Quarter Hour Watch by Handitek AB

Time management for people who can't tell time.

The Quarter Hour Watch is an entirely new concept in time management for individuals with developmental disabilities. It lowers the level of abstraction to allow the use of "time" without needing to read a clock's time.

The basic principles are:

•   events are presented by pictures — easy to understand and easy to program to specific times.
•   these pictures are placed into the Quarter Hour Watch and the time remaining to the event is shown as lighted points. Each point represents one quarter of an hour. If there are 2 hours or more remaining to the event all the points are dark. After each quarter hour, a point turns light until they are all light and a signal is sounded and the points flash.

The pictures are placed on impact resistant plastic chips (about the size of 35 mm slides) that have programmable inserts on the back. The insert have a clock pattern and are simple to set for any absolute time.

With the Quarter Hour Watch, developmentally delayed individuals may gradually, and at their own speed, learn how to manage time related events. The most elementary use — how to use the device to be on time — might slowly but surely develop into use for planning in the time dimension.

The Quarter Hour Watch is small, robust and operates on 3 AAA alkaline batteries. It comes with 10 plastic chips, a mounting rack and carry bag.

Use any labels or symbol system for pictures: PCS, Imaginart, WorldWise, Pictogram, or photographs, cut outs from magazines, etc.