Try to imagine you are 13 years old, and you can't read very well.  Ten or fifteen years ago in the school system, you would have required someone to sit with you (if someone were available to do so) and read to you.  No 13 year old wants to bring attention to him or herself in this manner.

When you're 13, maintaining your reputation is everything.  It's hard to do that when you're tethered to another person.  It's also difficult to develop as an independent learner when you have an adult next to you all the time.

Here are two of our 'most used' pieces of software intended to increase learning disabled students' independent access to information (particularly textbooks) and improve their ability to share information.

Kurzweil

Kurzweil software does a lot of things well, but primarily it is used for reading.  If you need to read a textbook,  Kurzweil allows you to view and listen to the e-textbook on your computer screen.  No e-textbook?   You can easily scan textbooks into the program.  Not all scanners are compatible however, and it's important to use a Kurzweil compatible scanner.  In the LST room, students also routinely scan in tests which they can then see on the screen and hear at the same time.  Students can also record their answers on the test and then print.   Among other things, Kurzweil also includes an mp3 encoder to create audio files from scanned in documents or e-text, a built-in dictionary, a spellchecker,  highlighters, and the ability to export or print highlighted text.  It also reads the web!  The only downside is that this program is very expensive, so Kurzweil is primarily an adaptation most commonly suited to an educational setting.

I remember a grade 9 student a few years back who had been introduced to Kurzweil the year before.  He had a severe learning disability in reading, and used Kurzweil for all reading tasks, including test-writing.  I happened to notice that he was writing his final science exam at a table rather than using the program like he normally did.  I walked up to him to find out why, thinking he would tell me there was something wrong with the computers.  To my surprise, he replied that he didn't feel he needed Kurzweil any more.  He felt that his reading had improved to the degree that he was able to read his test unassisted.  It was at this point that I realized that Kurzweil had the unexpected benefit of improving reading skills.  This was not the last time I would see this.



Dragon Naturally Speaking Voice Activated Software
Dragon allows students to get ideas down on paper via voice.  I've been a big fan of Dragon for awhile, but I'm an even bigger fan now that Dragon does not require the user to train the program to recognize his/her voice.   The newest version even has the ability to recognize accents.  Dragon is commonly used in business environments, but is an amazing tool for students with writing disabilities.  This program is intuitive and easy to use.  It's also inexpensive.  My only suggestion is that if students plan to use Dragon in an area with ambient noise, consider using a noise-cancelling USB headset rather than using the one that ships with the product.




Assistive technologies are intended to increase independent access to curriculum, course materials, and instruction.  Nowadays, access to assistive technology means having a learning disability does not mean having to give up independence.