A Guide to Assistive Technology for Teachers in Special Education

Abstract

Everyone has the right to learn and to succeed in education. For people with certain disabilities, learning can be a challenging task, and proper use of certain assistive technologies can significantly ease the challenge, and help the learners to succeed. For teachers in special education, knowing existing assistive technology is an important step towards the proper use of those technologies and success in special education. This chapter provides a guide for teachers about assistive technology and its uses in special education. Assistive technology for people with learning difficulties, assistive technology for the visually impaired, and assistive technology for people with hearing difficulties will be discussed. Since online learning and the Internet are becoming trends in distance education, this chapter will focus on assistive technologies for Web-based distance learning, including assistive technologies for better human-computer interaction. Selecting more appropriate assistive technology for a given learner with a certain learning disability, among many choices, will be discussed.