Assistive technology includes any object or system that helps people with disabilities maintain or improve their abilities. It can aid those with physical, learning, or developmental disabilities. Students who may need assistive technology qualify for Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) through public schools. The process of implementing assistive technology starts with understanding a student's needs and abilities, then brainstorming and testing solutions to help them participate more independently. Hearing assistive technology helps those who are deaf or hard of hearing communicate better. Organizations like the Georgia Project for Assistive Technology support schools in providing assistive devices and services. A variety of technologies from alternative keyboards to speech recognition can serve as assistive technologies. Websites like W

1. Assistive Technology
Brittanie Blunt

2. What Is Assistive Technology?
• Assistive technology is any object or system that increases or
maintains the capabilities of people with disabilities.
• Adaptive technology is a subset of Assistive Technology that
basically includes any object or system that is specifically
designed for people with disabilities.
• Assistive Technology can be used for various kinds of
disabilities, impairments or delays in learning ability.

3. Individual Education Programs
• Students with physical or learning disabilities, or those with
delayed skills are candidates for receiving IEP’s.
• These services are free for children with these needs within
public schools.
• Some reasons for needing Individual Education Programs are:
• Having a learning disability
• ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
• Cognitive challenges
• Hearing or visual impairment
• Autism
• Speech or language impairment

4. Where to Start
• Step 1: Collect information about the student. Discuss the child’s strengths, abilities,
preferences and needs.
• Step 2: Identify activities for participation. Discuss the various activities within the
environments that a child encounters throughout the day. What is preventing him/her
from participating more?
• Step 3: What can be observed that indicates the intervention is successful? What is
his/her current level of participation and what observable behaviors will reflect an
increase in independent interactions? What changes (e.g., number of initiations,
expression attempts, responses, reactions, etc.) will you look for?
• Step 4: Brainstorm AT solutions. With the activity and desired outcomes established,
you are now ready to discuss possible solutions with educators, family members,
physical therapist, and other people with whom the child interacts on a weekly basis.
Start with what is available in the environment and consider adaptations to those
materials.
• Step 5: Try it out. Determine when the AT intervention will begin and create an
observation plan to record how the child participates with the AT supports.
• Step 6: Identify what worked and what didn’t work? What should be done
differently? Make modifications.

5. Hearing Assistive Technology
• HATS (Hearing Assistive Technology Systems)-devices that help
the hearing impaired hear better in daily situations involving
communication.
• HATS can be used alongside hearing aids and cochlear
implants or without them.
• Things that can effect efficiency of HATS:
• Distance between the source and the listener
• Competing noise in the environment
• Poor room acoustics/reverberation

6. Georgia Project for Assistive
Technology
• The GPAT supports local school systems in their efforts to
provide assistive technology devices and services to students
with disabilities.
• The mission of the GPAT is to improve student achievement,
productivity, independence and inclusion by enhancing
educator knowledge of assistive technology and increasing
student access to appropriate assistive technology devices and
services.

7. Types of Assistive Technology
• Alternative keyboards
• Electronic pointing devices
• Sip-and-puff systems-activated by inhaling and exhaling
• Joystics
• Touch screens
• Braille embossers
• On-screen keyboards
• Screen magnifiers
• Speech/voice recognition
• Text-to-speech synthesizers

8. Free Materials on Assistive
Technology
• Wati.org is a site that directs its users to free materials on
assistive technology.
• The site includes materials in Spanish for those who need it.
• The site includes books, forms etc. that include
information/materials that give general overviews of assistive
technology, as well as including information/materials specific
to a students needs.
• The site includes:
• Free publications and classroom materials
• Learning opportunities
• Student assessments
• Information on conferences
• Product sales