Assistive Technologies

Assistive Technologies can be broadly defined as any technology or device that helps someone overcome a learning disability.  This could be something as simple as a pencil grip for a student who has difficulty holding a pencil to a touch screen interface for students who are unable to navigate a traditional keyboard.  There are many different technologies out there for students with both physical and cognitive impairments.  You might want to check out the Assistive Technologies page on the Ed Tech Wiki for more links.

Two great resources for teachers in southeast Michigan are the Wayne County Assistive Technology Resource Center (ATRC) and the Michigan Region IV Assistive Technology Consortium.  ATRC serves those teachers in Wayne county but the Region IV Consortium works with teachers throughout southeast Michigan.  ATRC has a lending library where you can check out software and hardware to use in your classroom.  Both of these resources are a great first stop in your search for assistive technologies.  If you teach outside of southeast Michigan, I would suggest checking with your local RESA or county educational organization to see what resources they may have available.  If you aren't a K-12 teacher you could always contact these organizations and offices and ask for recommendations on other resources.

Here are some of the more common assistive technologies available.  Many of these are not free, which is a big reason why so many schools and organizations aren't able to use them with their students.

• Screen Readers:  A screen reader can be very useful for students who struggle with reading or have a visual impairment that makes it difficult to see text on the screen.  The American Federation for the Blind has a great list of screen reader resources on their site.
• Text To Speech:  Like screen readers, text to speech tools take a piece of text and convert it to spoken words.  The main difference with this type of tool is that you can take a paragraph from anywhere, or even type it directly into a text box, and hear it read back to you.  Unlike screen readers, text to speech tools are not intended to read an entire screen to the user so they aren't as useful for learners with vision impairments.  Some tools in this category include Text to Speech (not the most original name), iSpeech and vozMe.  You can also configure the Windows operating system to activiate a text to speech feature for individual computers.  The Mac operating system has something called Voice Over that provides similar functionality. 
• Speech Recognition:  Speech recognition tools take the spoken word and convert it into text that is readable by a computer.  This is a bit like taking dictation while someone is speaking.  The benefits of this type of tool is that a user can give voice-based commands to a computer instead of having to physically manipulate a mouse and keyboard.  In addition, for students who struggle with spelling and writing, speech recognition allows them to talk out their ideas regardless of how fast or slow they type.  You can find a review of speech recognition software on the Traumatic Brain Injury website.  These tools often require a bit of "training" as the software needs to learn each new voice before it can accurately translate the spoken word to text.
• Tools for Physical Disabilities:  There are a variety of tools designed for students with physical disabilities.  To learn about some of these you can visit the Assistive Technology page on the Ed Tech Wiki.  Many of these tools are for specific disabilities and it isn't likely you would have access to them unless you had a student with an identified need.  Some of the different tools include braille printers, adaptive keyboards, touch screen technologies, switches, trackballs and alternative mice controllers, magnification tools and much more. 
• Cognitive Disabilities:  For students who have a cognitive disability such as ADHD, parsing through a basic webpage can be a daunting task because of all the extra visual stimulation on the page.  Tools such as Readability can be useful in de-cluttering the web for students.  Diigo is another tool you can use to highlight and annotate relevant information on a page as a way to help students direct their attention and focus to salient information.  When students view a page, they see the text you have highlighted as well as electronic "sticky notes" you have attached to different parts of the screen.  To learn more about Diigo, check out this video through the direct link to the Diigo website. 

To get a sense of what it might be like to have a disability, try out some of the simulations below.  This might give you a better appreciation for the challenges some of your students face in completing different web-based learning activities.

1. Distractability Simulation: This simulation demonstrates what it might be like for students with attention deficit disorder who are trying to carry out a series of basic tasks online.
2. Screen Reader Simulation: This simulation shows what it would be like if you had a visual impairment and had to rely on a screen reader to find information.
3. Low Vision Simulation: This simulation gives you an idea of what it would be like navigating the web with a partial visual impairement.
4. Dyslexia Simulation: This simulation demonstrates how difficult it is to read when you suffer from dyslexia.