 Caitlin
joined Control Bionics in February 2006,
but her association with the NeuroSwitch System began in 2004 when she was still
in private practice as a Speech and Language Pathologist.
With her outstanding professional qualifications and experience, she excels as a
teacher, therapist and innovator using established methodology and revolutionary
Assistive Technology to help her clients learn to communicate.
She began working with NeuroSwitch Generation 2
(G2) when a young client, Chance, began using it as a communication and control
system (see
How It Works for more on Generation 2).
Caitlin's extensive experience as a Speech and Language Pathologist working with
children with significant communications challenges provided an excellent basis
for her work with NeuroSwitch.
From the start, Caitlin helped develop creative ways of using the system not
only with its self-contained communications modules, but also interfacing it
with standard communications and Assistive Technology devices and programs.
In the course of this work, she developed new ways of telling stories
interactively, so a child with limited communications abilities can quickly
learn to respond to plot lines and direct the course of the narration.
In this way, a person becomes so involved with the story that their use of
NeuroSwitch to enable communication becomes second nature.
Caitlin represents NeuroSwitch nationally in the USA and will be your primary
therapist and source of information, and applications of NeuroSwitch technology
in North America.
If you would like more information on NeuroSwitch G3, or to arrange an
assessment to see if it is suitable for you, contact Caitlin at
productinformation@controlbionics.com.
From the beginning of her professional life, Caitlin has been
relentless in innovating methods and media, including music and movement, to
improve literacy and general communication skills for children with some of the
most challenging disabilities.
She completed her Master’s Thesis (you can read it
here) focusing on the relationship between the ability of children to learn
to read and their experience with nursery rhymes, songs and rhythm.
She used this commitment and experience successfully in her first great
challenge in the largest special education public school district in Texas in
1995. Overwhelmed by a large group of more than 80 students with profound
physical disabilities – most could not walk or speak and were cognitively
challenged – and who came from divergent backgrounds, Caitlin used methods
grounded in her thesis - rhythm, rhyme and repetition - to teach the children to
read and communicate.
Her success was so remarkable that the school authorities assigned special
administrators to observe her teaching. The administrators videotaped her
sessions for new teacher training seminars.
She recalls, “I became the kind of teacher who couldn’t wait to go to school. I
really loved every minute of it. I was absolutely overjoyed that my students
were actually learning to read as a by-product of my pre-literacy activities”.
[We at
Control Bionics
are committed to helping clients
find the best technology for their needs. If we think a client's abilities
would enable them to use a simpler device, such as a Jellybean or other pressure
switch, we will recommend that instead of NeuroSwitch. However if a
client's needs cannot be met with conventional AT switches, we are confident
NeuroSwitch may offer a workable solution. To this end, we plan for sales
representatives of the company to almost always be professional Speech and
Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, or their degreed counterparts
around the world.
We believe a client and his or her
family and carers need to be able to discuss these needs with a professional
therapist or pathologist and we are delighted that Caitlin has joined us to
implement this policy.
If you would like to know more about
Caitlin's experience and philosophy as a Speech and Language Pathologist, please
click
here]
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