Assistive Technology

 It can be very challenging for teachers to ensure that their lessons and teaching is reaching every student in their classroom. Each student learns best in different ways, and for this reason not every lesson may reach all students in the classroom. It is essential for teachers to take the chance to get to know their students, both before the school year and at the beginning of the year, in order to determine the resources and techniques necessary for each individual student to succeed. This is where assistive technology comes in.

Assistive technology is a great tool for all students but especially for students with learning disabilities. Assistive technology aids students in being successful learners in the classroom by providing them with additional tools to learn. For example, students with autism may struggle with taking notes in class. These students may not fully be able to quickly determine important information covered and write these into their notes. 

One piece of assistive technology that can help these students in the classroom is the dictation (voice typing) feature of Google Docs. The dictation feature can help these students by recording verbatim what the teacher is saying. After class, these students can then spend time organizing and reviewing their notes and determining important content. As the teacher, I likely will also need to spend some time working with this student outside of class and even provide some refined notes for them. This is not perfect and can sometimes record incorrect words. Additionally, if multiple members of the class are talking at once, a student will likely not be able to use the voice typing feature because it will not be accurate. However, it is a helpful tool when there is one speaker at a time and can help students to visualize what is being said. 

Another software that can be used to assist students, particularly in writing, is Grammarly. Grammarly is a checks for spelling and punctuation in students' writing and makes suggestions and corrections. This could be helpful for students that may struggle to review their work when doing a writing assignment. Grammarly is an excellent tool to help students to check their work and improve their spelling, grammar, and punctuation.