Continued from last post. What I have learned...

Below are a few things that I thought were interesting and could help me become a better teacher in the field of Special Education.

AT Assessment Process in the School Environment

• One key thing to note I have noticed in this section is that you do not need an AT specialist for the assessment. It is recommended but not required. The IEP team is required, AT specialist, parent and student are only recommended but they are ideal.

• I also did not know that AT labs existed. This is an area where the student can try out some of the AT equipment to see if it is a good fit for them. This would only be for a short time though. It is recommended that the student use the device in their own environment for a longer trial period. There are also AT program centers. These centers help individuals find devices that fit their needs, make devices available for trial purposes, and help provide funding through low interest loans.

AT Consideration in the IEP Process

• I was surprised with how short the consideration checklist was for assistive technology. 
• It was only about 1 1/2 pages long. 
• http://www.atinternetmodules.org/mod_doc.php?mod_id=107

Automatic Speech Recognition

• I love ASR. It opens up a whole world of opportunities for students with a limited fine motor skills when using a computer. It also can be used with voice commands to operate a wheel char and use household appliances etc..
• Students with speech problems could also use this device.


• According to Fellbaum and Koroupetroglou (2008), in their article: "Principles of Electronic Speech Processing with Applications for People with Disabilities",


• Persons with brain damage, autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, intellectual impairment, or strokes, are often unable to talk intelligibly. If they have a certain ability to control their articulators and to repeat any utterance (be it even totally unintelligible speech or any other acoustic utterance) in a similar way, then a speech recognition system can be trained with this kind of 'vocabulary', it can generate text or commands and finally, with the aid of a speech synthesizer, the production of intelligible synthetic speech is possible. (p. 75)  (Modules, 2013)

References

 Modules, A. (2013). Assistive Technology Internet Modules | Welcome. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.atinternetmodules.org/mod_view.php?nav_id=1185 [Accessed: 20 Oct 2013].