Middle School Language Arts

Just as there are many types of differences and disabilities in the student population, there are nearly as many adaptive strategies and assistive technologies to choose among.  It is worthwhile for any teacher or prospective teacher to become familiar with some of these.  Having just finished writing about a potential ADHD treatment, I wanted to continue along those lines, since this is a condition or difference that is very common in students and in the general population–something teachers are likely to encounter on a daily basis.  The Family Center on Technology and Disability (FCTD) site contains a page with links to eleven articles that provide information about “Assistive Technology in Support of High Incidence Disabilities.”  I had to weed through a few of these before I found just the article I was looking for:  “Project ACCESS: Field Testing an Assistive Technology Toolkit for Students with Mild Disabilitis” by Kathleen S. Puckett of the University of Tennessee.  The article describes how  a group of teachers were provided a “technology toolkit” that was available for general-anticipated as opposed to specific assistive purposes.  The customary approach is to tailor assistive technologies to student need as indicated on the IEP, which is a slow process tailored to a specific individual’s needs.  However, an assistive toolkit is not an either/or proposition.  It is a way to meet the needs of students who might not be on the radar and it is based on the evolving principle of universal design.  The technologies teachers found most useful were also some of the most user-friendly, such as Kidspiration, Intelli-tools, Write Outloud, and Alphasmart.