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NORTON -- The third-graders giggle as Joyce Simard dons a pair of oversized star-shaped, blue-lensed eyeglasses.

"Sometimes when people get older, they have trouble...What?" she asks the Solmonese Elementary School class. "Seeing!" they respond in unison.

"What might you do to help?" she then queries.

Simard, adopting the persona of "Grandma Joyce," pulls out more props, engaging and guiding the children to suggest ways to help an older adult through other paces, like assisting with a cane or a walker, or speaking - not screaming - loudly and clearly when talking to someone who may have limited hearing.

And then she talks about Alzheimer's disease. A large number of the children raise their hands when she asks how many know about Alzheimer's. About half of them keep their hands raised when she asks how many of them know someone who has the disease.

Alzheimer's and other memory loss ailments, she tells the children, "is like having a tape recorder in your brain, and when it's off, you don't remember."

"But when I was younger, my tape recorder was on and I can remember way back," she said in assuming her character as a grandmother with memory loss.

Simard, who is a social worker and has worked with Alzheimer's patients for 29 years ("before we knew it was Alzheimer's," she notes), said the idea of talking to children about the disease was born about six years ago after she spoke to a woman whose father suffered from the memory-robbing illness. The woman talked as though her father had died of the disease, but when Simard asked when he had passed, the woman told her, "Oh, he's not dead." But she no longer took her children to visit him. "They think he doesn't love them because he doesn't know their names," the woman told Simard.

Simard has heard that sentiment in Alzheimer clinics and other care facilities.

"You don't see kids at dementia units," Simard said. Or the few who do visit are often seen "huddling by the door."

Simard's goal is to generate discussion between parents and their children about Alzheimer's and related conditions that may affect older family members, noting 5 million people are diagnosed with Alzheimer's and 1 in 7 people over age 70 are affected.

Many times the families of those patients do not understand the disease or how to deal with the person, or, "they feel the need to protect their children" and keep them away, she said.

"Alzheimer's takes enough of a toll on families; children don't need to lose their relationship with a grandparent, too," Simard said.

Simard has two self-published books, one for young children called "The Magic Tape Recorder: A Story About Growing Up and Growing Down." In it, she tries to make it less scary for children encountering a relative with the disease. Through her book and program, this one at Solmonese sponsored by EPOCH Assisted Living of Norton, she offers simple advice and examples to children on how to relate to the elderly, including those with Alzheimer's.

"You can catch the flu, you can catch a cold, but you can't catch Alzheimer's," she assures the children through her presentation.

"It's O.K. to kiss people who have Alzheimer's disease."

In her program, she involves the school children in practicing a visit and talking to a person with memory loss. She has them approach her and say their name, as if they were approaching a grandparent with dementia. She explains that sometimes those adults can be worried or upset or frustrated with memory loss.

She suggests bringing something that the Alzheimer's patient can relate to, like a older model car, or doll. The students offer questions they can ask: "What kind of car did you have?" "What was your first car?" "What color was it?"

Simard responds to the children as though through her own memories of those items.

She pulls out a movie with a picture of a train. "Did you see this movie?" asked a boy in his role as a child visiting his grandmother with Alzheimer's.

"I did not see this movie, but when I was a girl, I rode a train like this to Boston," Simard responds.

She suggests the children bring things to trigger memories. "Sometimes when people have Alzheimer's disease it's hard for them to think of something to say."

Simard, dressed in a rainbow-colored sweater and colorful socks, invites three girls to conduct yet another experiment in how to relate to a grandmother with memory loss.

"Grandma Joyce has a colorful sweater and colorful socks, but my hair is dull," she said. "Do you think you can help me?

The girls happily start putting her hair in colorful pony-tail ties.

"Do you think I should go to a really good restaurant looking like this," Simard says jokingly to the children. Some venture a "no."

"But is my hair dull anymore?" The children say, "No."

"It's funny," said one little girl in the audience.

"What did we all do?" Simard says as a prompt. "We laughed. Even with somebody who has big memory troubles, you can still have great giggles."

And though that person might not remember your name, "it doesn't mean they don't love you," she added.

There was proof that Simard's message had reached at least one family in her recent presentations to third graders in Norton.

She received an e-mail from the mother of one student who said her husband did not visit his father who has Alzheimer's. But then his daughter talked at the dinner table about Simard's program and about the disease. "After that, he went to the phone and arranged with his mother, his father's caretaker, to make arrangements to see him."

SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.