What assistive technologies are available to you as a teacher? Select a few and
discuss how they may be useful to you
Hearing Assistance Technology or (HAT), is technology that was designed to help the hearing impaired. Oftentimes, a hearing aid or cochlear implant is not enough to help children with hearing problems. The Assistive Listening Device also known as ALD helps to separate the sound of background noise so that the hearing impaired can hear more clearly. The way this is achieved is the speaker talks into a microphone and the words are sent straight into the ear thus eliminating any background noise or issues with the user being able to hear the speaker due to distance.
Another device that helps the hearing impaired is bluetooth device that allows for digital audio streaming from the bluetooth device to the hearing aid or cochlear inplant. Either of these devices will be helpful in the classroom, I could certainly see where the microphone would be good for group discussions and the bluetooth device for individual lessons.
It is wonderful when volunteers come to the school to read to the children, but some children need additional one-on-one help with reading. The Assistive Technology Tool that is designed to help children with reading is Audiobooks. The books allow the child to listen to the text and follow along. The books are on various format such as CD's, MP3 players, audio cassettes. The benefits of this technology is that the children can move at their own pace with playback options and they will learn to pronounce the words correctly. There is a huge electronics library available and in the event that the book you are seeking is not in the audiobook library. They have developed a scanner where you can scan printed material into a computer or handheld device. The text is then read aloud via a speech reading system. This technology is called Optical Character Recognition.
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