Assistance with Autistic Child who likes to click the mouse button a lot ..

Afternoon all..

Right, I've just had a phone call and I'm going to do a bit of research as well, but figured just in case the wheel has already been invented I'd check here too ..

The basic story is there is an autistic child who likes the sound the mouse makes when you click it, so as soon as they get their hands on the mouse they click it a lot, which has implications when using the computer obiously.

Now, the student in hand has full time TA Support, but this isn't enough to stop it, so just wondering if anyone knows of a solution in windows (or as additional software) that will only let the mouse respond to a certain number of clicks before there having to be a delay etc, or a hardware solution that does the same?

Any help would be gratefully recieved.
Andy :)

How about their own non-clicking mouse?

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Originally Posted by creese

How about their own non-clicking mouse?

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Have thought about it, but what are peoples experiences of these? I know silent keyboards are silent for, oh about a day, then they start to click just like the rest ..

Never used one. But when you think about it they were designed to click for a reason, so no reason why they can't be made not to. I think we 'need' it like clicks on soft keyboards on phones.

could you set it up as a left handed mouse and disable right click?

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Originally Posted by sted

could you set it up as a left handed mouse and disable right click?

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It's an option, but sadly, the problem would still exist as the mouse would still click and once they knew which button to be pressing it'd be back to square 1 ..

I might investigate the silent click mouse option ..

Can you give him an old broken mouse with the cable chopped off for him to click when he likes? The TA could use the normal mouse for him and try and slowly encourage him to use the proper mouse normally and get all his clicking-needs done on the pretend-mouse...

Just trying to keep it simple!

A bit like a technical version of bubble wrap.

One road you might go down is that Google Apps do a remote to use a touch screen as a mouse or possibly even a joystick.

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Originally Posted by sonofsanta

Can you give him an old broken mouse with the cable chopped off for him to click when he likes? The TA could use the normal mouse for him and try and slowly encourage him to use the proper mouse normally and get all his clicking-needs done on the pretend-mouse...

Just trying to keep it simple!

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I'll certainly suggest it to the TA and see what they say ..

Take a look at Inclusive Technology - All The Help You Need they have a lot of alternative mouse options and if you ring up and explain the clicking problem I am sure they can help.

I would be very surprised if an old broken mouse would work.

EDIT: link to mouse alternative page http://www.inclusive.co.uk/catalogue...cessories.html

Just been speaking to our ICT Coordinator (the request is actually from another school not from our own as we are a specialist school with a large number of autistic students) and she's suggested hand-over-hand control from the student's TA which will hopefully increase an awareness of control over a period of time ..

So, similar to the "dead mouse" option but more focussed on tackling the problem directly ..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sonofsanta

Can you give him an old broken mouse with the cable chopped off for him to click when he likes? The TA could use the normal mouse for him and try and slowly encourage him to use the proper mouse normally and get all his clicking-needs done on the pretend-mouse...

Just trying to keep it simple!

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A broken cordless mouse and keyboard sit in front of the monitor in our pre-school where they have the same problem... the ones that are actually connected to the PC are on a shelf :)