Carol Leynse Harpold, MS AdEd, OTR/L, ATP

Definition Section Assistive technology device. Any item, piece of equipment or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability.

Definition Section Assistive technology service. Any service that directly assists a child with a disability with the selection, acquisition, or use of an assistive technology device.

Assistive technology is required to be considered during development of the IEP by the students team.

Taken from Assessing Students Needs for Assistive Technology,

Physical Access Page fluffers Grading the size of the pages Easel Tabs on Books (Hefty Post-it® tabs) Automatic Page Turners

Changing the readability of text Use Wite-Out® Summarize the text (Autosummarize in Word) Marking text (highlighters, highlighting tape, Post-it® tabs Color transparencies- Irlen, See -It Right

Visual Modifications Large Print Braille High contrast for low vision individuals Magnification: Handheld magnification Serif vs San Serif Line and word spacing

Independent Reading Tools Graphic Supported Text (Picture It, Writing with Symbols, Boardmaker, Symwriter, Word with pictures) News-2-You - Weekly newspaper subscription with picture supports News-2-You

Graphic Supported text Symbol World : Online resource for graphic supported curriculum materials Symbol World News 4 U – subscription service with graphic supported text

Mid tech devices are typically battery operated handheld devices. Examples of reading devices to support access to individual words or text: Talking Dictionaries (Franklin Spellers with speech output) Reading Pens: Scans words or sentences and reads text out loud. Quicktionary Reading Pen, WizCom, Scan Pen

Mid tech are hand held/battery powered devices: MP 3 players/iPods, PlayAways, Classmate Reader: Handheld device that supports text with high lighting, dictionary work and text to speech Leap Frog – Reading systems

Hand held text to speech scanning devices: KNFB Reader Intel Reader

Mobile E-Readers Kindle DX has TTS capabilities iPad with or voice over vBookz- app for iPad with TTS

RFB&D services Public or school library Audio CD PlayAways Commercial resources for audio books: Audible.com, iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Nobile, Librivox Converting text to audio (software, scan and read programs eg. Kurzweil, RWG) Accessible Instructional Media – WAMP resources

High tech AT typically requires computer with software to support students with reading challenges Electronic Modifications Size of font Color contrast Type of font (serif vs. san serif) Changing words or cognitive rescaling using auto summarizing/summarizing available in Word, R&WG; changing difficult vocabulary

Text Readers Power Talk Adobe Reader TTS Please Read – free Natural Reader – free Word Talk – free TTS add on to Word Text to Audio Blio – Free download of electronic book reader with TTS

Modified Electronic Text/Multimedia Software: PowerPoint – Create your own books Classroom Suite – allows accessibility to text for readers at different levels Clicker 5

Classroom Suite – allows accessibility to text for readers at different levels. Phonics, reading, writing and math and accessibility options are available in the program.

Clicker – Special needs software to support reading

Graphic Supported text Writing w Symbols/SymWriter, Picture It / Pix Writer/

Graphic Supported text Boardmaker Plus create graphic supported text

Kurzweil 3000 Professional Read & Write Gold

Wynn ClaroRead Plus

Many sources of electronic text (some free some subscription based): Gutenberg : resource free to school districts for students with a Print Disability Book Flix Tumble Books Wiggle Works Reading A-Z Start to Finish Books – Don Johnson

To comply with the requirement of providing individuals with print disability access to the regular curriculum text materials in a timely manner NIMAS/NIMAC was created. Accessible instructional Media (AIM) centers were created in some piloting states to support distribution of NIMAS source files. For more information about AIM: WAMP- Wisconsin Accessible Media Producers are the designated state agency to request accessible instructional media for those who qualify. For more information: