Assisitive Technology (Essay Sample)

Assistive Technology
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Assistive Technology
Technology is constantly changing the face of the world. Every dawn is accompanied by marvelous changes regarding the application of technology in daily lives. A majority of people across the globe are now aware of the benefits that accompany this technology and thus aim at ensuring it is available to them. However, some of the people face difficulties in accessing technology due to factors beyond their control like physical or cognitive difficulties, impairments, and disabilities. When accessing a technology service, it becomes crucial to ensure that the products that go hand in hand with the technology are compatible with it. An example is a computer operating system (Cook & Polgar, 2014).
The Assistive Technology Product
The main focus is the assistive technology. It refers to the products that are designed to provide additional accessibility to individuals who have problems accessing technology due to the natural difficulties they have. Some of these difficulties are impairments and disabilities, for instance, a blind person. The main product of the assistive technology within the discussion is the Reading Tool and Learning Disabilities Program. This is an assistive technology program that includes software and hardware aimed at making the accessibility of text-based materials easier (King, 1999).
How the Technology Works
The Reading tools and learning disabilities program is aimed to make text-based materials more accessible for people who have difficulty in reading through scanning, reformatting, navigating or speaking text out loud. The product just requires manipulation by the user. When the user needs reformatting, the option for that command is available, and this applies to all the other options like navigating or speaking text out loud.
Characteristics of Students who use this Technology
The development of this technology came with its aims and goals. The developers specifically analyzed the environment and identified a problem that affected many especially students. They relied on the fact that not everyone has the capacity and ability to access the current technology like everybody else does. In effect to this, the assistive technology came to offer great help to students across massive populations who in one way or another exhibit difficulties in accessing technology. For the students who use this assistive product, they exhibit several characteristics. Some of the identifiable characteristics about this are difficulty in seeing, difficulty in manipulating print materials, difficulty in assimilating new literacy skills and learning English as a foreign language (Hersh & Johnson, 2008).
An analysis of this particular product usage revealed that many students who use it have problems in manipulating text materials and learning new literacy materials. These students have problems in seeing through the material, but the main issue comes when it comes to hearing. It means that they can comprehend everything excellently when they hear but not when they see the highlighted text. The fact that they don’t comprehend what they see does not mean that they have problems with eyesight, but it is because they a difficulty in connecting hearing and seeing simultaneously. The assistive product comes as great assistance to such students since it connects the highlighted material with speaking out text loud to help the students assimilate the behavior (Wendt Quist & Lloyd, 2011).
Moreover, these students that use the assistive product discussed exhibit problems of developing new literacy skills. Anything new becomes a problem to assimilate as they are not able to adapt their mind into accumulating new information may be because they are unable to read. The Reading tools and learning disabilities program can assist in such a case because it is designed to make text-based materials more accessible to people with difficulty in reading
Issues of the Technology use in the Classroom
The identification of problems like inability to access technology for specific groups has influenced the issue of technology use in the classroom setting. Students are expected to be the most frequent users of technology due to what the learning environment demands. In this case, there have been increased issues of technology’s use in the classroom. This technology has further been improved to include assistive products to assist students with impairments or difficulty in learning. The phenomenon has been experienced across in some American classes with international students and European countries e...