Barb Jermyn is a physical therapist and RESNA certified assistive technology professional who operates in school districts across southeastern Wisconsin.
Her primary goal when introducing Clicker to her districts was to support students who are nonverbal and have physical barriers to written communication.
Clicker’s writing support tools and accessibility features have opened the door to writing for these students and enabled them to demonstrate their knowledge in lessons.
Watch the video below to learn:
- How Clicker's Sentence Sets, Clicker Books, and switch access have helped students demonstrate their cognitive understanding through written communication.
- How Clicker’s easy-to-use tools create inclusive and accessible classrooms.
- Why Barb continues to recommend Clicker to the districts she supports.
“We had one set of students who were on the autism spectrum and struggled tremendously with any type of writing skills. [...] We introduced Clicker to those students and by the end of the school year, they were completing and writing sentences and answering appropriate ‘who’ ‘what’ ‘when’ and ‘where’ questions”.
Insights from Gayl Bowser on Assistive Technology tools for special education classrooms
Gayl Bowser has spent her career helping schools get assistive technology right. As the state of Oregon’s AT specialist for 20 years - and now a national consultant and facilitator for state AT leaders - she’s seen plenty of tools come and go.
“I’ve been in the assistive technology field since 1988, which makes me a historian,” Gayl laughs. Clicker is a supportive writing tool that combines word prediction, speech feedback, and customizable scaffolds. And is, as Gayl says, “the one that’s stood the test of time.”
Gayl has watched Clicker evolve with classrooms for decades. “I believe I used the very first version of Clicker with some elementary school students I was working with - and I immediately found it useful and helpful in lots of ways.”
An early Clicker success story
In those early years, pairing pictures with words was still a groundbreaking idea. Clicker’s unique scaffolds gave Gayl and her students something they hadn’t had before: independence. She remembers one student in particular - a young boy who was just learning to read and write but desperately wanted to email his friends right away.
“We used some of Clicker’s features to make that possible,” Gayl recalls. “That was one of my favorite success stories early on.”
Why Clicker remains a go-to assistive technology for student writing support
Over the years, Gayl has watched many educational tools become so loaded with features that teachers are intimidated before they even start.
“Clicker has resisted adding so many bells and whistles that teachers can’t actually figure out what it does. That continues to be true - and that’s a good thing.”
Because it’s user-friendly, she recommends Clicker’s supportive word processor for:
- Elementary classrooms
- Self-contained classrooms
- Resource rooms focused on literacy
But for Gayl, Clicker’s biggest strength is how it fits into a continuum of support for students.
“I like the word ‘differentiation,’ so that schools don’t become totally focused on a particular product. I think having the idea of a continuum of options, and knowing where something like Clicker fits in, is really important.”
So often in classrooms, it’s not a single tool, curriculum, or solution that does it all. Gayl points out that when districts treat Clicker as one piece of a larger puzzle, teachers are empowered to choose the best supports for each learner - and student independence becomes a natural outcome. By positioning Clicker within a thoughtful, tiered approach - rather than as a one-size-fits-all solution - districts can match tools to students’ needs at the right time.
This makes Clicker a strong fit for MTSS or any tiered support model. It meets students where they are, and can grow with them towards their path to independence.
Will this AT tool stay, or will it go? Lessons on AT implementation
Gayl cautions that purchasing assistive technology software isn’t enough. Citing that if you don’t pair it with training, follow-up, and clear goals, it ends up being another product that nobody accesses. “I’ve watched districts buy a great tool, then cancel the contract two years later because no one was using it,” Gayl says. “If you don’t build in training and support, even the best tools won’t stick.”
That’s why she encourages districts to look for solution providers who act as true partners - ones who can share success stories, provide ongoing support, and collaborate on a plan to measure impact. When vendors bring evidence and work side-by-side with educators, the results are far more likely to last.
Equity in education: why rural schools need tools like Clicker
Today, Gayl is particularly passionate about getting the right tools into small and rural districts.
“There are some small districts that genuinely don’t know what assistive technology is. I’d love to see more focus on products like Clicker in those rural schools.”
With almost 200 districts in Oregon - many of them small, rural, and under-resourced - Gayl sees Clicker as part of the solution for helping students everywhere access literacy and communication.
The big takeaway: writing independence starts with the right tools
From Oregon to the Midwest, from state policy to classroom practice, Gayl sums it up simply:
“Clicker has stood the test of time for a reason. It helps kids write for themselves at early stages of literacy - and that’s what matters most.”
Her challenge to schools: if independence is your goal, put a range of tools like Clicker in your students’ hands - and watch them take it from there.
See how Clicker fits into your district’s continuum of supports. Explore our case studies or test out a risk-free, 90-day pilot to experience it in action.
“Clicker is the best alternative pencil out there!”
Erica Lovchik is a high school alternative curriculum teacher in a self-contained life skills classroom. Her students have significant physical mobility challenges which, for many of them, can make holding a pencil quite difficult. Erica was looking to improve her students’ access to learning by removing the writing barrier for them.
“Clicker is a program that offers SO much and getting authentic writing from our students just wouldn’t be possible without it!”
Prior to using Clicker, many of Erica’s students needed a boost in their writing confidence. She shared that one of the best things about Clicker is how easy it is to add in the support her students need to achieve their individual goals.
“It’s easier to see what concepts my students are understanding, and I’ve seen their confidence in writing really improve.”
Erica also shared that her students benefit from visual support, too. She uses the built-in picture library to customize Clicker resources for her students to use. Adding images to the document increases engagement with the task and using the Picturize tool can quickly add images to the writing grids to support students with their writing.
Clicker supports all of Erica’s students who have a wide range of physical difficulties. One student uses Clicker with an eye gaze device. He can participate in writing activities and experience the curriculum as his peers do.
“Clicker is the best alternative pencil out there!”
This video was recorded at Willow Dene School, where they are using Clicker extensively to help students access the curriculum and find their voice.
You may remember last year I shared a wonderful story about Jane, a student with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with for almost 14 years! This time I’m excited to share her latest Clicker success. Jane has been diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and faces many challenges which have impacted her ability to attend school and access the curriculum. Last year, she was fully included in a general education high school setting for the first time, with the support of a team who assisted her in implementing AAC/AT strategies across the curriculum, including Clicker. She recently wrote a speech for her public speaking class using Clicker, with the support of a Word Bank and a handful of sentence starters. This time last year, she was learning to create 7-9-word sentences using Clicker Sentence Sets. What incredible progress this young lady has made in one school year! You can watch her read (or read for yourself) her compelling speech aloud, sharing her future dreams and aspirations below.
After college, my dream job is at WildBrain. WildBrain is a company that does kids’ TV shows in Canada. I think being an animator is cool because then you can design characters over there for TV shows for kids and do a lot of drawings on the computer. When I turn 17, I would like to learn French because in Canada they speak French or English, it depends what part of Canada you’re in. But also, for next year my goal for my job, besides French, I want to work at a party store when I turn 17. Well there a lot of ideas that I want to do for next year.
But I have to decide which job I want depending on what’s appropriate for my age. Also, my family and teachers might have to see all my credits through the years that I’ve been taught, [from] when I was kindergarten through this year. I hope I can have a job when I turn 17; maybe yes, maybe no. But my mom still has to decide whether or not I will be able to have a job at that certain age. Also, I might need a car to go to my job next year too. If I drive myself to work then my mom wouldn’t have her car, Vanilla Lightning. I might have to take a bus to work and to school instead of a car because a car costs a lot of money to buy.
Another class that I would like to do next year is Stagecraft Costume Design because every Halloween I love to make my own costume with my Grandma, Marty. Maybe it could be possible to do leadership and decorate the dances and Homecoming games for the rallies too. I have a lot of classes and goals that I need to work on until I work for WildBrain, but it will come very fast, soon for next year for my dream job until now I’m still a teen until one more year.
I am the assistant head at Talbot Specialist School, which is a secondary specialist school for cognition and learning difficulties, and I’m also head of the teaching school. We had some prior knowledge of Clicker, having owned a previous version in the past, but decided to look into the latest version.
We arranged a staff meeting where we had a consultant from Crick Software come along to do some training with us and demonstrate the latest features. Afterwards I said, “right, let’s buy it,” because it’s obviously so much easier and quicker to create grids, there are so many more online resources – and now all the staff members use it within their classroom practice.
We use Clicker a lot for our students who need support with speech and language difficulties. I’ve worked with the Speech and Language Therapists to create resources for students for their morning work and communication targets for their IEP work (Individual Educational Plan).
We’ve also used Clicker with children who are non-verbal, giving them a voice, like a communication tool. These are children who are non-verbal not because they can’t speak, but because they’re choosing not to speak. We give them Clicker and tell them that when you put a period after a sentence it will talk for you, and because of that we’ve had lots of lovely reactions, like lots of smiling, lots of hugging, lots of high-fiving. We’ve had children who are starting to speak and say simple words, gaining confidence by having given them a voice and realizing that they are having that input into the lesson. It’s given them confidence to think, “I’ll have a go now…”.
We use Clicker Books a lot because we can have it on a big smart board where the students can draw their covers on that. Using Clicker Books, our students can create something of their own, which is brilliant. Our students also use the Clicker Board mind-mapping tool, with their central character in the middle, so that they can plan and sketch out their story ideas… It’s just a lot friendlier, I think, and much more accessible for our learners.
There are other literacy tools out there, but what we found was that they’re just not suitable for some of our students. It’s also not as infantile as others can be – it feels age-appropriate for our students, and mainstream children as well. I like the fact you can make it very bespoke to the child that you’re working with. For example, with the Predictor you can tailor it to suit different children’s needs; some of our children can’t choose from a list of six or seven options – they might only need one or two. That can fit better with their individual reading and writing targets.
Although I use it a lot with children who have SEND, the good thing about Clicker is that you can use it with both children who have SEND and those who don’t. A child doesn’t have to have a disability or a need, because it’s useful and engaging for every child. I think that’s the nice thing about it, is that it’s not seen as something that only SEND children can use but all children in any setting, too.
One of the improvements I really appreciate in the latest version of Clicker is the inclusion of realistic children’s voices for the speech feedback. The students have really taken to the ‘Harry’ and ‘Rosie’ voices, and although it’s something so simple, it’s so effective. So not only can you now change the voice to something more suitable or something to suit a particular child’s preferences, but also because we have children with names that text-to-speech software typically finds difficult to say, like Rihanna, you can change the pronunciation to get it to read the child’s actual name. Particularly for children with autism, that’s had a significant effect on them wanting to use Clicker.
I also really appreciate the Document Analysis where you can see how the children have tried to fix a word or sentence. That’s really worked for us, because with the phonics that we do with them, it just makes sure that they’re actually using it, and it fits in really well with our reading programme, Lexia.
In our networking with other schools where our teachers go out with Clicker on a laptop, we’ve found that they’ve got a previous version of Clicker on one computer or laptop, and we always tell them that it’s worth paying for the upgrade, that we will come and sit with them to show how it easy it is, or we’ll invite them into Talbot to show them how easy it is. We tell them that it will make their lives so much easier, and that it will have a significant impact on any child’s literacy and engagement levels, whether they’ve got additional needs or not. Once they’ve seen it in action, they’re convinced!
Dunnottar School and Vocational Centre is a school heavily dependent on charitable donations, situated in Castries, the capital city of St Lucia in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. It caters for 102 students within the ages of 5 to 25 with a range of physical and learning disabilities including cerebral palsy, Down’s Syndrome and autism, and is spread over 15 classrooms.
Currently the school is split over two sites, as the main building at the original site was declared unfit and beyond repair 3 years ago, so is now housed in a rented school across the city. Not an ideal situation, but the staff, students and parents do their best to continue to work as best they can. On St Lucia, there are no speech therapists, nor occupational therapists, and physical therapy is only available up to kindergarten age, so the 25 teachers and six aides have many roles to play.
I am a retired teacher with well over 35 years’ experience in many areas within education: in the mainstream elementary classroom, in the Education Board as an ICT advisor and teacher trainer (where I gained my Clicker experience), and in special education as a class teacher and trainer.
I have been supporting this school for over six years now, volunteering for a month at a time at the school, introducing a multi-sensory curriculum approach to teaching and learning, as well as fundraising in my home area. Over the years I have raised over £10,000 from my village area…not bad for a one shop, one pub village!
The unit I was working with this year (Dunnottar Multi Disabled Centre, DMDC) is a relatively new unit for Dunnottar, and ever since I visited it two years ago, I just knew that Clicker was needed for the students there. The children mostly have cerebral palsy, are non-verbal, but most have good cognitive abilities. The teachers were at a loss with trying to teach them educational subjects as they felt there were very few ways to assess if any learning was taking place.
This is something I excelled in during my own career, teaching similarly disabled children to communicate, read, spell, count, etc. Investing in a 5-device license for Clicker was an ideal way to get things started.
We initially installed Clicker on two classroom laptops. I wanted to work with the children to gain the teachers’ interest and give them something they could use immediately. At the time, the teachers were assessing the children's learning, engaged in an exercise in classification of foods from plants or animals, using pictures and pointing. I set up a Clicker Set with the same exercise very quickly, then using switch access, had a child working independently on a similar exercise after just two minutes, high-fiving me each time he succeeded, and having his self-esteem go through the roof! This immediately sparked the teachers’ curiosity and they were hooked! I primarily wanted to get the students used to using the switches at this point, but also wanted the staff to realize the potential of the software in conjunction with the switches.
Within the same unit, there are children who do have voices, but have never had therapy to correct their speech, so the recording element of Clicker really helped. Setting up an initial sound activity with speech/recording had one child working very hard to pronounce his "a" sounds correctly, wanting to re-record his voice to show his improvement, again using switch access and acting independently. Others just responded so well to the positive reinforcement they received on completing a task.
Talking books were a huge hit with all. The parents and students had created simple story books of their summer vacations, along with photographs. I created a talking book for each student, then using a projector and the switch access, we invited other staff to come along and watch and listen to their students tell their own stories. It was a huge success, and new ideas for using the talking books facility just flowed from the staff.
Word spread throughout the school about this software, and soon, all the other teachers were asking for a demonstration, which resulted in a hectic timetable of training for all!
Within a day of their training, teachers were telling me of activities they had tried with their students and the fantastic success they were having along with the interest being shown by the students. They could see student self-esteem rising with each push of a button. All the staff are extremely keen, and they have set up a timetable for the laptops on which Clicker is installed to ensure that as many children as possible are given an opportunity to access the software.
I have discovered that the use of Clicker is a first for not only St Lucia, but apparently for the whole of the Caribbean….quite a feather in the cap for a lowly charitable trust school. Switch access has never been used either…another first!
Clicker has changed the way these children will learn and the way the teachers will teach. The whole school is very excited at the prospect of using the software more widely in the future. I am receiving messages daily from staff with photographs of the students using Clicker and switch access for those who need it. On behalf of all of them…Thank you, Crick Software!