Pennsylvania Intermediate Unit Adopts AlertSeats™ and AlertDesks™
To evaluate AlertSeats™ and AlertDesks™ for possible use in special education classrooms, the Montgomery County (Pa.) Intermediate Unit acquired samples of the devices and distributed them to classrooms in some of the 22 school districts it serves. Then teachers were asked to provide feedback.
That information resulted in one of the largest single orders Newman Adaptive, make of the devices, ever received.
Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, is an interesting place. Northwest of Philadelphia, many of its communities are suburbs of that city. It is home to some of America’s largest pharmaceutical and bio-tech firms and site of the Valley Forge, sacred ground in American history. It hosts of some of the country’s most selective colleges, and it is a place of contrasts where upscale communities and tough inner city realities coexist.
AlertDesks allow continuous height and angle adjustment to accommodate
the variety of pediatric wheelchairs in use in a classroom.
A removable magnetic whiteboard, an option for the AlertDesk™,
allows a student perform writing tasks.
For some teachers in the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit,
the AlertSeat™ is beneficial for children who have a hard time sitting
for a long time.” Others use it as a sensory break from a regular chair.
This is an environment where Alert products found acceptance.
In Denielle Brodhead’s Multiple Disabilities Support class at Evans Elementary School in Limerick, Pa., AlertDesks™ allow her seven wheelchair-bound students to get close to their work. “I love them,” she said. “They work with every kind of wheelchair.”
Denielle was asked to help the Intermediate unit evaluate the desks equipped with AlertDesk™’s new, removable magnetic white board surface option, which she described as an “awesome match” for the needs of her students.
Briana Bronstein teaches an autism support class at Myers Elementary School in Elkins Park and has AlertSeats™ in her class. She describes their unique stabilized ball design as a “beneficial for children who have a hard time sitting for a long time.”
At Arrowhead Elementary School in Collegeville, teacher Beverly Beck described a student with autism spectrum disorder for whom nothing worked to keep her in her seat until the class received the first of four AlertSeats™.
“We tried using a cushion on a regular classroom seat, but she would bounce out of it,” she reported. The teacher was able to reduce the firmness of an AlertSeat™ to a level that allowed the student to stay seated for longer periods than ever before.
While most of the teachers we spoke to use the AlertSeat™ as the primary seating device for their autistic students, Sonya Myers reserves the seats in her autism support classroom at Woodland Elementary School in Eagleville for special circumstances.
“We use them when students need a sensory break or when they need to bounce,” she said. “I also like to use them during short individual lessons where the student will only be sitting for 10 to 15 minutes.”
In Pennsylvania, intermediate units like the one in Montgomery County provide special education students with services that can be delivered more effectively and efficiently on a regional basis than local school districts alone could.
To learn how the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit along with other schools and districts throughout the country are using the AlertSeat™ and AlertDesk™ in special education classrooms, visit our website at www.alertseat.com and select Product Reviews and Articles.
