wire when closing the battery door, then a notching tool can be used to file down a small area for the wire to go through near the battery hatch door. Many toys have multiple buttons and therefore they would not be easily switch adapted. These types of toys can be modified by opening the toy and adding in direct switches and ports. Makers Making Change have a step-by-step article on How to Switch Adapt Toys. SWITCH LATCH AND TIMERS (SLAT) A switch latch and timer (SLAT) is recommended as an ad- ditional key tool to support development of switch skills with battery adapted toys (See image 3). A SLAT is a device designed to adjust the activation time of a toy, allowing it to function for a set duration in seconds or minutes using a timer mode or oper- ate continuously in latch mode. When set to the timer option, ei- ther seconds or minutes can be selected to determine how long the toy or activity operates before stopping. The ability to add timed seconds/minute for the toy to play supports development of switch skills in that it does not require the individual to hold or depress the switch for it to play. Momentary/direct activation continues only if the switch is activated. This step should not last long before moving on. While direct causation is a first emergent step in switch skills, most need to be moved quickly on to the next step, which is to activate the switch, an activity plays, then stops to prompt re-activation. Higher level switch skill activation requires activating a switch once then activating again for an additional activation as opposed to maintaining contact. Using
Image 1: Touch switches with switch adapted spotty dog slide toy, alligator and bump and go train.
commercially switch adapted or can be modified with a battery interrupter to be used with a switch. A battery-operated toy that has a simple on/off button can be modified for use with a switch by using a battery interrupter (See image 2). A way to test this is to check if you can turn on a toy simply by switching a button to the "on" position, without needing to hold the button down or press multiple buttons simultaneously to keep it on. If so, then it likely will work with a battery interrupter. A battery interrupter is a copper disk that interrupts or stops the current from one end of the battery to the battery terminal. It then is connected to a mono stereo wire with a 1/8” jack for connecting any switch. You can make your own battery interrupters or purchase them from a variety of places such as Ablenet. When adapting a toy with a battery interrupter if there is not enough room for the
Image 2: Touch switch, battery interrupter, and battery-operated fan.
Image 3: Dual switch latch and timer (SLAT) from Ablenet.
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