What is Assistive
"Assistive technology (AT) is any item, piece of equipment, software program, or product system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities." What is AT? (n.d.)
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(AssistivetechRSL, 2013)
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Assistive Technology Survey
Assistive Technology Survey Results
The results are in! It is very clear that most teachers have heard of or know what assistive technology is, as is relates specifically to technology devices. The staff agrees in their summary that assistive technology is used to help serve students with disabilities. Since the district has 1:1 iPads, most teachers are using their iPads multiple times a day, which results in more knowledge and understanding of technology offerings. Some teachers have students with built in technology accommodations in their IEP, due to the district having 1:1 devices. Based on the graph below, the staff marked technological accommodations students have received in their classroom before. The main AT used throughout the school was speech to text, text to speech, as well as keyboard/shortcuts.
Recommendations
Based off of the results of the survey, I feel the school would greatly benefit from additional professional development about assistive technology that is out there to support students with disabilities. The staff is interested in learning more, as well, about this topic which would allow it to be really meaningful topic. I feel the staff would benefit from learning more about low tech and high tech versions of assistive technology, since it seems the majority of their knowledge is through only the iPads.
Find some examples of low tech AT in action!
Find some examples of low tech AT in action!
(Addie's AutismFITT Club Pediatric Occupational, Physical and Speech Therapy, 2016)
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Digital Citizenship by Lindsay Garbowski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.