Assistive Technology

What is assistive technology? and how is it changing the development of children with SEN.

“Assistive technology includes products and services to help people who have difficulty speaking, typing, writing, remembering, pointing, seeing, hearing, learning and walking.”

(Badioze Zaman et al., 2011)

Over the past five years there has been an abundance of life changing assistive technology been made accessible to both children and adults with a verity of disabilities. Children with high functioning disabilities such as autism or aspersers are at a higher risk of also developing communicatory problems such as limited speech or lack of speech at all. By having gaining the access to tablets and ipads specialist schools are able to integrate a wide verity of software to enhance the communication of their pupils in their day to day life not just while at school. This is something that would have not been widely available  ten years ago, as Picture exchange communication (PEC)  is something that until Ipads and Apps were more commonly used was a life changing development in socialisation and communication with people with Autistic Spectrum disorders. “Three categories of assistive technology: high, mid-level, and low can be used to improve the communication skills, organization, motivation, academic skills, independence, and attention of students with ASD (Kroth & Edge, 2007; Myles, 2009; Stokes, n.d).” Enabling students to give/point to a picture of what they wanted/needed to both teachers and parents as way of non verbal communication.  

Example of a basic PEC card system

To this day PEC (Picture Exchange Communication) systems can still have a crucial effect on students with Autistic spectrum disorder development as it depends on the students confidence and ability to use a tablet. By having programmes that can give a voiceless community a voice is one of the main aims that programmes such as Speech Central, MyTalkTools, Autism Xpress and The Social Express. However It is not only important to introduce assistive technology  to students of primary school age but to also incorporate these assistances to adults that may have missed out on the opportunities  to gain the technology to assist in the success of day to day life. As said by McKnight and Davies, 2013 “There is also a need to address the issue of technology support for lifelong-learning, including support for informal and self-directed independent adult learning.”(McKnight and Davies, 2013)