Assistive technology exists to help students with a learning difficulty or disability participate in education more fully. It helps to close the gap between them and their peers. Schools can apply for an Assistive Technology grant from the Department of Education to buy laptops, tablets, etc for eligible students. I will be covering the dyslexia-specific assistive technology today as there is an extensive range available for other needs and disabilities.
Usually, the equipment provided is kept in school as it is school property and can be passed on to another student or another school when it is no longer needed by the pupil who it was acquired for.
To support children with dyslexia, we would use assistive technology in the form of laptops and tablets, reading pens, text-to-speech, and speech-to-text tools. These help children who have difficulty with reading and writing.
Usually, the equipment provided is kept in school as it is school property and can be passed on to another student or another school when it is no longer needed by the pupil who it was acquired for.
To support children with dyslexia, we would use assistive technology in the form of laptops and tablets, reading pens, text-to-speech, and speech-to-text tools. These help children who have difficulty with reading and writing.
Laptop/Tablet: Often handwriting and transcribing can be very difficult for a child with dyslexia, the laptop takes away the pressure of illegible writing and helps the child and teacher understand what has been written. Hand strength and fine motor skills required for writing can be a common issue with dyslexia so enabling them to carry out the task in a more suitable way is a great support for them. The laptop also opens the user up to other assistive tools such as text-to-speech and speech-to-text.
Reading Pen: When reading a piece of text and confronted with a new or tricky word, the child can run the nib of a reading pen across the word and it is read aloud to them, as if a teacher or parent was reading the word for them. This offers more independence to the child when reading. Some reading pens even offer an explanation of the word. Certain “word-only” reading pens are approved by the Department of Education for use in state exams.
Text-to-Speech/Speech-to-Text Tools: Most tablets, laptops, and devices offer text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools. There are often in-built accessibility tools of this nature on some websites if we know where to find them. Chrome has a “HelperBird” tool that will read aloud any passage of highlighted text. Seeing AI is a text-scanning app if you just point your phone camera over the page you want to read. These tools are generally not provided by schools but they are very useful in day-to-day life and as far as I’m aware they are free to use.
Reading Pen: When reading a piece of text and confronted with a new or tricky word, the child can run the nib of a reading pen across the word and it is read aloud to them, as if a teacher or parent was reading the word for them. This offers more independence to the child when reading. Some reading pens even offer an explanation of the word. Certain “word-only” reading pens are approved by the Department of Education for use in state exams.
Text-to-Speech/Speech-to-Text Tools: Most tablets, laptops, and devices offer text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools. There are often in-built accessibility tools of this nature on some websites if we know where to find them. Chrome has a “HelperBird” tool that will read aloud any passage of highlighted text. Seeing AI is a text-scanning app if you just point your phone camera over the page you want to read. These tools are generally not provided by schools but they are very useful in day-to-day life and as far as I’m aware they are free to use.
Assistive technology is merely a tool to help children carry out activities, a structured literacy approach, with multi-sensory methodologies, will help them to understand literacy in a more meaningful way, but having the assistive technology means that they can do more with what they’re learning. It levels the playing field as it can alleviate pressures associated with writing and reading, delaying the child's achievement in various areas of the curriculum.