Assistive Technology

With the school year fast approaching (or already in full swing) here are my favorite apps and products for accessibility. Hopefully these apps and products will help make the school year successful for those needing assistive technology to support their reading and writing. This list is geared toward students with dyslexia but many of the apps and products can also benefit other students. To learn more about any of these products or apps click on the accompanying link. Kurzweil 3000 Kurzweil 3000 is a versatile reading and writing program for Mac and PC. With Kurzweil students can read scanned and digital documents with high quality text-to-speech and synchronized highlighting. This gives students with reading difficulty the ability to listen to text and improve comprehension. Kurzweil also allows students to annotate documents using text notes, audio notes, highlighting, and circling. Test taking is also a breeze with Kurzweil thanks to its “fill in the blanks” function which allo...

Learning Ally Audio App is now available in beta for Android devices. Learning Ally is a provider of audio books for the blind and dyslexic. The newly released Android app provides access to Learning Ally’s collection of 75,000 audio books for members with Android devices. From information provided on the apps Google Play page the Android version seems to have features  comparable  to its iOS counterpart. The app is available for free on the Google Play store and require a Nexus 7, Samsung Galaxy Tab, or Motorola Droid Razr with Android 4.1 or later. Click here to download the Android version from Google Play. To learn more about the iOS version of Learning Ally Audio click here . To view screenshots of Learning Ally Audio for Android in action click read more below.

Don Johnston’s powerful word prediction software, Co:Writer , has made its way to iOS . The newly released Co:Writer app works with the iPhone , iPad, and iPod Touch . It is important to note that the Co:Writer app has multiple different variations depending on your dialect. For example, there is a separate app for British and United States English. To start using the powerful word prediction built into the app you can simply start typing. A bar appears on top of the keyboard with five suggested words based on what you are typing. On the iPhone and iPod Touch some longer words are cut off in the predication bar because of the smaller screen. Tapping on a word inserts it into the document. As each word is added it is spoken aloud with text-to-speech. The word prediction is helpful for struggling writers and spellers. The word prediction can help a writer who  doesn't  know the spelling of a word by spelling the word if you can type the first few letters. Once you have complete...

Inspiration Maps is an iPad app that allows you to visually organize information. Inspiration Maps makes it easy to create clear mind maps that can help organize information for an essay or walk a student through a multi-step science experiment. The app comes with number of great looking templates for all different subject areas. If none of the templates meet your needs you can create your own. To start you can tap on any box or bubble and add text. You can also change the color and shape of the text boxes. To move an object you can simply drag it around the screen. Pretty much all aspects of your mind map are customization from arrow, to text box shape, to text style. Another handy feature is the ability to add images to your documents. These pictures can really add some life to your documents. In addition to diagram mode there is outline mode which is a text document. The document can include different bullets and numbered lists to help with the writing process. Everything added to ...

Some of the top names in the e-reader market are asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to waive the accessibility requirements for their devices. Amazon , Sony, and Kobo have all petitioned the FCC to waive the accessibility requirement for their e-readers. They do not want to have to make their devices "accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities." The FCC requires advanced communication services (ACS) to be accessible to people with disabilities. The e-reader companies are arguing that their devices do not fall under the ACS classification because they are dedicated to e-book reading. The three companies also claim that adding accessibility features would decrease battery life, increase cost and increase bulk. They claim in the FCC document, " Rendering ACS accessible on e-readers would require fundamentally altering the devices and it may not be possible to meet that requirement and maintain e-readers as inexpensive mobile reading device...

Wireless service provider Sprint has released a new iOS app that captions conversations in real time. The app uses computerized speech recognition service to caption the caller on the other end. The user can hear the other caller if they are able to and use the captions if they are unable to hear the person on the other end of the line. Then they can respond by voice. It is unclear how accurate the automated captioning will be with people with heavy accents or in loud environments. Sprint says the following about the app: "Wireless CapTel(R) by Sprint(R) is a free app available for individuals with hearing loss and understandable speech to place calls CapTel services on iOS. Using state of the art voice recognition technology, CapTel delivers captions of everything your caller says, while you listen (with your residual hearing) and speak directly to your caller." The Wireless CapTel service is free for Sprint users with the Everything Data Plan. In addition to the iPhone Wi...

The Celluon Epic is a Bluetooth laser keyboard. The compact device projects a QWERTY keyboard onto most flat surfaces. (Glass tabletops being the exception) You can connect the Epic to vertically any device that supports Bluetooth keyboards including devices running iOS , Android , Windows Phone, and Blackberry 10. On the back of the device there is a charging port and pairing button. Once you have the Epic paired with your device it acts the same as any other keyboard. For any keyboard the most important consideration is the typing experience that it provides. The virtual keyboard brightness is adjustable and is easy to see in most lighting conditions. Unfortunately the brightness does not automatically adjust based on ambient light. With each keystroke a beeping sound is played which can be turned down. The typing experience on the Epic is mediocre at best. Inadvertently activating the wrong key can make typing frustrating and tiring. Even if you are a touch typist you'll still ...