Optimized Intervention® Offers Improved Training!
First Categories features Optimized Intervention® technology, an innovative assessment and training system that tailors instructional delivery to each student’s unique needs. The program constantly tracks a student’s performance and uses this information to provide highly individualized treatment. By continually making decisions about how to guide the learning process, Optimized Intervention® makes categorization training faster and more efficient.
Flexibility and control
Using Optimized Intervention® technology, First Categories begins with a probe test and then progresses through the categories in developmental order. You decide to train using two or three choices and whether to use illustrations or photographs. There are now four examples of each item to aid in generalizing the concept. For those who are motivated by visual stimulation, First Categories now offers exciting animated 3-D blocks and full-screen scene backgrounds. For learners who are easily distracted, a simple black background can be used.
At the end of each lesson, a summary of the student’s performance is presented, allowing you to quickly review progress and ensure accountability.
Now Includes 11 Activities!
In addition to Optimized Intervention®, this program offers 3 training activities, testing, and 6 supplemental activities.
Item Array - Inclusion
This activity helps students grasp the concept of categorization by grouping items from the same category.
Single Item - Inclusion
The student is asked to select an item that belongs to a particular category (e.g. “Which one is an animal?”)
Single Item - Exclusion
The student is asked to find the item that does not belong to a particular category (e.g. “Which one is not clothing?)
Build-a-Category
This single switch activity introduces one item at a time and then allows the student to see all of the items in a category together.
Robot Review
In this activity, each time the student selects an item, the narrator names that item and its category.
Find Four
In this activity, the student is asked to find four items that belong to the same category.
Magnet Match
The student is asked to match the item at the top of the screen to one of the four items at the bottom of the screen.
Pick-a-Pair
In this activity, the student is asked to find two items from the same category.
"This program is an award winner because it offers so many ways to customize the learning activity to suit the individual disability." Technology and Learning, Vol. 11, No. 3
