Wednesday, July 17, 2013

AT and Sensory Disabilties

In the last post I discussed some guidelines and software when considering assistive technology for students with learning disabilities. In this post I will focus on computer access approaches to use with students with sensory disabilities. According to Wikipedia, a sensory disability is defined as an impairment of one of the senses. The term is used primarily to refer to vision and hearing impairment, but other senses can be impaired. When using a computer as an assistive technology for students with sensory disabilities keep the following considerations in mind:

Visually Impaired
Hearing Impaired
·         Screen magnifiers
·         Large, high contrast key labels
·         Screen Reader: a computer navigation tool for students with visual impairments
·         Speech Synthesizer: reads aloud contents of the computer screen
·         Scanner/OCR: Scan printed materials and converts into speech
·         Digital-talking books
·         Braille embosser or notetakers/and refreshable Braille displays (alternative to a screen reader)
 
·         System beep modification: change the beep to a visual beep so students know when the computer makes a sound

As you can see there are many more modifications needed and available for students with visual impairments who are using a computer because it is important to be able to read or see what is taking place on the screen.

Although I had mentioned OpenBook in previous posts, it is a great option for a high-tech device that can assist visually impaired students in accessing curriculum. This program converts printed documents or graphic-based text into an electronic text format on your computer, using quality speech and the latest optical character recognition (OCR) technology.
 

 
A low-tech option for students with a sensory impairment might be a book on tape or CD that the student could listen to. 
 
REFERENCES
 
OpenBook Scanning and Reading Software for Blind and Low Vision by Freedom Scientific. (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2013, from http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/openbook-product-page.asp

Disability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2013, July 10). Retrieved July 17, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_impairment#Sensory_disability
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1 comment:

  1. JamieLeeJuly 24, 2013 at 8:00 PM

    Kate, the assistive technology devices you provided are very useful. I have not seen any of the devices used in the classroom expect digital-talking books. Also, Openbook sounds like a great resource and would be very helpful in the classroom or at home for students with visual impairments.

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