Current Students > Assistive Technology
Assistive Technology (AT) can be defined as any software or hardware that makes the computer, the Internet or other electronic tools or resources accessible to, and usable by a person with a disability. Some forms of AT are quite expensive, and can be purchased only from specialized manufacturers, while others can be bought off the shelf at local electronics stores.
AT may be a reasonable accommodation for students with disabilities who experience a number of functional limitations. Here is a partial list of functional effects of disabilities for which we typically consider using AT as a way of leveling the playing field:
-Reading Barriers, due to blindness, learning disabilities or other disabilities
-Hearing limitations due to deafness or other hearing impairment
-Keyboard barriers, due to repetitive motion injuries, spinal cord injuries, etc.
-Spelling or expressive writing limitations
Disability Services Coordinators work with individual students to determine which reasonable accommodations the student may want to use, including AT. The Disability Services Coordinator may then refer the student to our AT Coordinator for demonstration and training in use of the AT.
UM-Disability Services maintains assistive technology in computer labs on the Mountain Campus and at the UM-College of Technology with the cooperation and support of other UM departments. The AT in these locations is available for use whenever these libraries or labs are open:
Find Assistive Technology in UM Labs
In addition, a number of UM classrooms and other public venues are pre-wired for transmissions to Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) for students with hearing impairments:
Classrooms & Public Venues Wired for Assistive Listening Devices
Here are descriptions of AT available in UM computer labs:
JAWS is the premier screen reading program for computer users who are blind, low vision or experience other significant reading barriers, including learning disabilities. JAWS makes your computer talk, and can be used with nearly every standard application; including word processors, databases, spreadsheets, web browsers and email applications. It can read virtually all text that appears on the computer screen, including navigation elements, dialogue boxes, menus, and, of course content. JAWS also allows users to select which of those elements it will read and which it will not read. In UM labs, JAWS is activated by pressing the J key when starting Windows.
WYNN (What You Need Now) will scan and read print documents and books back to you. In addition, WYNN reads word processing files, web sites, e-mail, Adobe .PDF and scanned documents aloud, and provides a variety of tools to help you read, learn and understand the material you are studying. WYNN is great for students with learning disabilities and ADHD to improve reading speed and comprehension. It also has assistance for writing.
Using WYNN, you can access text and add your own notes, highlight words and phrases, and insert book marks. WYNN can enlarge the displayed text, increase line and word spacing and decrease column width to improve access to text material. In addition, WYNN provides language tools, including a thesaurus, a dictionary, a pronunciation guide, and spell-check.
OpenBook scans and reads back print documents to the user. It is built for blind and low vision users, relying on keyboard commands rather than "point-and-click" functions using the mouse. OpenBook can also read Adobe .PDF files, any word processor or other formats, including formatted digital Braille files. OpenBook’s display options include font choices, enlarged fonts, and a variety of background/foreground color choices. It also has bookmarking features, and can translate files into electronic Braille formats, as well as back-translating them (out of electronic Braille format).
DNS is speech recognition software that enables users to control a computer and enter information by speaking. With DNS, a microphone takes the place of the keyboard, and, to some extent, the mouse. Dictating word processing documents is easy even for beginning users, and Dragon can be trained to accomplish more complicated tasks as well. Dragon works in conjunction with many popular software packages, including the Microsoft Office suite of programs.
Once Dragon is running, you can use your voice to start a program (“Start Microsoft Word”), open a file (“File, Open, File Name”), dictate your document, save your document (“File, Save”), print your document (“File, Print”) and close the program (“File, Exit”) Recent versions render high accuracy without "training" the software to recognize the user's voice. Even so, an initial half-hour training enables most users to achieve 90% or better accuracy, and accuracy increases the more you use the program.
Book Wizard Reader reads audio Daisy format books from Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFBD), which come to the student on CD. It also will read text Daisy format titles from Bookshare.org using the SAPI voice synthesizer. Book Wizard Reader plays these specialized formats, allowing easy navigation between chapters, pages and sections of the book. Daisy books, or Audio Plus as they are called when coming from RFBD, cannot be played in standard CD players or with your computer's media software.
Disability Services provides Interpreters for the deaf, but also uses a real-time captioning process known as C-Print. An Interpreter/Captionist types or speaks notes into a laptop in the classroom, which transfers the captioned material to another laptop via infra-red connection, where the deaf or hard-of-hearing student can read and follow the class lecture and discussion in real-time. For more information on Interpreting/Captioning accommodations go to the page on: Interpreters/Captioners
In addition to the hardware and software Disability Services integrates into UM's computing, some AT is checked out to students through Presentation Technology Services (PTS). This equipment is authorized by the student's Coordinator at Disability Services, as part of their discussion and identification of reasonable accommodations. Here is a partial list of that AT hardware:
Assistive Listening Devices or ALDs (and sometimes referred to as Fm loops), are issued to students with hearing impairments in order to provide better auditory access to class lectures. The student receives both a microphone, which is given to the instructor to wear, and a receiver. The particular equipment issued depends on the type of hearing loss, hearing aids, etc. Disability Services Coordinators work with students regarding equipment and authorization to use them.
The BookPort is a hand-held, electronic-text (e-text) reading/playback device. It must be loaded with text files, which a synthesized voice reads back to the user through headphones. E-text is obtained from online sources such as Gutenberg, Bookshare.org, and from Disability Services' own e-text production. BookPort can also play MP3s, but the compact flash cards Disability Services provides are not suited to MP3 storage.
These are hardware players for Daisy recordings obtained from Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFBD), also known as Audio Plus. Like the Book Wizard Reader (above), they can navigate between pages, chapters and sections quickly and easily, but are portable. Basically they are clam-shell CD players that are specially programmed. Some have internal, rechargeable batteries, some use Double-A disposable batteries.
For location and more information on PTS, go to: Presentation Technology Services
For more information on reasonable accommodations for reading disabilities, go to the page on: Reading Accommodations