Twenty-first-century preschool children, with and without disabilities, may be found using technology, including assistive technologies, on a daily basis in their homes, schools, and communities. Early childhood educators are exploring opportunities to integrate technology and interactive media into the present-day curriculum. The authors suggest…

The paper describes an e-learning system called Advanced Learning Space that was developed at the Technical University of Liberec. The system provides a personalized virtual work space and promotes communication among students and their teachers. The core of the system is a module that can be used to automatically record, store and playback…

Despite years of school reform intended to help students reach high academic standards, students with disabilities continue to struggle, suggesting a need for more intensive intervention as a part of special education and multi-tiered systems of support. At the same time, greater inclusion of students with disabilities in large-scale assessment,…

The purpose of this article is to provide teachers with tools that they can use to teach written expression to school-age students with intellectual disabilities. These tools are presented around the mnemonic ACCESS: accommodations and assistive technologies, concrete topics, critical skills, explicit instruction, strategy instruction, systematic…

As high-stakes testing, Common Core, and state standards become the new norms in schools, teachers are tasked with helping all students meet specific benchmarks. In conjunction with the influx of more students with disabilities being included in inclusive and general education classrooms where lectures with note-taking comprise a majority of…

Assessing speaking is one of the most difficult tasks in computer based language testing. Many countries all over the world face the need to implement standardized language tests where speaking tasks are commonly included. However, a number of problems make them rather impractical such as the costs, the personnel involved, the length of time for…

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology has become a part of contemporary Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) systems. ASR systems however are being criticized for their erroneous performance especially when utilized as a mean to develop skills in a Second Language (L2) where errors are not tolerated. Nevertheless, these errors can…

Social interactions may positively influence developmental and quality of life outcomes. Research in persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) mostly investigated interactions with caregivers. This literature review focuses on peer interactions of persons with PIMD. A computerized literature search of three databases was…

This pilot study explored the potential for Project ASPIRE to effect behavior change in a sample of 11 parents of children with hearing loss who were from typically underserved populations, such as families from backgrounds of low socioeconomic status or families who speak English as a second language. The study consisted of one education session,…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether deficits in executive functioning (EF) in children with cochlear implants (CIs) emerge as early as the preschool years. Method: Two groups of children ages 3 to 6 years participated in this cross-sectional study: 24 preschoolers who had CIs prior to 36 months of age and 21 preschoolers…

Anecdotal reports of fatigue after sustained speech-processing demands are common among adults with hearing loss; however, systematic research examining hearing loss-related fatigue is limited, particularly with regard to fatigue among children with hearing loss (CHL). Many audiologists, educators, and parents have long suspected that CHL…

The content of 2,050 messages on a virtual forum for d/Deaf and hard of hearing people in Israel was analyzed. Interactions and behavior were monitored to determine if behavior on the forum expressed social support, and whether the community was an entirely virtual community or a real community whose members also met in other venues. Subjects…

Although individuals who are blind have used a stick or a cane for their independent travel since the early years of human history, designs for modern long canes did not appear until World War II, when the systematic long cane techniques were developed by Hoover (1962). Ergonomic factors, such as the length of the cane, may affect how well a cane…

This study assessed microswitch-based technology to enable three post-coma adults, who had emerged from a minimally conscious state but presented motor and communication disabilities, to operate a radio device. The material involved a modified radio device, a microprocessor-based electronic control unit, a personal microswitch, and an amplified…

Purpose: Amplitude compression is a common hearing aid processing strategy that can improve speech audibility and loudness comfort but also has the potential to alter important cues carried by the speech envelope. In previous work, a measure of envelope change, the Envelope Difference Index (EDI; Fortune, Woodruff, & Preves, 1994), was moderately…