1. Assistive Technology for Young Children in
Special Education: It Makes a Difference
A discussion on the many types of assistive
technology tools that are available for children with
disabilities.
By Michael Behrmann
A discussion on the many types of assistive technology tools that are available for children with disabilities.
Technology can level the playing field for students with mobility, hearing, or vision impairments.
Credit: IntelliTools, Inc.
Technology has opened many educational doors to children, particularly to children with disabilities. Alternative
solutions from the world of technology are accommodating physical, sensory, or cognitive impairments in many ways.
Much of the technology we see daily was developed initially to assist persons with disabilities. Curb cuts at
streetcorners and curb slopes, originally designed to accommodate people with orthopedic disabilities, are used more
frequently by families with strollers or individuals with grocery carts than by persons with wheelchairs or walkers. The
optical character reader, developed to assist individuals unable to read written text, has been adapted in the
workplace to scan printed documents into computer-based editable material, saving enormous amounts of data entry
labor.
Children with disabilities often feel better about themselves as a result of using technology.

2. Credit: IntelliTools, Inc.
Technology -- an Equalizer
Technology can be a great equalizer for individuals with disabilities that might prevent full participation in school,
work, and the community. This is most evident in the case of individuals with mobility, hearing, or vision impairments,
but is also true for individuals with limitations in cognition and perception. With technology, an individual physically
unable to speak can communicate with spoken language. Using a portable voice synthesizer, a student can ask and
respond to questions in the "regular" classroom, overcoming a physical obstacle that may have forced placement in a
special segregated classroom or required a full-time instructional aide or interpreter to provide "a voice."
Improvements in sensor controls enable subtle motor movements to control mobility devices, such as electric
wheelchairs, providing independent movement through the school and community. Text and graphics enhancement
software can enlarge sections of a monitor enough to be seen by persons with vision impairments. Text can be read
electronically by a digitized voice synthesizer for a person who is blind. For persons with hearing impairments,
amplification devices can filter extraneous noise from the background or pick up an FM signal from a microphone on
a teacher's lapel.
Word processing, editing, spellchecking, and grammatical tools commonly found in high-end software facilitate the
inclusion of students with learning disabilities in regular classrooms by allowing them to keep up with much of the
work. Not inconsequentially, the children often feel better about themselves as active learners.
Technology is providing more powerful and efficient tools to teachers who work with children with disabilities. These
tools enable teachers to offer new and more effective means of learning while individualizing instruction to the broad
range of student learning needs. Educators are using computers as tools to deliver and facilitate learning beyond drill
and practice, to provide environments that accommodate learning, and to ensure enhanced and equitable learning
environments to all students.
Access to the World Wide Web, email, listservs, and other electronic learning environments is common in many
classrooms. In these environments, students around the world can interact in real time via onscreen messaging or
video and audio transmissions. In most of these learning situations, a disability makes no difference at all.

3. The range of potential assistive technology devices is large and includes both high-tech devices like computers and low-
tech, manually operated devices.
Credit: IntelliTools, Inc
Assistive Technology Defined
The definition of assistive technology applied to education is extremely broad, encompassing "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 functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities."As a result, the potential range of
AT devices is incredibly large, and both "high-tech" and "low-tech" devices are included. High-tech devices may be
computers, electronic equipment, or software. Although electronically operated, high-tech devices need not be
expensive, a simple low-cost switch that controls a battery-operated toy can be considered a high-tech device, as can
a tape recorder. Low-tech devices are manually, not electronically, operated. This group includes devices such as
pencil grips, mouth sticks, and mechanical hoists.This definition also expands the consideration of potential
educational applications with its focus on devices "used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of
persons with disabilities." As educators, we try to increase or add new academic, social, and daily living skills and
knowledge to the functional capability of all children. This is a basic goal as we prepare children to take their place in
society.In the case of children with degenerative impairments, such as muscular dystrophy, educators may be
working to keep children functioning at their current level. They may be striving to help students maintain their
capability to function in the world. Teachers work with students to improve skills and knowledge, making existing skills
and knowledge even more functional and improving fluency so that functional capabilities may be generalized into
different settings.It is critical to understand the implications of this definition to comprehend its effect on children with
disabilities in our schools. It is fairly easy to understand how the definition is applied with regard to children with
physical or sensory disabilities. To see a young child who had been unable to speak for her first five years say her
first sentence with a speaking computer device presents an exciting and clear picture of assistive technology. The
benefit of AT is also easy to comprehend when a child who cannot hear can understand his teacher's directions
because real-time captioning converts the teacher's speech to text projected onto his laptop computer.
The definition of assistive technology also applies to the more difficult-to-gauge tools that teachers use to deliver and
facilitate learning, including instructional applications of technology. These applications range from drill and practice
tutorials to facilitated learner-based environments provided through the Internet or interactive hypermedia and
multimedia-based instruction.It is important to understand that virtually all applications of technology -- tools for
children to learn, as well as tools for teachers to provide learning opportunities -- can be defined as assistive

4. technology. This is true for individual children with disabilities whose disability has a primary impact on academic
performance (e.g., learning disabilities) or functional performance (e.g., multiple physical and visual disabilities).
Michael Behrmann is professor of education and director of the Helen A. Kellar Center for Human Disabilities
at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
This article is excerpted from Assistive Technology for Young Children in Special Education, by Michael
Behrmann, Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Copyright 1998
ASCD. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.