Assistive Devices Helps All Children Learn

This article is all about how important it is to give students tools so that the students with disabilities don't feel left out or fall behind.  The first thing that they talk about is how many children actual would need these services, and there about about 6 million children between the ages of 3-17  this includes both physical and learning disabilities.  The articles listed many different tools that can help the students get involved and stay in the classroom not in a special education room.  Some of these included Speech Recognition ("Voice Recognition") Systems allow students to control their computer by simply speaking, another is Personal Reading Machines scan a printed page and instantaneously read the page out loud, and a last one Talking Calculators recite numbers, symbols or functions as keys are pressed. They also can read back answers to completed problems.  All three of these tools can be used in the classroom or in a special education room but I think that it would be most beneficial in the classroom where the students can be with their friends and not feel left out.  The technologies I have mentioned are only the "new" ones there are also some older technologies that have been in the classroom for awhile.  One of these is large print/screen magnification hardware and software function like magnifying glasses, automatically moving over a page. That allows visually impaired students to more easily read textbooks, magazines, maps, charts or fine print.  All of these are great tools and can really improve the motivation of a child to want to learn.

Unknown. (2005) Assistive Devices Helps All Children Learn. Education World. Retrieved October 28, 2010 from, http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech220.shtml.