For students who are experiences specific disabilities, it is important to recognize the uses and implications of technology that can minimize the learning gap by providing useful tools to educate these populations.
In the case of a student who has a hearing impairment, it is important he or she can be matched with technology that will bridge any disadvantages they might be facing. The first example of technology that I would with this type of student is closed captioning. This is no different than what is commonly displayed on televisions in busy places, where the words are written across the bottom of the screen. Second technologies that can assist these students are ear devices such as hearing aids or hearing loops. Hearing aids are good at amplifying noise and can be used in young students. Hearing loops are coils of wire, which not only amplify noise, but also eliminate background noises as well which is particularly useful in a classroom where loud noises may distract a student with a hearing aid (Assistive Technology for Hearing Impaired Students)
For students who are visually impaired, technology such as DAISY talking books could help students to communicate ideas from a book. The benefits are that this technology can play videos, show pictures, and other types of documents. This can be beneficial if the words in print are difficult for a reader to decipher. It allows the visually impaired reader to focus on specific content in the book, either headings or individual words and increase the font size so that they are readable. DAISY has also teamed with Microsoft so that files can be saved into an accessible format through the add-on program (Assistive Technology in Education/DAISY) E-readers are designed to make books accessible and affordable. They also allow the user to retrieve any book at the touch of a screen. Another benefit of these e-readers is that they have a program referred to as text-to speech. This program allows the reader to select a voice and it reads content aloud. While the menu is not considered to be blind friendly, since it does not have speaking capabilities, the e-readers are still useful if someone is able to assist the visually impaired person through the menu (Assistive Technology in Education/eBook).
For a person who has suffered an injury to their hand and may find it difficult to scroll through screens or type, I would recommend speech recognition software. This program converts words, which a person speaks into text. These programs can be trained to recognize persons specific voice tone, known as speaker recognition, and record what they are saying. Specific speech recognition software has been developed for Microsoft in which the computer recognizes voice commands and can open programs and files. All computer files can be assigned a number so that persons can access even the hardest to recognize files. Another such program, Dragon NaturallySpeaking allows users to transcribe their own words or to record an audio document, while at the same time issuing commands (Assistive Technology in Education/Speech Recognition Software)
Technology impacts teaching, thinking, and learning skills and promotes lifelong learning (Schrum, 2009). For a student who suffers from non-communicative autism getting information into their curriculum is an important skill, which needs to be taught and developed across their life. To do this, any of the above programs could be implemented to give them an advantage with learning. For instance, if they are easily distracted by loud noises and become frustrated and confused, using hearing loop can help to drown out loud and distracting noises. The DAISY talking books can help these students to focus, and the ability to present movies and photos might help to attract their interest and understand the material. If there is difficulty in getting the student to type or use the computer, it may be easier to use speech recognition to get their ideas onto paper and expand upon them.
References
Assistive technology for hearing impaired students. (2007, June 23). Retrieved from http://www.axistive.com/assistive-technology-for-hearing-impaired-students.html
Assistive technology in education/daisy. (2009, July 31). Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_ Technology_in_Education/DAISY
Assistive technology in education/ebook. (2010, November 01). Retrieved from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Assistive_ Technology_in_Education/eBook
Assistive technology in education/speech recognition software. (2011, March 19). Retrieved from Assistive Technology in Education/Speech Recognition Software
Schrum, L. M., & Levin, B. B. (2009). Leading 21st century schools: Harnessing technology for engagement and achievement. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.
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