heather, welcome back. Before we start talking about all the cool stuff, can you tell our listeners just a little bit about yourself?

Sure. So I’m the director of Assistive Technology. I actually live in Pittsburgh, even though Westminster Technologies is based out of Cleveland. I’m a Pittsburgher. And I have, let’s see, I’ve worked all over the country as an assistive technology professional.

I worked for a company, United Cerebral Palsy, I’ve worked for University of Washington. I used to teach at East Carolina University, and now I really enjoy what I do with Westminster, where I do lots of different services, I do training, and I teach teams how to do assistive technology assessments, as well as going out and doing assessments for mostly school districts.

Awesome. Yeah, and I know we’ve had you on here before and kind of been able to talk about the services and everything. And with that, just to start off, can you tell us just a little bit about Westminster Technologies?

So Westminster Technologies is a small family-owned business that provides lots of different assistive technology services, like what I mentioned, training, we do consultations, we do assessments, but we also resale products in various categories of assist technology that we really like. We’re pretty picky.

And you are pretty picky, and that’s why you always show us kind of some cool stuff. So onto the tech, let’s start, because I know at AATIA, I got to see something really cool that I really wanted to talk about called Cosmo. Now what is Cosmo?

So Cosmo is, it’s so much fun, and it’s so engaging, too. So Cosmo is made up of actually two different apps. They’re two different free apps and there’s some new stuff coming so I’ll talk about that here in a little bit. But it’s also, the main component are the Bluetooth switches that are called cosmoids.

I love, love, love the name Cosmoids. I think that’s the number one reason I wanted to talk to you today because just so I got a chance to say that on the air and not just sound funny.

It’s a fun word.

So tell me how the cosmoids work. What are the apps like? Just kind of, let’s dig in and tell the listeners what all Cosmos is about.

Okay, so the cosmoids, they light up in all different colors. They have different brightnesses. You can adjust those colors. You can actually adjust the brightness as well. And there’s some sensitivity adjustments.

But what’s really cool is because of their texture and the ease of activation, pretty much they’re easy to activate regardless of the person’s motor abilities. And then that light and those colors really provide engagement. It provides that visual feedback.

They’re very sturdy. That’s always a question. Very sturdy. You can actually attach a magnet to the back. You can, so you can hang them up to any magnetic surfaces. You can hang them on the wall. You can mount them for wheelchair use or to mount them at an angle on a desk. You can put them on the ground so the kids can run and hit them. So very, very sturdy. They’re also very lightweight.

And they come in basically three options. So three package sizes, one, three, and six. So a single cosmoid would actually be used as a switch for switch scanning, and it can be used to interact with switch adapted games, programs, apps, communication apps, as well. And that also has a separate app for that switch access to set it all up as a switch with all kinds of customization.

And then the three and the six are typically used more for group work or turn-taking, just kind of more that group setting. But they don’t have to be used in a group. But they’re just so much fun to use. And like I mentioned, there is the app for the switch. Then they have their more skill-based academic app. And this is another free app. It has multisensory games for that skill development. And they also have linked it with functional and national curriculum goals, which is really fantastic.

And some of the activities, they’re used to, and the activities are very engagement. They have different levels of challenge, and they can be used to develop things like cause and effect, joint attention, turn taking, choice making, you can do collaboration, sequencing, transition skills, motor skills, language, story telling, executive functioning, and sensory awareness. So that’s a lot.

That is a whole lot. And basically they kind of teach these just by lighting up, by doing different sequences. How does that all kind of work together between the Cosmoids and the app?

So the Cosmoids will light up different colors in different sequences or for different reasons within the specific skill-based game that they’re doing. So there is, for example, a whack-a-mole game. So you’re working on timing, motor skills, maybe turn taking even. So for example, if you had the six switches set up, it’s just like the old arcade game, right, whack-a-mole? But you’re using your hand to hit your specified color. So it could be two teams or just two students for example. And one’s maybe green, one’s maybe blue, and all the other switches will be, what’s the word I’m looking for, not lit up.

Sure.

And then all of a sudden one will turn green or blue and it’s just very kind of fast-paced. There’s music. So each color would be a different musical note for example, or there’s a conductor one. So each color is a different instrument. So it really just depends on the activity that you’re interacting with on how those colors and how that, the speed and the sequencing and all of that works.

No, that’s really awesome. And it looks fun. I mean, I’ve watched some videos on it and I mean, the kids are just having a blast kind of doing it because it’s so much different than when you think about normal switches. There’s just so much more interaction. They’re colorful. Well, they’re fun I guess. And I think you’ve said that as well, but it’s not just fun to say Cosmoids, they actually look pretty darn fun for the kids. And this is always kind of a weird question to ask, but what kind of skill development can the Cosmo and the Cosmoids help with for certain disabilities? I’m not asking that question correctly, but do you get what I’m asking?

Nope, I know where you are. So yeah, there’s lots of different skill development activities and then you can customize that a little bit depending on the specific game that you select, as well as some different challenge capabilities. So kind of leveling up with some of the games as well. So I mean you can start as simple as cause and effect and then you can work, turn into attention and focus, color matching, choice making, turn taking, which can be difficult, waiting, right, waiting for your turn. So those, and a lot of that is just, you’ve got cause effect, you’ve got executive function skills within that. But you can also integrate motor skills with some of the games.

So for example, the Whack-a-mole, or there’s a challenge game where you could basically have two sets of kids or teams, and one team let’s say is red, one is green, and you can place the switches all over the room and they have to run to hit their switch. So you’re now working on gross motor skills. You can work on speed and balance and all kinds of things with that. And then you can even go to language skills. So of the games will be specific for just building those language skills. There’s an app where you can actually record your own voice or sounds. So it could be used as a real quick and simple communication device for short little words and phrases. So nothing fancy.

Nothing too fancy, but still, cool and it would, work in a pinch for sure. And sometimes those are the best accommodations that folks need is just that little thing that will work in a pinch. Well you said that some new stuff is going to be coming out. Can you talk about that?

Yep. So as part of Cosmo, so you would purchase the switches whether it’s one, three or six, and then you have access to those two free apps. But what is being added is a subscription based, everybody loves their subscriptions, now. So you still get all of that stuff for free. So you don’t have to do a subscription in order to use Cosmo and get access to the free apps. But if you want to add on and have more capabilities and more resources you can choose to add on this subscription based program.

And it would basically, so if you have the app and you have let’s say three of the switches, then you would have 14 free games. And if you have the six apps and you have for example, 18 free games, but with the subscription you’re going to get an additional 14 more activities as the base. And then each month new activities will be added. You get activity guides to help you think of different ways to use them. There’s onboarding and training resources. And then they’re also working on a data collection piece, which as you know, is extremely a powerful tool for our therapists and teachers with their workload that they have this data collection pieces in these systems is just a huge, huge piece for them.

Oh sure. And sometimes just having that data collection piece can kind of help with the funding just because if I can show that I’m making a difference and that this really kind of changes things, it’s a little bit easier to get well, depending on where you are, whatever the powers that be that actually hold the purse strings, it can make it a little easier for them to be able to purchase those and maybe get them in more schools or just more individuals hands.

Exactly. Yep.

Heather, tell me a story about someone you’ve worked with with Cosmo and kind of how they used it maybe in a fun way or different way, or just maybe how they really enjoyed it.

Well, I don’t have any specific, for my purposes, I’ve interacted with individuals at conferences with it so far, I haven’t had a chance to talk with any of our customers who’ve purchased it yet. But I do know the feedback is good and they really enjoy it. And the people at the conferences, they’re just immediately engaged by it and they love it. But there is research and case studies behind the Cosmo, so that’s always also a selling point sometimes for these districts and these organizations. So for example, at the University of Birmingham, they actually did a study and they introduced the Cosmo to children on the autism spectrum. And what they found was significant increases in engagement. They had increases in frequency of initiating, which as we all know that that’s definitely a huge area of concern for students with autism. But what they also saw was some changes with emotions. So they saw a decrease in negative emotions and an increase in positive emotions. So that’s huge right there of those particular things. So yeah, research and case studies that back up the use of Cosmo and how it really does help.

Oh sure, sure. And the emotional one, I don’t know if I’d even really expect. So I always love whenever you kind of make a, you know, have a piece of assistive technology, it’s kind of made, maybe you kind of think what it might do and it ends up doing something even more. So that’s awesome. Well, while we’ve got you on here, can you tell us maybe about another piece of new tech at Westminster that you’re excited about?

So we have a couple. One is the scan marker reader. So similar to, it’s a scanning pen, so similar to other pens out there, but it has a couple of main differences. And the reason that I really like it is one, it comes with a scanning guide. So that’s one of the main concerns is when students have fine motor issues, they have a real hard time scanning the lines of text. So this scanning piece, it helps with that because it isolates the word. So if you think about [inaudible 00:20:03] the visual trackers that the students can put on the page and they move line to line to line. So it’s isolating each line. It’s exactly what this piece does. So that’s a really nice addition.

But the main difference with the scan marker is that it connects to, doesn’t matter if it’s a PC, a Mac, iOS, Android, Chromebooks, it connects to all them and it uses a web-based app that adds additional functions for both reading, writing, but also editing. So you can change the fonts and it has dyslexic fonts in there. You can change high contrast, you can adjust the spacing between letters, words, lines, and all of those things actually help in combination with the text to speech help with decoding and comprehension, which is really nice.

Oh sure. Yeah, that’s a little bit more than just reading it back to me. That gives a little, a lot more information. It can really, like you said, yeah, just help with decoding and just given that kind of multimodal learning experience of being able to see it, hear it, and do all those things at once. And it’s amazing. Sometimes the things that seem like the simplest parts, like just a little guide to be able to scan the line correctly can make such a huge difference for folks.

Exactly. And because it’s connected with this web-based app, you can save what you’ve scanned and come back to it at any time. You don’t have to keep, you don’t have to re-scan it again the next time you want to read it.

And that I’m sure makes it really nice because yeah, that can be a little bit frustrating. Well Heather, we got a little bit of time. What else are you excited about?

Some of our new keyboards are actually pretty cool. We have a dyslexic font keyboard, that uses that dyslexia font, which is really cool. And we have some braille keyboards, which are standard keyboards, so a standard QWERTY keyboard, standard size, but we also have mini Bluetooth versions, that have the braille right there on the keys. So those can be used for a couple purposes. One, for low vision, so if we have an individuals with low vision who are learning braille and they’re used to using a standard keyboard, there you go, right? Yeah, the braille is right there on the keyboard. They’re great for work stations. So for example, if you have shared work stations, then that keyboard is now accessible to multiple users. So that’s another great benefit of it.

Oh yeah, those accessible workstations is definitely one because yeah, if I’m a, don’t really know how to use the computer, but I know Braille at least I can actually access and be able to type and write whatever it is that I’m thinking or really want to get out there. So very cool. And something that I sit there and I’m like, “how’s that not already out there?” And it’s like, no, I’ve used a braille labeler to put them on there before, but that’s a pain and they peel off and everything else. So that’s awesome that it actually thinks to kind of put that on there. I’ve got just a tiny bit of time left, so do you got one more?

Well, we could always go back to our good old standard time management. I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about the Resetea.

No, I don’t believe we have.

So it was actually developed by a special education teacher for his students with autism. And because if you think about students with autism, a lot of them, they have sensory sensitive issues, processing, hyper and or hypo sensitivity to different things. And a lot of students have a real hard time with the sounds of a timer. It can cause anxiety for some students. So the Resetea is purely a visual timer, and you can adjust, you can create your own templates, put as many, anywhere from one to 12 activities on that template.

It can be pictures and words, or just pictures, just words. It doesn’t matter. And then each of those different activities can be set to a different length of time. So thinking about a visual schedule that a lot of students use in a classroom, but now it’s become this kind of visual multisensory version because it will count down using lights, each activity, the current activity is in a brighter kind of bluish light. And then activities that are already done turn red. So it’s a really, really cool time management piece that’s all completely just visual. And you can do, of those 12 activities, one, it doesn’t matter again, 1 to 12, they can be set anywhere from one minute up all the way up to 60 minutes each.

Nice, nice. And yeah, I can see how that can help individuals with all different kinds of needs. But yeah, you’re right, the sound of an alarm clock, and I think probably everyone can relate to the sound of the alarm clock in the morning causing us anxiety. So I can only imagine, Heather, if our listeners want to find out more about all these great things about Cosmo, about everything else that we talked about today, what’s the best way for them to do that?

They can go to our website at westminstertech.com, and that’s W E S T M I N S T E R T E C H .com. They can email us at info@westminstertech.com or they could give us a call at (216)325-6960.

Excellent. We’ll put all that down in the show notes. Well, Heather, thank you so much for coming on today and telling us about all the new stuff and the great stuff that you guys have there at Westminster Tech. And I definitely do recommend everybody go kind of check them out because they have not just the things we talked about today, but oh so much more. And it’s just a great resource to find all kinds of really cool stuff. So thank you again.

All right, well thank you for having me back.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317)721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Pretto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show is produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly, the opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update, and I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye bye.