Universal Design and Assistive Technology

Universal Design is a idea that – in a great international – could allow one’s college student with a incapacity to go into a room and straight away have EQUAL ACCESS to any records. With Universal Design, the assistive era may be used so that magnificence instructions may be effortlessly completed by using everybody, such as those with disabilities who use assistive generation. The following diversifications are everyday examples of Universal Design: sliding automatic doorways, large restroom doorways and stalls, adjustable tables, sidewalk cut back cuts, texting, movement lights, lever handles, and e-books. Each of these examples makes all of us’s lifestyles less complicated, no longer simply someone with an incapacity.

• Assistive Technology for Hard of Hearing and Deaf

A Sorenson carrier uses faraway interpreters through a videophone for individuals who are difficult to hear or deaf. Videophones are unfastened with the Sorenson provider. Individuals can be in one vicinity, and the interpreter may be in some other country. Some faculties have CART reporting available to Hard of Hearing and Deaf students. The CART reporter sits out of doors a class and listens through headphones to make a genuine lecture transcript, much like a court reporter. FM structures also are to be had for people who have hearing impairments. FM structures will extend the sound from room to room. One character wears a small tool with a transmitter, and the other man or woman wears a receiver. The individual with the receiver can hear what the alternative character is saying as if they may be after every other. Assistive Technology like FM systems should be available to everybody who visits a museum or enjoys a performance at an auditorium or film theater.

• Braille/Tactile Diagrams

For a person who is blind, the Braille generation is to be had in private computers called PacMates that allow individuals to take their personal notes with the use of a Braille keypad. Tactile diagrams for science also are to be had for human anatomy models, go-sections of the top, brain, nostril, mouth, throat, breathing tract, heart, digestive machine, and so on. Tactile maps are also to be had for all and sundry taking a geography class or analyzing the globe. Textbooks and checks in college may be produced in Braille for everybody requesting such offerings.

• E-Text

E-text is now available through many textbook and non-academic publishers. Students who’ve disabilities may qualify totally free copies of their textbooks from Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexia. The University of Virginia also has lots of e-books available to students. Kent State University has a non-commercial repository for ebook research, and Project Gutenberg has many e-books which might be freed from fees. Google has over 500,000 e-books that are unfastened access. Most publishers want a “proof of purchase” for university textbooks before offering an e-textual content opportunity model. Kindle, The Nook, and Sony all have electronic readers for thousands of books; however, fascinated people should additionally test for textual content-to-speech software programs to allow them to concentrate on the book and examine it.

Technology

• Physical Disabilities/Wheelchair Users

The wheelchair era and upload-on systems are to be had for leisure activities like bowling and soccer. Paralympic athletes compete in worldwide paralympic carrying events. In addition, specialized wheelchair carts with balloon tires are an option for driving over sandy beaches. Laptop access may be used for people with limited body movement to use big trackballs, a foot mouse, sip and puff devices, and a head-controlled mouse. Electric eyes can be supplied that permit laptops to enter and manipulate thru constrained head movement and even eye blinks.

• Screen Magnifiers

Personal computers all have accessibility options such as a zoom characteristic for someone with low imagination and prescient. You can find access on the Control Panel characteristic of your PC. Zoom Text enlarges print for a person with low imagination and prescient, and Zoom Text with speech additionally includes a screen reader. Products from Kurzweil and Freedom Scientific also provide display screen readers and magnifiers. Home magnifiers are not handiest appropriate for students. However, the era will help folks who do excellent work with their arms. Their fingers may be magnified onto a display so that humans can see their knitting, writing, or small detail maintenance.

The camera era also makes life extra reachable to people with low imagination and prescient. An expansion of merchandise amplifies text for a person with low imaginative and prescient that may be used on a table pinnacle, are transportable or can be worn on the head for a person with mobility disabilities. For example, Flipper uses a digicam to task facts from the classroom board onto a private computer. Jordy is a product worn on the head.

Small pocket digital magnifiers are helpful when seeking to study important points in the course of shopping. These merchandises are available at low imaginative and prescient websites. In addition, you could get a microscope. This is virtual. The person hooks it via a laptop with a unique software program. The pc is then attached to a projector, and it enlarges the slide onto a wall or table for all to view straight away. The consumer can push a button and freeze the photo to enter the enlarged print for less difficulty. Math calculators are available that use an overhead to undertaking onto the wall.

• Speech-to-Text

Tablet PCs ought to additionally have a speech-to-text era. Someone with low imagination and prescient or hand motion regulations can use a speech-to-text product like Dragon Naturally Speaking, considered a Nuance voice manage merchandise. Nuance voice Controls will permit users to apply voice instructions to dictate emails to Blackberry, feature appointments, and go looking the net. Sony ICD-SX46 Digital Voice Recorder can be used with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software. Tablet PCs have a sensitive screen designed to have interacted with a complimentary pen. You can use the pen at once on the display screen like a mouse to select, drag, and open files and may be utilized in the region of a keyboard to handwriting notes. Nexus 1 Smartphone has a Speech-to-Text function as nicely.

• Text-to-Speech

Screen readers are also to be had totally free or purchased, relying upon the product. ReadPlease is a free screen reader for home use that reads textual content that has been reducing and pasted to the display reader on a pc. Students who’re blind can use JAWS to concentrate on the whole lot on their pc. Zoom Text and Magic also have textual content readers constructed into their software programs. Electronic pens are also had that could study notes aloud, scan and store text, transfer records to PDAs, Smartphones, and Personal Computers. Some of these pens also can translate English into other languages. The Pulse, Smartpen via Live Scribe we could the person file notes after a replay the written words by tapping at the notes. Notes can be saved to the pc and shared as Flash videos, PDF documents, or audio files.