Assistive Technologies Used for Students with Special Needs - Essay on Education

Assistive technologies can be defined as any item or equipment acquired in the commercial that is used to increase and improve the functional capabilities of the disabled children (Cook, A. M., & Polgar, J. M. 2014). This term does not involve any surgically implanted devices; it includes stand-alone devices, software and hardware devices. Assistive technology involves educationally necessary materials that have technology solutions such as a classroom computer. Assistive technologies aim at capitalizing students capabilities, solve the difficulties and increase the self-reliance of the student.

Assistive technologies help in math, the student with difficulties in computing, and copying the math problem down the paper are helped by visual and audio support to calculate the underlying math problems. The students who struggle with reading use types of tools that present a text as a speech thus facilitate reading fluency, decoding and comprehension reading. There are tools set to enhance grammar, word usage and organization, punctuation and proper spelling to students with writing difficulties (Pearson et al., 2016). For the students who have problems in remembering and processing spoken words, the listening devices are used in a class lecture. The assistive technologies can be used to help a person plan, organize, and keep a task risk and a calendar schedule thus boosting memory.

There are some assistive technology apps recommended for students with special needs. They include the dragon dictation and talking calculator among others. The dragon dictation is designed for writing issues to the students with writing disabilities (White, D. H., & Robertson, L. 2015). The dragon dictation can recognize a voice and helps the students to translate a speech to text in a classroom set-up. It is usually accurate, and the students tend to love it. The talking calculator is an app with big colorful buttons, easy to use and is perfect for students with visual disabilities (DePountis, V. M. et al., 2015). The app is used in the classroom to tell the student which buttons the finger is hovering over and later vocalizes the answer. The parent should know the uses of the apps and install for their children according to the type of disability.

References

Cook, A. M., & Polgar, J. M. (2014). Assistive Technologies-E-Book: Principles and Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Dell, Amy G., Deborah A. Newton, and Jerry G. Petroff. Assistive technology in the classroom: Enhancing the school experiences of students with disabilities. Pearson, 2016.

DePountis, V. M., Pogrund, R. L., Griffin-Shirley, N., & Lan, W. Y. (2015). Technologies Used in the Study of Advanced Mathematics by Students Who Are Visually Impaired in Classrooms: Teachers' Perspectives. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 109(4), 265-278.

White, D. H., & Robertson, L. (2015). Implementing assistive technologies: A study on co-learning in the Canadian elementary school context. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 1268-1275.