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:
“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”.
We recently ran a Clicker pilot with a school district in Washington. The district serves over 15,000 students and is known for its strong focus on inclusive learning.
As part of the pilot, a team consisting of an Occupational Therapist (OT), a Resource Room Teacher, and a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) collaborated to support a student on her IEP.
Together, they adapted Clicker to the student’s needs, trialed it, and shared their feedback on both the implementation and outcomes.
Like many districts, they face a common challenge. Students have the ideas, the vocabulary, and the knowledge, but they struggle to show it when it’s time to write. For example, one student relies on a switch device for access. This particular student often knew what she wanted to say but couldn't get the words out fast enough to show her learning.
The student’s teacher explained, "We knew that she had a lot more to say than she was able to say due to her complex body. So, we thought that the pre-made sets in Clicker would benefit the student and the teacher in terms of the time it takes to create materials. The student would then be able to show her learning and her knowledge.”
The team knew they needed a solution that included ready-made resources and supports, while still making room for personalization.
The OT reinforced that the student needed highly individualized support. "We know what we need for our student," they explained. They said that customizing grids in Clicker is "essential" for making the program work for this learner.
The SLP stressed the value of education companies and educators working together to meet those needs. They said, "We were all very open to learning…we wanted this to work. It was a combination of our team really wanting to help the student and the Clicker team being available to kind of shepherd that through for us."
The Clicker Pilot Program stood out to the team because it wasn't a quick download-and-ditch trial, but a guided process with ongoing support. "Our ability to meet together before, during, and after was really important. I appreciated how often you reached out to our team. If we had questions, you guys were completely available."
The pilot helped the team assess how well the tool worked for students and staff.
The OT reinforced what so many educators and administrators are facing these days, "I appreciate being able to trial a program for an extended period of time. Right now, with all the budget discussions, many schools would have a hard time justifying purchasing a new program that they haven't tried with a student without knowing 100% or even 90% that it works."
Not only that, but combining Clicker's support team with the educators' pedagogical expertise helped to create resources that were even more customized and helpful. The OT shared, "One thing that I really appreciated was that you were able to also look at some of our grids that we had made and show us how to make them even better. We could say what we wanted, and you showed us a more effective way to make that grid specific to our student.”
The results were significant. Clicker helped the student meet IEP goals and gave her a sense of pride and independence.
One of the student's key IEP goals was learning row-column scanning. "We practiced with Clicker, and because Clicker uses row-column scanning, she met that goal."
The SLP noted that while the student had always been confident, this experience allowed her to feel pride in a new way. She saw her own sentences come to life and even held a printed copy of her work. "It was incredible to see how proud she was of the work she produced.”
For the student’s teacher, the impact wasn't merely a classroom success. Since the student mastered scanning, it now meant she was building the skills she would need to one day communicate through a dedicated device. "With this new skill, she'll be able to use her switches to scan and ultimately find her own voice."
This progress also had broader implications for independence. Because Clicker is compatible with the student's switches, the student could transfer those same access skills to everyday navigation tasks like moving through her environment, making selections, and building autonomy.
The real goal has always been authentic connection: being able to sit with friends and share what's on her mind. "She has a lot to say," the teacher reminded, "and this gives her that chance."
Because the pilot was so successful with this one student, the team quickly recognized its potential for a much wider range of learners. They shared that with Clicker in place across classrooms, students wouldn't waste time adjusting to different tools from one teacher to the next. Instead, they could focus on content, and teachers could build on one another's work rather than starting from scratch.
"We see Clicker being really positive for a broad range of students' needs… making consistency a key feature in how we teach, so that the kids are not learning the system, they're learning the content of what the teachers are trying to teach."
The teacher also added that multilingual learners benefited from Clicker's speech-supported Word Banks, which include picture support. It's something their ELL students need, but they also saw how it helped all of her students tangibly understand content.
Clicker's compatibility with this student's switch made writing possible. But, more importantly, it opened the door to independence. Every word she produced is proof that with the proper support, students can show us what they know and who they are. And not just in school, but in life.
Or, as David Koppenhaver, co-author of Comprehensive Literacy for All, reminds us, "No student is too-anything to be able to read and write."
This is just one student success story. Across districts, students are finding new ways to read, write, and communicate with Clicker. Explore Clicker more in a free discovery call.
Occupational therapists and Assistive Technology Specialists are using Clicker to help students
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The moment her students with physical impairments started writing on their own, everything changed.
See how Magnolia ISD is using Clicker to make curriculum access possible for every learner.
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Watch how Dripping Springs ISD empowered diverse learners to become authors.
Across Texas, students who once avoided writing are now building sentences, paragraphs, and confidence.
Clicker empowers every student to participate. Watch how their writing independence grows with Clicker.
Explore Clicker’s free 90-day pilot and see how it supports your students’ IEP goals in real classrooms.
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.”
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.”
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:
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.
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.
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.
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 gives them the independence to write on their own.”
Karen Baca and Heidi Donahoe are Assistive Technology Specialists in the Berkeley Unified School District, which serves more than 9,000 students. Since 2016, the district has relied on Clicker to help students with Extensive Support Needs (ESN) access the general education curriculum. Today, Clicker is used across grade levels - primarily on iPads - to support inclusion and give students meaningful ways to participate in classroom learning.
For Karen Baca, many of her students learn in inclusion classrooms.
“The majority of the students I serve who are using Clicker are in elementary school,” Karen explains. “It’s really to provide them access to the general Ed curriculum. It’s one of the best tools we have for that population.”
Heidi Donahoe often uses Clicker to assist students needing significant support with writing.
“Most frequently it’s for students who are having a really hard time formulating - even just a sentence or a paragraph - and need a lot more support with structure, spelling, and word finding,” she says.
At the same time, Heidi has also used Clicker in more advanced ways, particularly as a tool for word banks and high-frequency word lists. “I’m thinking of a few students I have who need extra support with spelling, but already have their ideas there,” she adds.
Karen emphasizes how Clicker’s built-in supports spark student engagement. “For one of my students, being able to bring in visuals was huge,” she explains. “We co-constructed his work by going online and finding the images he wanted to use to represent different things in his writing.”
The multimodal features helped him stay motivated, while Clicker’s text-to-speech function provided essential reinforcement.
“The text-to-speech feedback is so important for my kids,” Karen says. “Once they form a paragraph, they can hear the whole thing read out loud - and they want to share it. They’ll show their peers, their teacher, and their aid. It’s so nice that they can do that once the paragraph is finished.”
Heidi values the guided writing supports for building students’ confidence. She also loves that they’re all within one platform, so she doesn’t have to piece together different tools or ask students to understand multiple systems. “What makes Clicker stand out for me is the guided order feature. It really helps when a student is struggling, because it gives them a starting point so they’re not all over the place.”
She also adds:
“Clicker combines predictive text, the keyboard, and customizable Word Banks altogether. That provides so much more support and makes it easier to tweak for individual students. Sometimes the setup you design might not have everything the student wants, or they might want to add or change something. With Clicker, they can - and that flexibility makes a big difference.”
Karen recalls one standout success story from the past year.
“I had one student where Clicker was his primary writing tool,” she explains. “He struggles to even recognize the alphabet year after year and really struggles with emergent literacy.”
Despite those challenges, the student was in a fifth-grade general education classroom. When the class was assigned to write a persuasive paragraph - framed as an advertisement - the student chose to write about chips.
Working together, Karen and the team co-constructed customized Sentence Sets that gave him the structure to express his ideas. “We asked, ‘What kinds of things can we say about chips?’ and then built out the sentences,” Karen shares.
The results exceeded expectations. The classroom teacher was so impressed that he projected the student’s Clicker writing onto the screen, allowing him to share his full presentation with the class. “That was my real big success story last year,” Karen reflects. “...and I have so many others!”
For Heidi, Clicker has been transformative in giving students independence in their writing.
“There are a few students who wouldn’t even be writing if they didn’t have Clicker. Otherwise, someone else would be doing the writing for them. Clicker gives them independence to write on their own.”
At several elementary schools, Heidi has seen Clicker being used for daily journal entries, giving students a consistent, low-pressure way to practice writing.
“They’re not as resistant to writing now,” she notes. “And it lets them share with their families what they did, which is really meaningful.”
She also recalls a particular student who had previously relied almost entirely on adult support to complete writing assignments.
“She wouldn’t have been writing on her own at all. Last year, I was able to give her the opportunity to write with the class and have some autonomy over what she was writing, so the instructional aid wasn’t doing it all for her. We set Clicker up for different writing assignments - even things like Paw Patrol, which she loved. She was so much more excited and less resistant to writing. It’s amazing.”
Because Karen’s seen Clicker work across ability levels, she advocates for its adoption throughout her region. She’s encouraged other districts in her SELPA to take a closer look at it for their own students.
For her, the value is clear.
“It’s just such a strong tool for our kids who struggle with writing. There’s not a lot out there - I’ve checked and tried to make other things work. This is the one tool that, like Heidi was saying, we can really level to meet the needs of the student.”
Karen also highlights the social value of inclusion:
“Clicker gives students access, and I can tell you their peers really respect that they’re doing the same work in their own way. That’s the strength of having Clicker for our ESN kids in general education classrooms - it shows they’re right there with everyone else. And that’s incredibly valuable.”
Heidi echoes this sense of urgency, pointing out that not having Clicker as part of your district’s toolkit inevitably leaves some students behind.
“If they’re not using Clicker, then what are they using? Because if a district doesn’t even have a single license, then there are kids who aren’t writing - or they’re not writing to their full potential. There are definitely students in every district - at least one - who need something like this to bridge the gap and stay engaged in grade-level curriculum.”
Karen and Heidi agree that Clicker goes beyond writing support. It opens doors to learning, builds student independence, and supports inclusion. And as Heidi puts it:
“If they’re not using Clicker, then what are they using?”
See how other districts are using Clicker to give every student a way into writing. Explore more and book a Clicker discovery call now.
For more than a decade, Palo Alto Unified School District has trusted Clicker to provide students with scaffolded writing support and empower teachers with ready-made resources they can use immediately.
The district has consistently renewed and expanded its licenses over the years. It's a reflection of how valuable the tool has proven to be across classrooms. Most students access Clicker on iPads, while staff use Chromebooks. In 2025, the district added Clicker support to Windows and Mac to further extend teacher access.
"We've been using Clicker for some years now," says Jen Dorwin, Assistive Technology Specialist at Palo Alto USD. "With Clicker, we all work with it whenever students need that extra writing support."
How do you support every student - and every new teacher?
Like many districts, Palo Alto USD is committed to inclusion. Students with disabilities are supported in general education classrooms whenever possible, while also receiving instruction in ESN classrooms. But with high turnover in ESN classes, new teachers were constantly stepping into complex roles.
The district needed a tool that could quickly help staff support students with extensive needs - one that could:
Clicker quickly stood out as the right fit for Palo Alto's goals.
"One of our big things is that we use Clicker as a scaffolded writing support," Jen explains. "We are an inclusion school district, so just having the ability to have our kids be in the general education classroom and participate in the writing opportunities at their own level - that's probably the biggest one."
Clicker is used across a wide range of student IEP profiles:
Teachers also appreciate Clicker's built-in supports, such as Clicker Books, pre-made sets, and sequencing activities, which make it easy to personalize instruction. "I always tell the teachers to find something in Clicker that works for that particular student," Jen shares. "I just try to show teachers a variety of options so they can personalize it to their students."
Clicker has made a meaningful difference in both student engagement and teacher confidence.
Jen acknowledges that there’s a learning curve, but training makes a big difference. “It’s a tool that, with some training, can be brought into the classroom and used at a moment’s notice. Even after years of using it, when I go to a Clicker training, I still say, ‘Oh, that’s new.’”
For Palo Alto, the biggest measure of success is what students can now do on their own. Many who once relied on constant one-to-one adult support are now writing independently in general education classrooms. That shift builds teacher confidence, frees up aids, and most importantly, gives students a sense of autonomy over their writing.
Find out how you could use Clicker to building writing independence.