Teaching Dimtseድምፄ · የንግግር ሰሌዳውን ማስተማር
A guide for the person sitting next to the child: parent, carer, teacher. The child has never used anything like this. Neither, probably, have you. That is fine. What matters most is not the camera or the calibration; it is what you do in the first three weeks.
This board is the child's voice, not a test. Nobody learns to talk by being quizzed; they learn because people talk to them, wait for them, and do what they say. Do those three things and the technology will follow.
Some steps mention the carer dashboard (adding tiles and photos, the activity chart, a note for each child). It is there whenever Dimtse is run from its own server program: add /admin to the board's address. A board published as plain web pages does not have it; there, use the tiles it comes with and its Settings. Everything about how you teach is the same.
1The set-up decides half of it
A webcam sees the eye as a few dozen pixels. Light and position matter more than any setting in the app. Do the same set-up every time, in the same place, so the child's body learns it.
Seated and supported: hips back, feet on something, head supported if it tends to fall. A child fighting to hold their head up has nothing left for their eyes.
Screen straight in front, top of the screen at about eye height. Not on a table below them looking down, not on a lap.
The child faces the window or a lamp. Never a window behind the child. In a dim room, a lamp beside the screen changes everything.
Just above or below the screen, pointing at the face. Check the small camera view: the border turns green when it sees a face. If it sees two, it draws a box on each; tap the child's.
Full brightness (the screen lights the face). Other screens off. One adult, not five.
Eye control is tiring. Two short sessions beat one long one. Stop while it is still fun.
2First sessions: "my eyes make things happen"
Do not start with needs. Start with delight. The only lesson of week one is that looking at something on this screen makes something happen. Nothing else.
- Start small: two big tiles at a time (only left or right matters) and a long hold. On the board, open Settings, choose Two things under How many choices, and set the hold time to about 2 seconds. Then press Next until you reach the tune tiles (Twinkle, Drum) or the colours (Red, Blue), and start there. If you use the carer dashboard, add the child with the First sessions template instead: it sets this for you and gives tiles that do something: a tune, a colour that fills the screen, a tickle.
- Choose Pointing: Head if the eyes will not calibrate yet. Head pointing needs much less precision, and many children start there. Eyes can come later.
- Calibration is your problem, not the child's. If they will not look at the targets today, skip it: use head pointing or the mouse and try again another day. Never turn calibration into a battle; you will lose the session and the child's interest.
- Whatever they choose, react: sing along with the tune, say the colour, do the tickle. Accidental choices count. That is how they discover the link.
- Keep it to five minutes. End on a success, even a small one.
"You looked at the music, and the music came!" Say what they did and what happened. Do not say "Look at the music" ten times. The first sentence teaches; the second nags.
3Use it yourself, all day
This is the most important thing on this page.
Children learn language from hearing it used, thousands of times, before they use it themselves. A child learning this board needs to see you use it. Speech therapists call it modelling, or aided language stimulation.
- Switch Control to Mouse (or touch the tiles on a tablet) and use the board while you talk, naturally: "Time to eat" (press Eat). "You look sad" (press Sad). "More?" (press More).
- Do it during real life: meals, dressing, play, bedtime. Not as a lesson.
- Expect nothing back. You are not asking; you are showing. A child may watch you do this for weeks before they try. That is normal.
- Aim to model ten times for every one time you ask the child to choose.
4Real choices with real results
From week two, offer two things the child actually cares about, and deliver at once. The choice only teaches if the result is real and immediate.
- Pick the two or three things they most want: a person, music, going outside, a favourite toy, tickles. Put those on the board first; the dashboard lets you add tiles and use real photos.
- When they choose Drink, the drink comes now. Not after "good looking!", not after a question.
- Honour every choice, including ones you think were accidents. If they choose Sleep and do not seem tired, say "You said sleep. Do you want to rest?" and offer it. Being taken seriously is the lesson; correcting it later is part of learning.
- Never quiz. "Where is the drink? Show me the drink" turns their voice into a test. If you want to know whether they know a tile, watch what they choose when they want something.
- Add the small powerful words early: More, Stop, Yes, No, Help. These work in every activity, so they get used often, and being used often is how a tile becomes a word.
5Wait. Then wait longer.
Children with cerebral palsy often need a long time to start a movement, including an eye movement. Ten to twenty seconds of silence feels endless to an adult. Count in your head. Do not fill the gap by choosing for them, pointing, or asking again.
The bar that fills up on a tile is their time. If it keeps filling on the wrong tile, make the hold time longer in Settings rather than jumping in. If nothing fills, that may be an answer too: not now.
6Keep it the same
A child learns where a word lives, with their body, the way you know where the light switch is in the dark. Every move of a tile costs them that.
- Keep tiles in the same place on the same page. Add new words; do not rearrange old ones.
- Leave "Put the most-used tiles first" off until the child knows the board well. It reorders tiles inside every page.
- Change the number of choices (the level) rarely, and only upward once the current level is easy.
- Same words, same voice. Record the phrases in your own voice, in the language the family speaks, and keep them.
7Growing: what comes next, and when
Progress looks like this. It is not a race and stages overlap; a child can be at stage 5 with music and stage 2 with food.
Move up a level when the current one is easy for a week, not when it is possible once. The dashboard's What they say tab shows how many choices a day and which ones; a rising line and repeated favourites are your evidence.
When feelings and pain come up, the follow-up questions (Sad → What about? It hurts → Where?) let a child say something no adult could have guessed. Add your own in the dashboard for the questions this child needs.
8If the child sees poorly
Many children with cerebral palsy have cortical visual impairment: the eyes work but the brain finds busy pictures hard. For them:
- Keep Colour only where I look on in Settings (the dashboard calls it Spotlight): the tile they are looking at is in colour; everything else is black and white.
- Fewer tiles: stay at two for longer.
- Nothing else on the wall behind the screen; nothing moving in the room.
- Try the dark screen setting if the bright one makes them look away, but note that it costs the camera some light; add a lamp.
- Give even more time. Looking is work.
9What to avoid
- Quizzing. "Show me the drink." "Where is Mum?" Their voice is not a test.
- Choosing for them because it is taking long, or moving their head toward a tile.
- Calibration battles. Three tries, then head pointing or another day.
- Rearranging the board to "help". It removes what they had learned.
- Praising accuracy ("good looking!") instead of responding to meaning ("You want Dad? Let's call him.").
- Long sessions. Tired eyes make wrong choices, and wrong choices teach that the board does not listen.
- Giving up in week one. Most children need weeks of watching before their first deliberate choice.
10A first month
| Week | Set-up | What you do | Success looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| One | First sessions template, two tiles, head pointing if needed, 5 min twice a day. | React to every choice. Model on the board during the day. No asking. | They look at the screen and react when something happens. |
| Two | Same, plus the two things they love most as tiles, with real photos. | Offer the two favourites at real moments. Deliver at once. Keep modelling. | One deliberate choice of a favourite, repeated on another day. |
| Three | Add More and Stop. Try eye calibration if head pointing is going well. | Use More/Stop in every activity, modelled first. Wait longer than feels natural. | More or Stop used on purpose in play. |
| Four | Three tiles at a time if two is easy. Basic needs template pages. | Model page turning. Introduce one follow-up question (It hurts → Where?). | They turn a page to find a word. Review the activity chart together with the family. |
Ten rules for the wall
- Light on the face, screen at eye level, body supported.Before anything else, every time.
- Five to ten minutes. Stop while it is fun.
- Use the board yourself, all day, expecting nothing back.Ten models for every one ask.
- Never quiz. Never "show me".
- Whatever they choose, it happens. Now.
- Wait twenty seconds. Then wait more.
- Say back what they said, then act on it."You said Mum. Let's call Mum."
- Do not move the tiles. Add, never rearrange.
- Calibration is the adult's problem. Three tries, then head pointing.
- It takes weeks. Keep going.
Where to be honest with yourself
A webcam is not a clinical eye tracker: accuracy is modest, which is why the board shows few, large choices. Some children will do better with head pointing. Some cannot aim at all but can press one thing: for them, set Control to Switch in Settings, and the board lights each tile in turn until a switch, a key or a tap chooses. If a speech and language therapist is available, involve them from the start; this guide does not replace one. And write down what works for this child (in their note in the dashboard, if you use it), so the next person does not start from zero.