Historically, individuals experiencing profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) and other complex physical disabilities have had very limited opportunities to explore and develop their creativity and to use specially designed assistive technologies to improve their communication and learning.

With the help of a grant from Heritage Lottery, Ty Gwyn School alongside Forget-me-not-productions set out to address this and enable pupils to tell their story using specialist technologies. Using Forget-me-not’s MUSIC-CAN framework as a guide, they were able to make music using eyegaze or switch technology, jamming alongside a live musician, or controlling the music session using early communication technologies.

The project partners working in conjunction with Ty Gwyn were Maes Ebbw School, Ysgol Trinity Fields, Park Lane School, Gadlys Day Centre and 3 independent clients from FMN. Ysgol Hen Felin and Craig y Parc School also came on board towards the end of the project. Each project partner worked with FMN to give their most complex individuals the opportunity to achieve through technology, using music as the motivator. Craig-y-Parc provided the historical background.

The project was launched in January 2020, so as you can imagine it unfortunately came to a temporary halt in March 2020 due to COVID-19. The original plan was for the project to culminate in a sharing event at Ty Gwyn in July 2020 but this of course wasn’t possible. Instead, a documentary has been created to highlight the achievements of the participants along with interviews with AT/AAC users as well as professionals in the field. The link for the documentary is below: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jVvzHiAnPM

www.forget-me-not-productions.co.uk