Who, What, When, Where and Why of

Assistive Technology

Who uses Assistive Technology?

• Impairment - Any loss or abnormality of psychological, physical or anatomical structure or function

• Disability - Results when an impairment leads to an inability to "perform an activity in a manner or within the range considered normal for a human being“

• Handicap - Results when an individual with a disability is unable to fulfill his or her normal roles. A handicap is not a characteristic of a person; it is a description of the relationship between the person and the environment

Types of Disabilities

Disability % of expected use of assistive technology

Deaf and Hard of Hearing 100% Blind and Visually Impaired 100% Physical Disability 100% Deaf/Blind 100% Multiple Disabilities 100% Traumatic Brian Injury 50 – 75% Autism 50 – 75% Learning Disability 25 – 50% Health Impairment 25 – 35 % Cognitive Disability 25 – 35% Speech/Language Disorder 10 – 25%* Emotional Disability 10 – 25%

Golden, D. ,Special Education Technology Practice, Vol. 1.1, January/February 1999 (pg.12)

What is Assistive Technology?• Can mean a device or service that can be used as a tool by a

person with a disability to achieve or maintain function.

• Includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them.

• AT promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to or changed methods of interacting with the technology needed to accomplish such tasks.

When and Where Assistive Technology is used ?

• Assistive technology is used wherever and whenever it is needed, at home, at school, in the community, at work, at play.

Why Assistive Technology is Useful?

• Many of us use assistive technology without knowing it

• Assistive technology devices are valuable because they may assist a person to do a task they otherwise would not be able to do

Software products available

• Customization of graphical user interfaces to alter the colors and size of desktops, short-cut icons, menu bars and scroll bars

• Screen magnifiers• Screen readers• Self-voicing applications• Optical character recognition. Converts the printed word

into text, via a scanner• Braille translation. Converts the printed word into Braille,

which can then be embossed via a Braille embosser.• Text-to-speech and Speech-to-text• Spell checkers and Grammar checkers

• USEFULL WebAIM ARTICLES ABOUT DOCUMENT AND WEB ACCESSIBILITY

• Defining PDF Accessibility (WebAIM)

• Converting Documents to PDF (WebAIM)

• Acrobat and Accessibilty - Creating Accessible PDF Documents (WebAIM)

• Facts and Opinions about PDF Accessibilty (WebAIM)

Technology at EWU

• Students have access to a variety of technologies: computer labs, digital camcorders, digital cameras, laptops, sound studios, multimedia studios, accessible technology, free antivirus downloads, software discounts and more.

• JAWS SCREEN READER - Text-to-speech computer screen reader (supports blind and low vision Windows users)

• NATURAL READER - Text-to-speech

screen reader (low-moderate vision, cognition, learning support for users).

• DRAGON NATURALLY SPEAKING -

Speech-to-text for dictation and/or computer control (support motor impaired users).

• ZOOMTEXT READER/MAGNIFIER - Screen magnification and screen reader (supports low vision, blind, and color blind users).

• READ & WRITE GOLD 9 - For Scanner/Document

OCR, learning and study skills, work prediction, talking dictionary, homophone checker, system-wide text/image to speech support, language translation, PDF Accessibility Editor, research tools, Text-to-MP3 support. (support cognition, learning, and more).

• WYNN Wizard & INSPIRATION