Play is more than just fun; it is a powerful teaching tool that helps young children learn. With this practical, activity-filled guide, teachers will have ready-to-use strategies for weaving individual learning goals into play throughout the school day. Created for use with children ages 2 to 5 who have special needs--but equally effective for…

This digest discusses how selected researchers are informing practice in four key areas relating to the participation of students with disabilities in standards-based mathematics curriculum. The first area focuses on enhancing students' understanding of mathematics and emphasizes the need to make math meaningful for students with disabilities. The…

This final report discusses the activities and outcomes of the Navajo Assistive Bank of Loanable Equipment (Navajo-ABLE), a federally funded program designed to provide assistive technology (AT) devices, services, technical information, funding information, and training for Navajo children and youth with disabilities. The program was operated and…

A study investigated how assistive reading software affected the reading performance of 20 postsecondary students who had attention deficit disorder. The software allowed the students to attend better to their reading, reduce distractibility, read with less stress, and read for longer periods of time. It did not affect comprehension. (Contains…

Deaf Education Teacher Preparation Programs must prepare teachers to staff an increasing number of oral programs. A survey was conducted to determine which competencies administrators of deaf education programs rate as important for teachers in oral programs and to compare ratings of these competencies by oral school administrators to ratings made…

Allan Ridley has many interesting qualities, not least his determination. Though he is totally blind, he doesn't let that stop him pursuing his interests, whether he is water skiing or learning database design. When asked to tutor blind learner Allan Ridley, the author had to give a lot of thought to making the curriculum accessible. This article…

Within most educational institutes there are a substantial number of students with varying physical and mental disabilities. These might range from difficulty in reading to difficulty in attending the institute. Whatever their disability, it places a barrier between them and their education. In the past few years there have been rapid and striking…

The UK's 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act has charged learning technologists with the responsibility of ensuring that electronic teaching materials can be accessed by disabled students. In an attempt to explore how learning technologists are developing practices to produce accessible electronic materials this paper will present a…

A short-term longitudinal study was conducted to investigate possible benefits of cochlear implant (CI) use on the development of phonological awareness in deaf children. Nineteen CI users were tested on 2 occasions. Two groups of deaf children using hearing aids were tested once: 11 profoundly deaf and 10 severely deaf children. A battery of…

Issues related to stigma and its impact on assistive technology (AT) use with persons having developmental disabilities are addressed. While stigma has been known to be associated with presence of disability for many years, relationship between stigma and AT usage, particularly when working with families across cultures, has only just begun to be…

Case studies are an accepted method for reporting treatment outcomes. However, to be useful and authentic, a systematic and principled approach to collecting, analyzing, and reporting case data must be observed. This paper proposes a basic case study format for documenting augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention to ensure…

Literacy is important not only to school success but is fundamental to skills needed to succeed in our rapidly changing technology-driven society. This article focuses on characteristics, interactions, and attitudes of parents and children related to their use of assistive technologies to build literacy skills. Interviews and observations…

This paper discusses the development of an assistive technology (AT) toolkit for special education teachers to use in integrating assistive technology with general curriculum standards for students with high incidence (mild) disabilities. Participants were 31 K-8 special education teacher-volunteers recruited from schools representing urban,…

This resource kit includes the following: Executive Summary; Legal Fact Sheet; Resource Guide; 26-minute "I Can Soar" Videotape; Video User's Guide; and Stories of Students Featured in Video. The materials provide tips to hep guide consumers in better integrating assistive technology (AT) within effective programs and services for children with…

This report discusses a project that adapted new automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology to provide real-time speech-to-text transcription as a support service for students who are deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH). In this system, as the teacher speaks, a hearing intermediary, or captionist, dictates into the speech recognition system in a…