AT and Learning Disabilities

I’ve recently talked a lot about various AT devices and programs and focused primarily on communication disorders. We will now take a brief look at some guidelines to follow when providing AT using computers to students with learning disabilities. According to Wikipedia, a learning disability is a classification including several areas of functioning in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner, usually caused by an unknown factor or factors.

 When considering assistive technology for students with learning disabilities, consider the following guidelines:

o   The device or program should be simple and easy to operate

o   Information can be presented in alternate forms (text size, color, font, etc.)

o   Built-in cueing is present

o   There is an allowance for error recovery (students can fix mistakes)

o   Spelling and grammar check is available

Assistive Technology to support these students:

 As you type, Co:Writer interprets spelling and grammar mistakes and offers word suggestions in real time. It will also read back highlighted text in a natural sounding voice and offers word banks, personal dictionaries, and works with MS Word, Google Docs, the Internet, Firefox, and more!

A graphic organizer like a Venn Diagram, would be a low-tech option that would assist these students in organizing their thoughts prior to a writing assignment.

This chart outlines some specific software to consider for specific difficulties:

Reading Difficulties (example: Dyslexia)	Writing Difficulties	Spelling Difficulties
Voice output presents information auditorily (students are read to);   Scanning software: words and sentences are highlighted as they are reading.	Voice recognition: students can speak and speech is converted to text; picture-based writing programs	Word predication software eliminates the barrier of spelling words correctly