Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Prof. D-r. Dragan Mihajlov, Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, 1000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia,

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Whatever you teach you have to consider people with special needs

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs

Assistive technologies have existed from the moment our prehistoric ancestors started using tools

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Assistive technologies Purpose-built hardware or software,used by individuals in order to perform functions that would otherwise be difficult or impossible

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Mary Pat Radabaugh, Director of IBM National Support Center for Persons with Disabilities "For people without disabilities, technology makes things easier. For people with disabilities, technology makes things possible. ”

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs In Republic of Macedonia the use of assistive technologies for children with special needs is in a very early phase We have been developing many systems for different people, supporting different kind of activities This system is different

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Macedonian Assistive Technologies System (MATS) for children with special needs

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Children with special needs have been classified into several categories: mobility impairment, sensory impairment (visual and hearing impairments) and intellectual impairment (difficulties in understanding, expressing or interacting with other people)

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Different classification: Physical Disabilities Visual Disabilities Hearing Disabilities Cognitive Disabilities and Learning Disorders Communications Disabilities

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Different categories of children with special needs

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs MATS is a collection of - conventions, - devices and - services particularly chosen and applied for helping children with disabilities

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Some tools are very simple like cane for the visually impaired

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Other tools are very high technology

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Rules of Engagements or Disability etiquette What have we done until now First step Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will hurt forever

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Use respectful language Examples - Using the term “person without a disability” instead of “normal person” - Never move a person in a wheelchair unless you have permission from that person - Do not refer to people as blind, they are visually impaired - Do not refer to people as deaf, they are hearing impaired

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Center for people with disabilities "Open the windows” - adaptations (magnification, color, sound, keys and mouse speed,...) - developing tools that will be in Macedonian language (Braile printer, …) - developing specialized educational software for students with special needs. Macedonian alphabet to children with disabilities. First grade math. Macedonian speech synthesizer for visually impaired. Software for learning hand signs for hearing impaired

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs EU-funded project AsTeRICS (Assistive Technology Rapid Integration and Construction Set)

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Facilitate access for people with a physical disability to different devices - personal computers, - cell phones - smart home devices The core of the software suite is provided as Open Source

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs AsTeRICS contains about 100 plugins like - speech recognition, - environment control (KNX, FS20, IR-Trans), - mouse/keyboard emulation, - PS3 gamepad emulation

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Gerhard Nussbaum

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs We are proudly working on UNIX and Android implementations of AsTeRICS

Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs Teaching or helping child with special needs is like touching god