Essay on "Assistive Technology"

Essay 8 pages (2289 words) Sources: 2

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Assistive technology is utilized by children with disabilities ages of five to eleven. Even though assistive technology increments autonomous involvement in home, school and society surroundings, this essay will mainly center on its effect in the classroom. Assistive technology has made it easy for students with disabilities to rotate stuffs on, get clothed, eat or take a bath, read, jolt down information, observe, move, converse and take part in various games. On the other hand, an assistive technology apparatus may be defined as any item, piece of equipment or product system that is employed in augmenting, sustaining or making better functional potentiality of a kid with a disability. Additionally, an assistive technology service is a service which straightforwardly aids a kid with a disability in choosing, gaining, or use of an assistive technology apparatus. The main classroom transformation in the modern world is the utilization of computer technology. Computers have turn out to be vital literacy devices in our civilization.

Once we apply to make possible the usage of classroom technologies and resources by learners with disabilities, assistive technology comprises of both access and adaptive technologies. Access Technologies consist of those technologies that offer means for students with disabilities to access with ease classroom training materials given as part of the broad syllabus. Actually, these are the apparatus which adapt the activities utilized by broad education students. They comprise of alternate keyboards and pointing systems that change how a software program is used. Another type of classroom tool that aids children with disabilities is page turner. Adaptive Technologies on the other hand comprise of modified systems that assist individual learners with disabilities shift, converse in, and manage their surroundings. Illustrations include enhanced communication devices, powered wheel chairs and ecological control systems.

Assistive technologies utilized by students with disabilities may be employed at home, community and school surroundings. At school surroundings, they are used for communication, manipulation, movement, and studying. Positioning and movement objects comprise of adapted cars, jeeps, bikes, scooters, walkers and wheelchairs. Normally they offer a means for kids with disabilities to experience movement. Supplementary technologies endorse augmented right of entry to instructional and studying resources and in addition to other actions throughout the day. Illustrations consist of calculators, magnifiers, tape recorders, adapted art and gym tools, page-turners and auditory trainers. Even though assistive technology has the prospective to expand the capabilities of a kid, a comprehensive evaluation should at all times herald the acquirement of the device.

Assessing Assistive Technology Students Needs

In normal circumstances, when assessing assistive technology student's requirements, a lot of queries arise and comprise of which learners require assistive technology? The second question is what types of technology are required? The third question is who should partake in making of these resolutions? An outline for group-based assistive assessment does exist. It is known as the SETT framework and is a rule for collecting data to make efficient assistive technology resolutions. One should at all times start by gathering information concerning the student. Letter S. stands for the Student, letter E. stands for the Environment, letter T. represents the Tasks and letter T. represents Tools required for the student to tackle the tasks. SETT's questions are usually framed to create opinions and conversation.

Use of Screen Readers for Assisting Students with Reading Disabilities

Computers can be used to encourage thriving and more proficient reading experiences for students by providing other tactics. Screen Readers is one of the type of technology utilized in helping of students with reading disabilities. They are usually incorporated in a computer. Screen readers read all the text essentials present on the screen, as well as menu bars, buttons and dialogue boxes and it can comprise of screen magnification aspects. They offer accessibility to program movement and written text for learners with visual disability. Reading text aloud profits any person having troubles in reading information present on the screen. Any of the reading programs may further aid the reading tempo. Aspects inside programs differ and should be examined for every user. Illustrations of screen readers comprise of Jaws which offers a means for sightless computer users to get entry of a broad range of information and education associated applications such as web browsing. The second perfect example is the windows which is a user responsive functional tool bar that permits a personal computer to read text in any windows based application such as word processor.

Use of Talking Word Processors for Assisting Students with Writing Disabilities

Computers can improve learners writing capability by providing optional tactics learning. By using a computer as a writing means, handwriting problems will disappear and proofreading is rather quick since text is more readable and students encounter less disappointment with the tool's restrictions. Thirdly, full re-writings are not vital.

A good example of software which is utilized together with a computer underscores is the talking word processors. These are writing software programs which offer speech feedback as the learner jolts down. S/he echoes every letter while it is being typed and every word once the spacebar is pressed. Students with learning disabilities find that having written material read aloud assists them to better edit, comprehend and organize. Once a story from a book, an assignment, article or typed information is transferred into a talking word processor, the information will be read audibly to the learner. The talking word processors programs presents other regulations for instance broadening the dimension of the text and altering the color of the foreground, background and highlighting box to aid learners in following all along as the text is read out. Examples of talking word processors include intellitalk, outloud V.3, read and write and the ereader.

Use of Calculators for Assisting Students with Writing Disabilities

Computers and software programs permit learners who have troubles in using math tools to partake in math activities to create and maneuver objects for addition, categorization, merging and finishing associated work sheets. The calculator options simplifies right of entry to classroom math resources and technology. Calculators are viewed as necessary instruments for mathematical computations. A variety of calculators are available in the market with aspects such as large buttons, augmented displays and speech abilities. Examples of calculators include operating system calculators, online calculators, Edmark's Algebra Calculator and software calculators which include talking calculator and big:calc which is a software program that offers a chatting onscreen calculator and which provides alternatives for bigger keys in flexible layouts.

Communications Needs for Blind Students

The planning programs for those learners who have got intensified and substituted communication requirements entails engineering communication surroundings, planning and teaching group member. It also entails coming up with suitable curriculum and resources. The triumph of whichever student's optional communication program is significantly augmented when each and every staff concerned entrenches its use inside each day programming. In order to realize a flourishing augmented and alternative communication system, all people who intermingle with the learners should be conscious of and capable of making possible the usage of alternative communication systems and tactics. On the other hand, aspects to think of when choosing terminology consist of age, sex, societal task, living surroundings, personal disparities and life experiences. When choosing preliminary vocabulary for an augmentative system, the following aims should be borne in mind; power, relations, suppleness and realistic coverage. In addition, the following should be born in mind when planning communication systems for kids, who am I operating with? What are their precise requirements? Have I engaged the person and their significant others in the terminology choosing process? Do I have a long-array arrangement for terminology choosing? Numerous supports are useful sustenance for literacy actions and include regulating the locality of manuscripts. The second support is being capable of whirling pages.

Low Tech Classroom Devices for Blind Students

Blind students can employ a range of low-tech devices and resources for enhanced access to the common curriculum. The devices they employ for writing include desk slater and styluses, stylus and freund long hand writing kit. Others include thermo-pen and Perkins brailler. The writing materials they make use of consist of embossed line graph sheets, Braille paper for perkins brailler and Braille computer paper. As they draw, they make use of quick draw paper, tactile marking map and sporting line pen. Others include embossed line graphs, thermo-pen with flexi paper and fuse machine. The labels they utilize include IBI Clear Plastic, world association Braille labels, feel plus peel labels and voila - voiced labels recognizer.

There are numerous origins of books in Braille set-up for starting to mature persons who read. Many of the books are available from the National Braille Press.Learners with disabilities frequently study keyboarding expertise early, since the computer provides an accessible means for both jolting down and reading. Typing tutorials are available for this purpose. Alternate keyboards are sometimes sought due to multiple disabilities or efficiency of use. One alternative for blind students is intellikeys, which uses standard and customized overlays for software control. Students who are totally blind can access the computer by screen reader… READ MORE

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