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Assistive technology summary. Andrew Downie Centre for Learnin g Innovation NSW Department of Education & Training. Areas we will cover. Vision impairment and blindness Hearing impairment and deafness Physical disabilities Neurological disabilities
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Assistive technology summary Andrew Downie Centre for Learning Innovation NSW Department of Education & Training
Areas we will cover • Vision impairment and blindness • Hearing impairment and deafness • Physical disabilities • Neurological disabilities • Huge individual variation within each group • Therefore equipment selection not always easy • Limiting to online access • Some equipment relevant to more than one disability type
Vision impairment and blindness • Screen readers • Synthetic speech and/or electronic Braille output • Essentially limited to reading text • Sophisticated facilities for displaying visual presentation • Narrator built into Windows and VoiceOver built into the Mac • NVDA for Windows free from www.nvda-project.org • Text/graphics enlargement software • Many magnification and colour selection options • Optional augmentation with synthetic speech • Accessibility in Windows and VoiceOver on the Mac • Specialised personal data assistants
Hearing impairment and deafness • Hearing aids • FM and infrared systems • Magnetic field loop • Cochlear implant • Captions for multimedia presentations • Live captions • Red Bee Media http://www.redbeemedia.com.au
Physical disabilities • Keyguards for computer keyboards • Software to modify keyboard functions • Sticky Keys etc in Windows and Mac • Alternative keyboards • Switch access to computers • Head-mounted pointing devices • On-screen keyboards • Predictive software • Speech input to computers • Augmentative communication devices
Neurological disabilities • Neurological disabilities include: • Intellectual disability; • Acquired brain injury; and • Specific learning disabilities • Multimedia reading assistance • Word prediction and contextual assistance • Membranous keyboards • Electronic dictionaries
DAISY • (Digital Access Information System) • http://www.daisy.org • Can synchronise text, audio and graphics • Commercial and free tools for production and playing • Human or synthetic speech
Contacting Andrew • Phone: (02) 9715-8347 • Email: andrew.downie@det.nsw.edu.au • Accessibility blog • http://accessiblecli.wordpress.com