Carol Leynse Harpold, MS AdEd, OTR/L, ATP
Definition
Section 300.5 Assistive technology device.
 Any item, piece of equipment or product
system, whether acquired commercially off
the shelf, modified, or customized, that is
used to increase, maintain, or improve the
functional capabilities of a child with a
disability.
Definition
Section 300.6 Assistive technology service.
 Any service that directly assists a child with a
disability with the selection, acquisition, or
use of an assistive technology device.

Assistive technology is required to be
considered during development of the IEP by
the student’s team.
Taken from Assessing Students Needs for Assistive Technology, www.wati.org

Physical Access
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Page fluffers
Grading the size of the pages
Easel
Tabs on Books (Hefty Post-it® tabs)
Automatic Page Turners
Changing the readability of text
 Use Wite-Out®
 Summarize the text (Autosummarize in Word)


Marking text (highlighters, highlighting tape,
Post-it® tabs
Color transparencies- Irlen, See -It Right

Visual Modifications
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Large Print
Braille
High contrast for low vision individuals
Magnification: Handheld magnification
Serif vs San Serif
Line and word spacing

Independent Reading Tools
◦ Graphic Supported Text (Picture It, Writing with
Symbols, Boardmaker, Symwriter, Word with
pictures)
◦ News-2-You - Weekly newspaper subscription with
picture supports
Graphic Supported text
 Symbol World : Online resource for graphic
supported curriculum materials
http://www.symbolworld.org/
 News 4 U – subscription service with graphic
supported text
Mid tech devices are typically battery operated
handheld devices . Examples of reading
devices to support access to individual words
or text:
 Talking Dictionaries (Franklin Spellers with
speech output)

Reading Pens: Scans words or sentences and
reads text out loud. Quicktionary Reading
Pen, WizCom, Scan Pen
Mid tech are hand held/battery powered
devices:
◦ MP 3 players/iPods , PlayAways,
◦ Classmate Reader: Handheld device that supports
text with high lighting, dictionary work and text to
speech
◦ Leap Frog – Reading systems
Hand held text to speech scanning devices:
 KNFB Reader

Intel Reader
Mobile E-Readers
 Kindle DX has TTS capabilities

iPad with or voice over
◦ vBookz- app for iPad with TTS






RFB&D services
Public or school library Audio CD
PlayAways
Commercial resources for audio books:
Audible.com , iTunes , Amazon , Barnes &
Nobile, Librivox
Converting text to audio (software, scan and
read programs eg. Kurzweil, RWG)
Accessible Instructional Media – WAMP
resources
High tech AT typically requires computer with
software to support students with reading
challenges
 Electronic Modifications
◦
◦
◦
◦
Size of font
Color contrast
Type of font (serif vs. san serif)
Changing words or cognitive rescaling using auto
summarizing/summarizing available in Word,
R&WG; changing difficult vocabulary
Text Readers
 Power Talk
 Adobe Reader TTS
 Please Read – free
 Natural Reader – free
 Word Talk – free TTS add on to Word
 Text to Audio
 Blio – Free download of electronic book
reader with TTS
Modified Electronic Text/Multimedia Software:
 PowerPoint – Create your own books
 Classroom Suite – allows accessibility to text
for readers at different levels
 Clicker 5
Classroom Suite – allows accessibility to text
for readers at different levels. Phonics,
reading, writing and math and accessibility
options are available in the program.
Clicker – Special needs software to support
reading
Graphic Supported text


Writing w Symbols/SymWriter,
Picture It / Pix Writer/
Graphic Supported text
 Boardmaker Plus create graphic supported
text

Kurzweil 3000 Professional

Read & Write Gold

Wynn

ClaroRead Plus

Many sources of electronic text (some free
some subscription based):
◦ Gutenberg
◦ www.bookshare.org : resource free to school
districts for students with a “Print Disability”
◦ Book Flix
◦ Tumble Books
◦ Wiggle Works
◦ Reading A-Z
◦ Start to Finish Books – Don Johnson



To comply with the requirement of providing
individuals with print disability access to the
regular curriculum text materials in a timely
manner NIMAS/NIMAC was created.
Accessible instructional Media (AIM) centers were
created in some piloting states to support
distribution of NIMAS source files. For more
information about AIM:
http://aim.cast.org/learn/accessiblemedia
WAMP- Wisconsin Accessible Media Producers
are the designated state agency to request
accessible instructional media for those who
qualify. For more information:
http://www.wamp.k12.wi.us/