As the 2023–24 school year begins—with the inevitable crowds and stresses of the season—these tips will help your children stay healthy for its challenges. Keep a couple of good health apps on your child’s device. These include coping tools for…
Author: Katherine Swarts (page 18)
Assistive Technology and Helping Others
You may or may not be a technical whiz, or have personal disability experience. However, even casual interactions can make positive contributions to the world of assistive technology (AT) and the lives of its users. Here are a few ideas…
Back to School with Special Needs
Within a month after this is published, most U.S. schoolchildren will begin the 2023-24 school year. Including the demographic of kids who—along with their families—find that “back to school” involves more-complicated-than-average challenges. If your child has a mental or physical…
Digital Skills Roundup: The First Things Everyone Should Know
Which statement is correct? Actually, both are correct with regard to certain aspects of screen use. What are “people” actually using their screens for? What educational or career fields are they in? What age groups? And perhaps most important, where…
Preparing for Back-to-School
It’s August. Are your kids ready for school yet? Depending on where they’re enrolled, the actual first day of school may be as early as August 7 or as late as September 5. But however long you have to prepare,…
The Working Pet Owner
Among the hundreds of thousands of pets adopted from U.S. animal shelters each year, are an unfortunate minority who are eventually returned to the shelters because they required more money, time, or responsibility than anticipated. The “return” problem got substantial…
BridgingApps in Fort Bend County
Today’s article is compiled from interviews with Tara Rocha, Digital Learning Specialist at BridgingApps. Here’s what she says about working with digital-skills learners in Fort Bend. Generous grants from The George Foundation and United Way of Greater Houston Fort Bend…
Apps for Calming Hurricane-Season Anxiety
The annual hurricane season runs from June through November, and is at its worst in July–September. Along the Gulf of Mexico and the southern Atlantic coast, few people watch summer weather forecasts without some trepidation. Will a hurricane visit my…
Family Travel Can Be Fun: BridgingApps Best Summer Road Trip Apps
Cynic’s definition of “vacation”: Something everyone looks forward to and no one enjoys. Particularly those “ones” traveling in family groups that include children under 8, or kids of any age with autism or sensory processing disorder. And particularly if you’re…
Siblings Have Needs, Too: “Typical” Children in Special-Needs Families
“Siblings of individuals with disabilities face unique challenges, and the sibling experience tends to change over time as siblings age.” -Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, UMass Chan Medical School Of all people whose lives are affected by special needs…