Episode 347: Adina Malamut: Collaborating to Support Accessibility Across Disciplines

In this episode of  Talking with Tech, Chris is interviewed by Adina Malamut, a graduate student and Employee Accessibility Specialist at the University of Texas at Dallas. Their conversation explores Adina’s professional background, her passion for accessibility, and her role in facilitating workplace accommodations. Chris shares insights from his extensive experience in assistive technology, discussing best practices for training, assessment, and systemic implementation of tools to support individuals with disabilities.

Key Ideas This Week:

Creative Versatility and Experimentation: Adina emphasizes the value of trying different styles and formats in her creative process, especially in comedy. She discusses how experimenting with diverse mediums—from writing and directing to performing—has helped her grow and connect more authentically with her audience.

The Power of Community and Collaboration: She highlights the importance of working with others in the creative field. Adina shares how collaborating with fellow artists and being part of supportive communities has enriched her projects and offered essential feedback and encouragement.

Personal Growth Through Vulnerability: A recurring theme is her willingness to be vulnerable in her work. She talks about how sharing personal stories and embracing imperfections not only deepens her connection with audiences but also contributes to her personal development as an artist.

Transcript of the Episode

Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.

00:00:08 Chris Bugaj
Welcome to the Talking with Tech podcast. My name is Chris Bugaj, and I'm not here with Rachel Madele. Today it's just me flying solo to offer you all an invitation. If you were to go back into the archives and listen to episode 315 with Doctor Yusung Chung, the banter of that episode is me sharing with Rachel a generative AI tool called Suno AI, or now it's suno.com. So if you go to suno.aiorsuno.com, what that is, is a music generator where you can put in some text and give it a prompt to say, turn this into a song that's a pop song, country song, heavy metal, punk rock, whatever, based on whatever the topic is that you wanted to talk about. So in that particular episode, we did one live and then we also shared a couple that we created. And so it was kind of fun. A lot of people have reached out since that episode saying that they've been using that tool to generate songs to give to kids or do use as part of professional learning or for whatever, whatever, maybe teach a concept of some sort, whatever it is. People have been reaching out saying that was a cool 1:00 and that they were using that resource. So we thought it would be fun here over the summer as we roll into the summer months that maybe if you wanted to, you could create some sort of song using suno.com or any other music generator, send it to us and we will create a mishmash of all the these songs related to AAC or Inclusive Design or Universal design. And we'll see what we do depending on how many, how many entries we get. Again, it's not really a contest. We just thought it would be something fun to do. So just send us your MP3 files or whatever, your audio files. You can send it at Talking with tech@gmail.com. We'll compile it all, throw everything into a folder, and we'll put it up as either a banter or its own episode, maybe a bonus episode. Who knows. We'll see what we do with it, but we just thought it would be a fun thing to do for the summer. We'll probably, you know, there'll be a day that we cut off taking the entries, probably, let's say, let's say the end of July, let's say July 31st, 2025. If you hear and listen to this before then, go ahead, make the audio file, send it to us, and we will then see what we do with it. All right, without further ado, let's listen to my interview with Adina Malamute. Welcome to the Talking with Tech podcast. My name is Chris Bouguet and I have the great fortune of being interviewed today by Adina Malament. How's it going, Adina?

00:03:13 Adina Malamut
Hey, good, good all.

00:03:16 Chris Bugaj
Right. So listeners, long time listeners in the podcast will know that I live near George Mason University. I have some contacts there that I've known for many, many years. You know, you make you make colleagues and friends and professional relationships over the years. And so long time listener to the podcast will know we've had these sort of episodes before where students in the field of of assistive technology have part of their assignment at at George Mason University is to interview a professional that works in assistive technology. The doctor, Cindy George is the teacher of this class and has contacts all over the state. And so all of the people in her class get assigned to somebody. And Adina, you got assigned to me. So I'm so great fortune. So, so Adina, let's I'm just going to turn it over to you. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do? And then I'll let you interview me.

00:04:08 Adina Malamut
Sure, let me. Where is it I I sent my blurb, but I will read my blurb. So first about me. I am a female white. I'm wearing a pink shirt. I have my hair up in like a bun, brown hair, blue eyes. And that's me. And so with I have a deep passion for accessibility, inclusion, equitable workplace solutions. I'm dedicated to ensuring that individuals, whether students or employees, can thrive without barriers. I currently serve as the Employee Accessibility Specialist mouthful at the University of Texas Dallas. So I'm in the DFW area where I collaborate with faculty, staff, and leadership in the interactive ADA process to create a level playing field for all employees. Through strategic problem solving advocacy, I help remove obstacles that hinder the workplace accessibility and success. And then I do have a background in special education. I was a speed teacher for 5-6. I lost count 5 or 6 years ranging everything from behavioral intervention to resource and in between. So I also have some personal experience with assistive technology as well as higher education as I'm working in a university currently. I spent years fine tuning my experience in adaptive learning and accessibility services. I'm currently, as you mentioned, at George Mason, getting my Master's in assistive technology and may can't come soon enough. And I hold a bachelor's from special in special education from the University of Texas at Austin. I've worked in both public and private schools, and I've also worked as an adaptive testing coordinator here at Utd before my current position. And I just made sure that students had the tools and the accommodations they needed to succeed. When I'm not in the accessibility realm, if you will, and, and working, I enjoy spending time with family, friends, and I also volunteer and ride at a place called Texas Therapeutic Writing Center where we serve veterans, children, adults with various needs, you know, with the transformative power of equine therapy. And I believe that with all the right support, anything's possible. And hopefully we can make that a reality.

00:06:50 Chris Bugaj
Idina, how is it that we've never come across paths before? Because it sounds like our paths would have crossed with all those great things that you're doing.

00:06:58 Adina Malamut
Yeah, I feel that with a lot of people. I'm just a little, a little, you know, little person out here in Texas and I'm trying to let's let's get the word out so.

00:07:08 Chris Bugaj
For sure. So just clarifying question, I want to make sure your current job you're working with the adults. Like if a if a employee needs an accommodation, they come to you as opposed to students at the university because there would be a different department. I bet you work closely with them, but you know your your jobs overlap sometimes. That is that. Am I, am I right in thinking that?

00:07:30 Adina Malamut
Yes, I am actually housed in the HR department in the HR office SO and I handle just the faculty and staff accommodations. Previously we were a part of the original Office of Student Accessibility. However, due to lots of different changes, government and and not, I am now back in HR and it's been awesome actually. So I'm learning the whole, I know the ADA side, but now I'm learning the whole HR side, which has been really, really cool.

00:08:06 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, that's, that's awesome. So are you familiar with the WCAG 2.2 guidelines? Is that your you or no? Okay, okay, okay, great. This is something we can talk about. Let me just say I'm wearing my Virginia Tech shirt. My my son goes to Virginia Tech, but my former colleague that worked in loud and his name is Mark Nichols. We have an episode with him. He is what you just described on the students side at Virginia Tech, he started a whole initiative there called the Choose Accessible Learning Materials initiative. So if you could picture all around campus like these posters and Flyers and magnets and bumper stickers, all about to help the teachers there choose accessible materials. But because, because it's an everybody thing, right? It's like professors need to know it, but also the employees need to know. And I bet, I bet there's employees that don't even know to ask you, right? Don't even know to come to you. And then once they hear about you, they're like you. Where have you been my whole life? Is that fair? Do you have stories like that?

00:09:10 Adina Malamut
Oh, yeah. I will say I've been in this current role for about a year and a half, going on two years. And when I first started, there was, I would say 40 to 50 folks coming in asking for accommodations per year. I'm getting that number per month now. So I have, which is great that we have, you know what I mean, that people know and and are aware. But I'm also like, holy cow, I'm a person in a team of 1. So it gets overwhelming sometimes, but it's really good.

00:09:45 Chris Bugaj
Do you tend to fight like I'm interviewing you? But do you tend to find when people reach out to you that you already have a solution? Like, oh, did you know we're Microsoft? And there's the ease of access, Or you have these accessibility features on our computers or if you're Mac, whatever. But you tend to be like, they just didn't know that it exists. And you don't have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to go find it for them. Or am I wrong? Like everyone's unique and you have to do a lot of research for each individual person.

00:10:11 Adina Malamut
So it really depends. Some folks are very simple and like, Hey, I just need some sort of something like an ergonomic chair or what have you. And I'm like, OK, great, here's Amazon and, you know, and, and depending on the department, some departments are a lot more open with accessibility and they have folks in house that can help, you know, walk them through certain things. I also work very closely with our OIT department, which is, you know, the, oh, hold on, what does the OIT stand for? Office of Information Technology? Yes, I'm like, wait a minute. And so they also help with making all of the technologies be accessible. So it's it's all-encompassing. So it really depends case by case, is that that's what I say. But depending on the person, I'm like, well, have you just asked for, you know, whatever it is, you know, and some, obviously some supervisors are a lot more open and lenient than others. And so I often have to coach the the folks like, hey, it's OK. Like this is going to help them. So they're not on a performance plan anymore. So yes.

00:11:34 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, it's going to make their job easier and they can actually focus on the work rather than how they get to the work, right or how they access the work right. And all that mental energy that it takes or sometimes physical energy to to get to just doing the job right. So that's great. That's great. So, OK, so talk to me about George Mason and how you ended up there and and this course and what are what you what you're thinking.

00:11:59 Adina Malamut
Wow, How did I end up here? I applied at a couple other universities for a variety of different things and it took me a while to hone in what I really wanted to do. And so I was bouncing around with, do I go in the higher Ed route since that's where I was originally? And then, you know, then I was in the classroom and do I don't go like curriculum instruction, like I don't know. So I was looking at different universities and then I just kind of was like, I have family who is from, you know, the Virginia area. So they're like, why don't check out, you know, this university? So I did and I was like, this is great. And number one thing is it's all virtual. So that was like the main thing was, can my classes be done online since unfortunately there is not an option here in Texas for assistive technology.

00:12:56 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, Yeah, you do have a strong, there's something called TATN Texas Assisted Technology Network, which is a big strong network. That's that helps a lot of people. But I don't know how tied they are to the university level. And like you said, if there's not a, there's not many universities that have an assistive technology, they might have courses, but they don't have an entire program like George Mason does. Yeah. All right. So you found George Mason, you took the class, and then part of the assignment is to interview me. So what kind of questions do you have for me?

00:13:27 Adina Malamut
I have lots of questions.

00:13:29 Chris Bugaj
All right, I'm ready.

00:13:30 Adina Malamut
So I will just kind of go down and then we'll just let it flow. But I guess first, like what is your degree and how did you get to where you are?

00:13:39 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. My background is speech. So speech therapy for the first three years of my career as at the at one of the elementary schools. And then in that time, they asked me to be one of the founding members of our assistive technology team, mostly because I just wasn't scared of technology. Like back in those days. Ready, Dina? I was using spreadsheets and some people were like, whoa, how are you organizing your data with spreadsheets? And I was like, well, OK, let me show you. And so that, and then communication devices, I wasn't afraid to, you know, to get in and, and mess with them. I was making videos on old, sorry, people can't see me, my old VHS camera with kids. And you know, hey, let's go interview the principal. And so, you know, to practice your speech, let's interview the principal and we'll make this little video and then you can show it to your parents about how you interviewed the principal and stuff like that, which at the time, not a lot of people were doing. So it it, my supervisor saw that I wasn't afraid of technology. You heard about this new concept of assistive technology. Great fortune to have a director at the time. That was very empowering. Like, OK, I'm going to put this team together and here's what she said. She's like, I don't know what assistive technology is. I know it's a thing out there. Go figure it out and come to me with what it is and then I'll listen to you or I'll have questions and we'll work it out from there. But she just gave us this feeling. All of us that started that team would say this kind of like a startup company. So you have this like drive, you know, to make it work and was really fun experience because we got to decide, you know, policies and procedures and then which doesn't sound that exciting, but right to outline how it's going to work. And then Adina, I would tell you if I could go back, like now I get to tell you all the mistakes we made because we didn't know what we were doing. You know, I mean, we did all right. And we, I think we helped a lot of people. But over the years it has definitely evolved. So that's my background is speech.

00:15:37 Adina Malamut
OK, good deal. And then how long have you been doing AT?

00:15:44 Chris Bugaj
Well, OK, so I started in my school district in 2000. No, sorry, 1999, 2000, that first year. And I guess so it's interesting because I've had assisted technology in my job title for 2423 years, something like that. But how long have I been doing ATI? Mean, I would say my entire career, right? I mean, I've been working with technology to help people. And that's really what the definition, if you boil it down, it's what is assistive technology? It's it's tough to help people get it's, it's stuffed for people to get things done, you know, just, and that can be high tech, low tech, whatever, anything in between. So it's just, yeah. So I guess my entire career.

00:16:32 Adina Malamut
Awesome. OK. So what jobs have you had and then obviously, what's your current job?

00:16:42 Chris Bugaj
So my current job is, well, I'll tell you, let's go, let's go, speech therapist for three years. Then the 4th year it was half speech and half starting the assistant technology team. They again great director realized that was really two full time jobs. And so the next year I became full assistant technology and then I've evolved from there to be the assistant technology specialist. So we started with a team of five and some of us were half time. We are now up to a team of 10/20 plus years later where I'm sort of the leader of that team, the assistant technology specialist I think of. So I'm an administrator level, but I think of myself as a support to the 9 facilitators that I support that spread out across our 100 schools. And so yeah, that's, that's the job title, Assistant technology specialist. Now also, I have done some other things in my career like this podcast. This is actually my second podcast, well, third podcast. I did a podcast called AT tips cast for many, many years and then my wife and I did one called Night Light stories. If you have a young child, it would still exist. You could go out and listen to night light stories right now. Before ChatGPT, we were writing original stories and putting them out for free on the Internet. Is my wife went to record them and we would write them together and then she put on her teacher voice and she would record them. So and then I've had the great fortune to write a couple books and do some online courses and I get to present a lot, which I'm really, you know, it's a, it's a passion of mine to kind of spread this kind of stuff. Like I heard that with you too. Like you, you seem like to want to get the word out. So, so yeah, I've had I, I wear a bunch of different hats that way.

00:18:30 Adina Malamut
Awesome, awesome. How do you stay current on the new trends? As technology is evolving by the minute almost? How do you stay current?

00:18:40 Chris Bugaj
Well, I have two pieces of advice there. But the way I stay current is, you know, social media gets a bad rap a lot of times, but it has been huge for my career and for my own professional learning. When Twitter first came on the scene, I, I was an early adopter, made lots of connections there. Those connections became friendships. Those friendships then, you know, there are people that I hadn't met in person, but I only knew them through Twitter. And then I meet them in person. And now it felt like we already, you know, knew each other. And so there's a lot of ways to stay current by learning from all these other people. My extended professional learning network, if you will. And so social media is big. And I would include with that podcasting. So when you are in a job like mine where you're driving from school to school, I mean, everyone usually has some sort of commute. I mean, even if you're working at home, maybe you're, you're, there's times when you couldn't be experiencing podcast content. And now with the podcasting apps that automatically transcribe everything like you, that's even easier. But for me, I was in the car a lot. So I was often listening to podcasts on Ed tech, instructional technology, different educational philosophies, dyslexia that you know would consume entire. Podcasts and and backlogs of podcasts about a particular thing, you know, whatever that might be, whatever, whatever was, I was sort of interested in and curious about. And that was a big, huge way to learn. And then the the other so, so social media, including podcasts. But then the other thing that I would say is it's, it's impossible to stay up on everything. I let that go a long time ago. Like, you know, like for instance, if someone posts something like the this, this app came out with the newest, newest update. There was a moment in my in my life where I was like, oh, I should have, I should have known about that. Like I should have. How come I wasn't the first one to tweet about that? Or how come I wasn't the one, the first, first one to share about that. And I realized there's no way we're all in it together. You, you can never stay up on top of it. But what we should do is when someone needs your help, like a someone coming to you going, hey, I had this issue, can you help me? That's when you can go and do the, the research to find out, OK, I don't have to know every app update and what happens. I have to know every new piece of technology. But when there's a need now, I know the resources I can go out to to find them, and I have people that I can ask if I get stuck.

00:21:23 Adina Malamut
Absolutely. Let's see how many or let's see here. Oh, can you describe a situation when you had to advocate for a various device and in the work or school setting?

00:21:47 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Which one do I pick? Because it's been many, many years. I mean, I guess what I tell you is when we first started, I thought of each individual person. I mean, I still do. But now in my, as things evolved, I started thinking more about systems in place and what barriers were there to get people what they needed. So there is all different types of advocacy. There might be parents that are nervous about it thing. So now you're advocating with a parent to get them a thing because they might not have adopted or approach it or use it without the right instruction. There's clearly the the financial one and having to convince, you know, as some sort of administrator that you need something. There's just too many stories that I could tell that that that that needed some sort of convincing. You know, overall, though, I can here's what the advice I would give you and anyone else listening is that the things not to do so one thing, don't get into a data war here. Let me show you the research on why we should do this or some sort of, you know, research war, because there's someone who can find the research to refute that. It's it's do the research. I'm not saying not to do it right, but I don't know that you use that in your convincing argument to, to try and sway anybody to, to put something in place. What works much better is, sadly, keeping up with the Joneses. Do you know that they're doing this over in Texas? Adina's doing it over at Dallas Fort Worth, and they're using it in their university. How come we don't have it here? Oh, wait. They are. What? What, what what is she doing over there? They got this software. Yeah. And it's for everybody. Like, it's not just someone who needs it. It's, it's, it's available to anybody, even if they don't know it's it. Maybe they have a temporary disability they don't need. Or maybe they just have a preference. These things are available to to everyone. Oh, OK. So that's what I mean by thinking in systems. I I really think now of a multi tiered system of support. Is that something, Is that a phrase you're familiar with from your time in the classroom or Yeah, you're nodding, right. So what's available to everybody? Let's try and let's try and make those as as robust and available and accessible to everybody. And then we can always tweak from there to say, OK, well that's not meeting everybody's needs. Let's go find something else. But it's really now advocating for a greater tier one or a greater breadth of tier one resources. Is that helpful? Oh.

00:24:30 Adina Malamut
Absolutely. That's awesome. Let's see, what strategies have you used when training clients and or caregivers on different devices?

00:24:48 Chris Bugaj
Well, people on the podcast are going to know what I'm going to say. They're going to guess it right now, but for years I here's a great story, Adina. I would go out to a classroom and I would say, you know what you need? You need this alpha smart with word prediction, this thing called Co writer. And then I got to the next classroom and and I make sure I get it to them and I do a little training and show them. And I would come home and I would tell my wife and young kids at the time how what an awesome day I had and how I had dad Daddy really helped people and kids go to sleep and tell me. I think I really like help people today, right? I think I, I did a good thing and then I would do it again. I help this person get a communication device. And, and now that I told him, you know, here's what you need model on the device as much as you can. And they would go, okay. And then I would leave and come home and feel real proud of myself again. And then I would go and do that over and over and over and over again. And then I'd do a follow up like a month later. Would it be a different question? Or I'd come by and they weren't really using that alpha smart and they weren't using the communication device. They weren't doing any of the things I directly said to them. And at first, before I noticed the pattern, I was like, what's wrong with them? Why won't they adopt the thing? I, I told him what to do. I explicitly said, you know, touch these buttons. I explicitly said, dude, I even came up with some cool way that the kid might like, like, you know, do it in a fun way. We're not doing what I'm saying. What is wrong with all of these people? Oh, wait, what's wrong? What's the common denominator? It's me. There's something I'm doing wrong when I'm the device might be right. The but the strategy for having how to adopt the device is wrong. And that led me through a whole bunch of learning, professional learning, different podcasts to listen to, like I said before, books to read. But that really led me to this concept of motivational interviewing, which is in the world of psychology, someone needs help with something. You can't just say it like someone says, hey, I'm going to go to my psychologist because I need help losing weight. Let's say that's the thing. I want to lose some weight. And you go and sit down with a psychologist and they go, you know what? You do you. You should walk more and you should eat less. Yeah, I know that. I know that that it's, it's not that simple, right? It's. So how do I build routines into my life? And what the psychologist will do is they'll do motivational interviewing. I don't know how. How do you build routines in your life? I don't know. What should I do? Well, what what routines do you think you could do? Where some where's the place You could make a change in your life? And what it's going to get to is asking more reflective questions. And so now when I go into classrooms or I'm working with staff or I'm working with my team or our team together, I instead of saying do this, I ask more reflective questions. And such a big thing in my life, but I think any professional really is the 8020 rule. So the 8020 rule applies to AAC. Like if you did this, if you made a recording of any word conversation, maybe not this one, but many, including this one, I'm just joking. Any conversation you'd find and you did like a transcript, you'd find 80% of the words are made-up of the same set of 350 words, right? So same. And then 20% is all the other words. People listening to this podcast know that Corvo tabulary and fringe vocabulary. But the rule behind that, that 8020 rule seems to apply in my life all the time. Like maybe 80% of the time I was directly telling people what to do and 20% of the time I was asking reflective questions. And now I flipped it. That's like now I lead with asking reflective questions. Occasionally I'm like, can I, can I, can I just tell you what you need to do? Just do this. Like, but now I'm much more like a scalpel with that rather than just, you know, spray and pray.

00:28:36 Adina Malamut
OK, I like it 8020. Let's see. Another good question. Oh, when you're doing an assessment of a person with either a disability you're not familiar with or a device you're not familiar with, excuse me, what resources or research do you do? You do.

00:29:01 Chris Bugaj
Love it. All right, so there's layers to that question because over the years I might have said we've made lots of mistakes, right? Well, one of the big mistakes we did was that word assessment. So the you, I'm sure you're taking a class, you're taking, you're getting your certificate, right? Certificate or you're getting your whole master's.

00:29:21 Adina Malamut
The whole masters.

00:29:22 Chris Bugaj
Whole masters and assistive technology, you know the definition, right and in that definition of an assistive technology service, one of the words is evaluation. Well back in those early years, we didn't know how to do an assistive technology evaluation. There were some places that were sort of giving advice on how to do it, but what we knew how to do was speech language evaluations of a speech therapist. You know, we had occupational therapist on our team, so they knew how to do OT evaluations. And so we used the same sort of formula of like go out, observe, ask questions, maybe try some things and then write it up into a report and give it out. Right. And that I'm not going to say it didn't work, but it wasn't as efficient as about what I'm going to tell you now what it evolved into, which is having more conversations. So where we live now is let's oh, OK at this. You, you think a kid needs something, let's say a communication device. You think a kid needs a communication device? You called me for help. Here's how we're going to help. We're going to get the entire team together, the OT, the PT, the speech, the parent, the private speech therapist, anyone that's involved in this team. And we're going to have a meeting, maybe 2, where we're going to ask questions about who the student is and what their abilities are. We're going to ask about the environment that they're in and what they're used to and what everyone in the in the environment is used to and what challenges them and what they like and that kind of stuff. And then the we'll ask about, OK, well, what are we, what are the barriers? What are the tasks that we're asking the kid to do or the person to do? We're we're gathering information as we're asking those questions again, leading with questions, documenting answers. And then that becomes the first, those sort of bullet points there become the first column in a table. So if you can picture a column. So OK, hey, you're thinking communication device. What what languages do you speak at home? English and Spanish. OK, so we need something with English and Spanish. Do we all agree English and Spanish needs to OK, great. Let's write that on there. All right, let's talk about the access method. You know what? Oh, OK, so you see him like pushing YouTube on your phone, mom, with his index finger. So you think he can hit things with his with his index finger on a phone. OK, so we can target something that's small. All right, small enough to target with a finger. Let's put that in the in the right. And so we ask questions to fill out this sort of first column. And sometimes that's kind of straightforward. Sometimes there's a lot of discussion around that. But then you go, OK, then my job is the assistant technology person is to fill out the columns, fill out the headings of the next columns, which is OK, what are some things out there that might meet a bunch of these things? Is it this app, or is it this app, or is it this hardware? And you make a list based on each as many as you want. Then anyone on the team can do it. It's not like I have some sort of, I just have some experience, right? But anyone else can go out and search and, you know, look, do the research as well. They can all ask Chachi PT just like I can, you know, what would meet this, this, these, these parameters and they put them in there. And then we have that either a second meeting or sometimes we can do it right in the same meeting. If you depending on you know, how fast it is and what the, what the, what the questions are, what the answers are. But you then fill out the chart. OK, Which of these is going to restrict which of these options in the ensuing columns it restricts the student the least way, sort of matches all the criteria we listed in that first column and then let's pick something. So there is no, this is a big thing for me. There is no trial. I'm not trialling something I'm implementing. We just spent a bunch of time picking what we think is going to restrict the student the least. I don't need to guess anymore. This is what we're implementing and let's go. And then we'll collect data on the the abilities of the student. And if things are not going the way we thought, we can always come back to that table and readjust. But but we're not sort of haphazardly going. I don't know. Yeah, I think it may be touch chat. Let's try that. I don't know, maybe lamp wards for life or I don't know, should be on this device or this device. It's not random, it's select. We've really done our due diligence to select what we think is least restrictive and then we rock'n'roll.

00:33:51 Adina Malamut
I like it. OK, that leads me to my next question. How do you collect and keep data and keep it all organized?

00:33:59 Chris Bugaj
So here's I don't collect data. So system technology, I don't collect data. It's empowering the team to do that and something we learned and has never changed right away is don't collect data on the device, collect data on the goal. So that's really the IT. So did you write the right goal that that can that's a thing. But really you're just students make progress on goals and you're measuring goals. You want performance to change. You know, now sometimes that is operational. Oh, the goal is to turn it on or to keep it clean or whatever the thing might be. It's it's rare, but it's, it's can be a thing. Mostly it's about, you know, the students ability. So are you measuring? Are their abilities growing? And that's what you measure and that people already know how to do or maybe they need some guidance and some tweaks. But that is not foreign concept to anybody. Like, oh, OK, as a special Ed teacher, right, for many years, you collect data, right? So, but you're not collecting data on the device you're collecting. I mean, on the, on how much they're using the device, it's how much their language is growing or how many sentences they wrote or how many, what's their mean length of utterance or stuff like that. Does that make sense?

00:35:15 Adina Malamut
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Have you done more than one AT assessment at a time?

00:35:25 Chris Bugaj
Well, yeah. I mean, Once Upon a time we used to do classroom assessments. So we'd come in and observe the entire classroom and then give sort of input about what would be sort of stuff we could put in that environment. We've sort of shifted away from doing those because again, thinking, well, what can we move as Tier 1? So these are available in in any classroom, right. So then I would say the way our current process works where we're having these conversations as sort of structured conversations, we don't do 2 at once, but sometimes when a student has very similar needs, or let's call it a profile, this this kid also speaks Spanish at home. And this kid also can direct select with their finger. And oh, this kid also is in the classroom with other kids that is using this app. And the parents are like, if things line up, it could make it a little bit easier or streamline the next time. Again, we're having, we still have different players in every meeting because the parents are there. But imagine that private speech therapist is also there and now they know what our process is like. So sometimes it can get a little bit faster but and still land on the very appropriate thing. But it's rare that we're doing 2 at the same time.

00:36:47 Adina Malamut
OK, that was my like fear is what are too many people all at the same time? Like how do you keep it all together?

00:36:56 Chris Bugaj
Well, there's a lot of needs out there. I mean, yeah, I would say in any school district, anywhere in the country, maybe the world, people are going to tell you they don't have enough of the right, especially AAC, because it hurts. Nobody helps everyone. Could we be doing something where imagine a world where there are three iPads in every kindergarten, just general Ed kindergarten, three iPads in every first grade or maybe 5. Like it's going to help not just the kids that that absolutely require assistive technology, don't absolutely require AAC. There'll be kids who don't qualify for AAC, but they'll be using or qualify for special Ed, right? But they will still use that AAC to learn, right? Think of it more of an instructional tool than a special Ed. Unique unique to special Ed.

00:37:52 Adina Malamut
That reminds me of in my previous school district I was at, every student had in the K through 5th grade or 6th grade I should say. I had one to one iPads, which was incredible to see. I had a student on my caseload who had a pretty significant visual impairment, had some vision, but pretty significant. And I walked him and his family through all of the accessibility features and then his, you know, not Co workers, but classmates were like, wait, how do you do that? How come he can do it and I can't? And I was like, hold on, let's have a whole class discussion on how you make things bigger or how you can have it automatically read to you or all of these different features. And then I did a lot of workshops with the teachers on campus to say, hey, this is how you can, you know, it's free. It's built in like it's right here. You might need to update it, but that's easy. So it was really cool that.

00:38:56 Chris Bugaj
Makes so much sense that's what we're doing a lot with AAC now is going into kindergarten, first grade classrooms. Hey, you're going to have a friend in here or you have a friend in here. Let's show you how you use these things right and then just to be clear about we we do we've had one-on-one to one initiatives. I think that's sort of many places in the country have one to one initiatives. I'm talking about an additional iPads that have the so you don't have to close out of your let's say you're, you're doing some sort of some sort of game or some sort of app on the iPad. You don't want to close that and then open up your AAC to use it. Do you could go use the other iPad that's sort of sitting at the table to to model or talk about if that if that makes sense?

00:39:36 Adina Malamut
That would be really cool. All right, Yeah. What's your iPads for all? Yeah.

00:39:42 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Well, and like I said, there's so many, not just iPads, but just tools in general. That's just an example where like you just described making it people aware and making it available at A at a level where everyone can see it or experience it.

00:40:02 Adina Malamut
Absolutely. Let's see, those were all of my questions, I think.

00:40:16 Chris Bugaj
All right, Well, let me ask you.

00:40:17 Adina Malamut
Yes.

00:40:18 Chris Bugaj
Some questions. So how did you get interested in this? What what was your catalyst into working in this area in the first place?

00:40:26 Adina Malamut
So I'm a third generation speed teacher. Well, used to be, but anywho, my grandmother did inner city behavioral when before, you know, it was even a thing. And she worked at state schools and things of that nature. And then my mom worked with the medically fragile population in the preschool area and I got to witness and see first hand because we also I went to the school that she was at, you know, all of the students and how much growth and awesomeness that my mom can do like, hey, why not, right? And then I grew up and I was like, I'm not going to be a speed teacher. Poo poo that you know, And then here I am getting my degree in speed. I will also say that my mom growing up, my mother also has currently too a pretty significant visual challenge. She was not able to drive my entire life. Still not. And so I grew up having my mom with all of these different devices and, you know, the big zoom thing and different magnifiers that were like the size of my head before. They were like, you know, the little ones and all these different lighting equipment and all this different stuff she got from various entities around town and Texas workforce and whatnot, and how it helped her. And this was, you know, before technology was even like really a thing, so to speak. And then I, as I was going through school, I also had my fair share of needing my own situation and, you know, accommodations and whatnot. So I was able to get various devices and one of those reader pens that really, really helped. And then made it, you know, college and what have you. And then after college, I was like, technology's booming. Like where? And it's so niche, like, and then I learned about assistive technology through my current workplace. And they were like, why don't you look into this more? And I did. And I was like, sign me up. Why haven't I like learned about this before? Why isn't there more, you know, degrees out there or certification or whatever it is? And I just went down the rabbit hole of I need this in my life. There's so much you can do with it. And it's only going to help the mask population, whether you're working with students, you know, in K through 12 or you know, the adult population or the elder population. So it really just depends, you know, it can help all. So that's kind of my deep dive in all AT that's.

00:43:19 Chris Bugaj
That's awesome. And it, I mean, it makes so much sense it everyone in their life is going to experience something like that where they're going to need some sort of technology to help them accomplish something they're trying to do. Can I ask a follow up question about your mom? Does she still use like a different sort of magnifier or is everything on her phone and a or a commercial tablet?

00:43:40 Adina Malamut
So she uses her phone, she uses her iPad, she still has her desktop with Zoom text and all of that. She doesn't use it very often, just it's cumbersome. And with technology these days, your iPhone and various things, it's all there like in your hands. So she prefers that just because it's just easier.

00:44:04 Chris Bugaj
It makes a lot of sense to me. I feel like that has opened up the world to a lot of people too, where you can imagine going and if I pull out this device that nobody else has and sort of I could be especially like we see this a lot in middle school. I don't want to do anything different than anyone else is doing. So I'm not going to use some sort of device that you tell me to use or that you give to me. But if it's well, wait, everybody has one of these things and I just use it differently. And in fact, you could do it too, like back to your showing the kids those features right then, then it just helps everyone and it spreads the the sort of the the love like like, hey, there were times where I've been on the plane and I've seen someone like struggling and I'm just like, do do I say like, Hey, do you know you have these features on your phone? You know, like do I? But it just helps everybody when it's there, you know?

00:44:55 Adina Malamut
Absolutely, yeah. And then you don't get into a situation where you're lugging like all this equipment and backpacks or rolly bags and, you know, trying to like, read the little, you know, things on when you're going grocery shopping and you need to read the ingredients 'cause you're allergic to this, that or the other. And you're like, I can't, you know, see this. And I have to bring out my big old, you know, telescope looking thing, you know, like it's just not not feasible when you just zoom done.

00:45:20 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Yeah. Well, OK. So it's interesting you mentioned those, those labels, right, Because something that's sort of been sort of a hot topic right now. If, if you're not, well, we should say it's probably not a hot topic yet, but it's going to be all right. So here's what's going on. So you're familiar with the ADA, right? You probably work with it all the time or the, you know, American Disabilities Act and there was last April, April 2024, the Department of Justice, So different administration at that time. We'll see what happens, but it's still what I'm about to tell you is still true. At the moment of this recording, they put out a new rule that goes with the ADA that says anything that you're, if you're receiving federal funds, if you're a public entity, then you need to make sure anything you're putting online is accessible to the point with I guess accessible using WCAG 2.2 guidelines. These are just, if you were to Google it, it's just a list of things like, you know, text can be read out loud, you know, that sort of stuff. So that when your mom gets to zoom text, it actually works, you know? And so, so there's this, this whole list of criteria. Well, why I say this is going to be a big thing, the big changes. Well, we hasn't that always been like, haven't our websites needed to be? Yes, front facing websites started there, but now they're saying anything that you put online, which means like you work at a university, I'm sure they use Canvas or Schoology or some sort of online platform to look you're at, you're at George Mason that you're, what do you guys use? Do you use Schoology or platform?

00:47:17 Adina Malamut
Switching over to canvas.

00:47:18 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, that's going to have to be everything they put up there. When they give you a Google Slide, when they give you APDF, when they share something, it's going to need to follow those accessibility guidelines. Or again, people could file lawsuits around, hey, the Department of Justice, this is the law. This is what you're supposed to do. I'm sure it'll start off with hand slaps, but it will be. It could be something that becomes really sort of foundational in changing because for many years we've been Trump like, yeah, wouldn't why wouldn't you want your your stuff to be accessible? But if you don't know how to do that as a teacher, like I am just a nurse science teacher, meaning I know how to teach earth science really well. I don't know how to make my stuff accessible. How do I do that? Right? It's going to be a become a big thing and just about every school district, because the rule is depending on your size, you're going to have to do this by 2000, like April 2025 or April 2026, which means that's like here, you know what I mean? Like or maybe it's 2026 and 2027. My point is it's imminent, you know, that we're going to have to start addressing this. I do have fear, Adina, of something we've seen, again, an assistive technology land, but really an educational land is, oh, because of generative AI, I'm going to make everybody put their technology away. You don't need those. And also, screens are evil. No one told you screens are evil. So put the screens away. You're not supposed to use those screens in this classroom. Here's your, what's that reader pen you have, Adina? Put that thing away. There's no screens in this. You have to write it by hand in this composition notebook. And we've certainly seen a rollback that that one to one Chromebook, you have put it away. We're going to hand write this because I don't know that you didn't use generative AI. Rather than let me teach you how to use generative AI to write an even better essay, it's I want to anchor it in the old way. So my fear is, oh, so this new law that we have to make everything accessible, if we put it up on Canvas or Blackboard or Schoology, I just won't put it up in Kansas blackboard or Schoology. I'll just say, you know, here's a piece of paper and because that's not breaking the law, right? Like if I give you this, which right, I know, right sketch, but I think that's what school districts are going to be like. You think, I don't know exactly when where you are in your like how soon you are from graduating, but that and then what you're going to do, like if you're thinking you're going to move to a different job, you don't have to say any of that here on the podcast. But if you're thinking like, oh, maybe schools is something in my future that could be a big part of it is like, wow, assistive technology just took a front seat in how do we make sure that the stuff we're providing is accessible using these guidelines?

00:50:06 Adina Malamut
Yeah, I'm, I'm in the process right now of working on with our IT department as well as our web developers, our HR website specifically and making sure that's accessible. I have heard the the laws that are coming out and I've been like, hey, just so you know, like it's coming quicker than you think. So it's, it is people are aware. My concern is we have a lot of international faculty and staff and that opens a completely different can of worms from everything of not only do I not know how to do this, it's not in my native language. And on top of that, it's not really like we don't, it's not represented in our society. It's it's taboo, if you will. So that's part of my concern is, you know, of course there's like workshops and seminars and you can preach to the choir here. But at some point, some, I mean, yeah, you're just, I don't know.

00:51:25 Chris Bugaj
Well, I mean, I think what you we're bringing up here is an excellent point because again, back to the sort of maybe the theme of our conversation is that it helps everybody, right? And so if you build things following these WCAG 2.2 guidelines, then your text, for instance, will be translatable for the digital translator, right? You can copy that text and put it where you want, right? And so people that need it in language other than the language that it's presented in would also be advocates for saying, Hey, I needed to be in an accessible format. Even if I don't have a disability. I would argue that it would be so much better if we didn't call it accessible and we just called it usable like, because then it because then people wouldn't have this sort of like, well, I don't have a disability. I'm not going to go to that section of my phone to look for features because I don't have a disability. But if we just said it's the usability section of your phone, oh, well, what makes my things more usable, right. And I'm not even talking stigma. I'm just just finding it. You know, there should be no stigma around it, but it just finding it, you know, and like you said, maybe it's cultural in some regards where people are like this. This is not something that we really talk about in our culture. But again, all that sort of goes away if you call it a different things or maybe it's addressed in a different way if you call it a different thing. So it's just stuff to help you get stuff done, you know?

00:52:47 Adina Malamut
And that's what, how I preface like, yeah, you have to meet with me and there's laws and guidelines and all this hoopla that we have to, you know, do. But in order for us, you know, to meet the ADA guidelines, I need documentation to say, yes, you have a disability or yes, you have this condition. And your provider says, yes, you need these accommodations, XY or Z. You know, I can't. And this is what I get a lot is I don't know what I need. Tell me what I need. I'm like, well, I don't know you, I don't know your job. I mean, I can look at the job, you know, and and see what the essential functions are, but just cuz you have ADHD and the next you know, person has ADHD, it's going to look completely different. So it's case by case and you know, you might need a reader pen and you know, someone over here might just need to record the meeting. So, you know, it's, it's, it's so vast.

00:53:40 Chris Bugaj
Isn't that so interesting that like you could be in a meeting and just look around, they get the 5th. Let's say you're meeting with six people. They'll all be doing something different. Someone will have a Mac, someone will have APC, someone will be handwriting. It gets all different. But in schools, we sort of force or lean into everyone has to do the exact same thing. So it makes a lot of sense when you're helping people that you really need to talk about who they are and what they want to do and the environment that they're in to help them sort of weed through all the different stuff out there and all the different options.

00:54:14 Adina Malamut
Absolutely.

00:54:15 Chris Bugaj
Well, Idina anything else?

00:54:19 Adina Malamut
I don't think so. Do you have other questions for me?

00:54:23 Chris Bugaj
Well, I do have a way that I like to end the interview and that is sort of, I ask everybody sort of a similar question, which is, you know, here you are in professional in college, You're curious about something like something's on your mind. What's sort of popping off right now in the world that we live in regarding, you know, assistive technology or inclusive design or whatever. What's something that's I don't know you're curious about or wondering about or questing after, or, you know, what's something that's on your mind around that?

00:54:59 Adina Malamut
I guess just because I was just looking at it in terms of getting certified as an AT specialist and making sure that I stay up on the, you know, that you have to recertify every so often and take, you know, all of these different courses to make sure you have continuing education and whatnot. And I'm like, OK, how do I do this? It's really expensive. Is this even something that I need to do? You know, like all of these different questions, like, OK, well, you know, like in order to be a lawyer, you have to take the law and the bar and to practice law. I'm like, well, I'm getting my degree in AT. Am I not going to be able to practice AT if I don't have my certification? Just like, you know, teaching and like all of these different things is popping in my head like, oh, no, you can't do this or you can't do that. I'm like but wait, what can you do?

00:55:54 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, that's so ask me what my certification is an assistive technology. I don't have one. I just have a lot of experience, right. Because if you think about it in some regard, everybody has some knowledge going. Can we can we just talk about like even if you didn't have anything, you have experience around reader pens and and equipment to help people with visual impairments just in your life, let alone right. So and think about everybody has a way to brainstorm, well, what kind of stuff could we use? What kind of strategies would you put in place when you're talking about certification? Are you talking about the Rezna certification? Yeah. So highly controversial in the in the world of assistive technology. Some people will be like, it's just really helped me because sometimes, you know, I've been in a situation where an advocate came at me and said, hey, what's your credentials? And I had those, those that certification, but you said it's kind of expensive and it's really take a test and others will say, I got my residence certification. It's never helped me once. I, I don't know why I'm keeping up on it. I still do my job really well without having it. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's up to you, right? Everyone has to make their own and where you think it if it if it's going to help you or not. I but I don't think I have been a strong advocate in my entire career that it shouldn't be imposed on anybody. Meaning you shouldn't have to have your certification to be able to help in assistive technology.

00:57:28 Adina Malamut
OK. Thank you.

00:57:29 Chris Bugaj
Like think of it, if you're an occupational therapist, do you have the skills to help somebody with using technology? Of course, right? How about speech and AAC, right? And sometimes both. So it wouldn't want to live. Assistive technology doesn't necessarily live in its own profession, even it's sort of spans a bunch of professions.

00:57:49 Adina Malamut
Absolutely.

00:57:50 Chris Bugaj
Cool.

00:57:51 Adina Malamut
Cool. Thank you so much.

00:57:54 Chris Bugaj
All right, well, Adina, good luck. I'll be eager to hear how the rest of the semester goes and the class goes. And you know, I'll be seeing Cindy. I see Cindy George a number of times a year, so I'll check and check in with her. And don't be a stranger. Feel free to reach out with anything else you need there in Texas or with the with with your with your master's work.

00:58:16 Adina Malamut
OK. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

00:58:19 Chris Bugaj
Thanks, Adina. Bye, bye now.

00:58:21 Adina Malamut
Bye.