Question

describe how instructional technology and assistive technology adaptations can be used in reading.

my major is rehabilitation services, the class is assistive technology, & the book is assistive technology for people with disabilities

Answer 1

Describe how instructional technology and assistive technology adaptations can be used in reading

Reading disorder is when an individual is unable to read words or unable to comprehend their meaning and the right context. An example of such disorder is dyslexia, where the affected individuals have difficulty in reading and understanding text. For such individuals where reading the text is not possible or in case or partial blindness where vision is blurred to read we can take help of instructional technology and assistive technology adaptations can be used in reading. The following are the assistive and instructional technologies which can be used in reading:

1. Audio books and publications: When individual cannot read the text based book, the book can be converted into audio format and can be listen by the reading disability individuals in the form of audio cassettes, MP3 recordings, electronic audio libraries etc. Individuals can refer to specific chapters and pages and play the recordings according to their requirement.

2.Optical Character Recognition/ Screen reader software: For a reading disability person, reading a document is difficult task without understanding the words and meaning. Hence the optical character recognition software as an assistive technology device/ software device when pointed or placed near the OCR/ Screen reader, it translates the information using document scanning-text recognition algorithms and converts the information in terms of audio output which can read out the data to the individual with disability. Thus, making reading not only possible but given a sense of independence and dignity to individuals with disability to perform day to day reading tasks.

3. Screen readers: In the current digital age major part of reading and content consumption is in the form of text presented in the form of articles, blogs, eBooks on the electronic devices such as Smartphones, computers, tablet readers, etc. Here, people with reading disability can use the screen reader software assistive technology, where it can read out loud the text and content on the screen and the individual can control and read through the device.

4. Voice synthesizers: The people with reading disability are closely associated with writing disorder as even the written words are unclear or in cases n the work alphabetic sense and this hinders their writing when submitting an assignment, test or an essay. here the Text-to-Speech technology based voice synthesizers can be used to use vice of the individual to formulate words int he form of text just like when we use Google assistant, Siri, Cortana, Bixby assistants on out smartphones. Through voice recognition and its application in Text-to-Speech technology, these individuals can get the required instructional and assistive technology help to overcome the difficulties.