Assistive Technology

According to standards.gov (http://standards.gov/standards_gov/assistiveTechnology.cfm) assistive technology is defined as any equipment or product system, whether commercial, modified, or customized, that is used to improve, assist, or increase the functional capabilities of a person with a disability.  When in reference to special education an "assistive technology device" is an assistive technology geared towards helping a child with disabilities, but does not include a surgically implanted medical device (http://www.atp.ne.gov/techassist/def-legal.html).  An assistive technology service has to do with a service which assists a child with a disability in selecting, acquiring, or using an assistive technology device.  The National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (http://nichcy.org/disability/specific/ld) says that 1 out of every 5 people in the U.S. has a learning disability.  Around 1 million children, between the ages of 6 and 21, have some sort of a learning disability.  

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Dyscalculia is a learning disability having to do with math (http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics/ld-aamp-language/ld-aamp-math/what-is-dyscalculia).  Students with Dyscalculia have visual-spatial difficulties, which has to do with a person having issues processing what they see.  Students can also have language processing difficulties, which has to do with a person having issues processing what they hear.  Often times these students have trouble learning the meaning of numbers, sorting objects by shape. size, or color, and seeing patterns.  An assistive technology device for children with Dyscalculia is a talking calculator (http://www.ldonline.org/article/Assistive_Technology_for_Kids_with_Learning_Disabilities:_An_Overview).  These types of calculators have a built in speech synthesizer that can read numbers, symbols, or operations out loud.  Other forms of assistive technology for students include electronic math worksheets, software which can help students to organize their work on a computer screen.  Other forms of assistive technology tools include graph paper or even math manipulative (http://www.ehow.com/about_7219521_assistive-technology-dyscalculia.html). 

In my future teaching career I will keep in mind that there are endless amount of tools which can help students to learn.  When I have a student with a learning disability in my classroom I will work with the supporting staff at my school to look for and gain access to assistive technology.  A way to keep up with the technology is to talk with other educators and research the assistive technologies.  It's exciting to know that there are so many different devices and tools to help students achieve their learning goals.