Big Bang
A superb collection of cause and effect activities for students with profound and multiple learning difficulties. Big Bang has eye catching images, stimulating movement and crazy sound effects and music to match! It grabs the user's attention and encourages interaction with the computer.
Visual and auditory stimulation, visual tracking and more...
Big Bang Action has explosive animated fireworks, flying bubbles and stars, and wiggling worms. Or build up the action gradually by pressing a switch, with Big Bang Builds. See crazy objects moving around the screen in Big Bang Movement or simply change the colour of the screen with Big Bang Colour.
Animations and picture builds can be played in different ways to suit the learner. Use switch, IntelliKeys, keyboard, touch screen or mouse.
"Big Bang has proved to be a great success with our pre-school children, all of whom have special needs. The pictures are bright and clear, which gains attention and encourages reaching (for the touch screen) and tracking. Being able to have the option to change the directions of the pictures is a good idea as this caters for all the children's individual needs. Overall it is an excellent program, especially for the children to gain cause and effect awareness."
Annette Dearden, Stepping Stones, Developmental Therapy Unit.\
Big Bang is designed for those who need visual stimulation and to increase their understanding of cause and effect. It is of particular use for those with
profound and multiple learning difficulties. Children who experience difficulty with attention may also find the images interesting and motivating.
The program helps to develop the visual skills associated with:
- location - finding something on the screen;
- fixing - holding attention on an object;
- tracking - following an object’s movement across/around the screen.
Big Bang is especially effective when used with a projector in a sensory room. The visually stimulating images can be displayed in a continuous
sequence or can be used in early switch activities. In addition, they consist of nameable objects: this provides the teacher with language opportunities,
even where students do not have speaking ability themselves. The background colour can be changed to provide a valuable assessment tool for the determination of visual preferences and contrast sensitivity.
Similarly, the sound effects and music can be switched off to help ascertain whether the student is responding to the images or the sound. There are many options that can be set to tailor the activities to meet the needs of individual students. It is a good idea to review the options used with a particular student regularly, to provide advancement.
You can also create activities away from the computer by printing out the images or by using objects that relate to those on the screen.
Teacher Guidelines
Guidelines for teachers can be accessed from any of the activities in Big Bang.
There are four activities designed to be used at different levels of learning:
- Big Bang Actions provides lots of eye-catching movement, with crazy animations and sound effects to hold the attention. It also helps develop
an early understanding of the concept of cause and effect and promotes early language skills.
- Big Bang Builds also has lots of animated fun but the cause and effect element is more sophisticated: the action builds up in response to switch
presses. It helps develop skills of anticipation and an understanding of progression.
- Big Bang Movements has lots of objects that move about the screen in different ways. It encourages the development of tracking skills.
- Big Bang Colours is a simple cause and effect activity that changes the colour of the screen. It can also be used in colour naming work.
System Requirements
Operating System: Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
Operating System: Mac OS X
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