Assistive Technologies

Computer Overview:
MacBook Pro (Laptop; Apple Inc.) iOS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard)

Accessibility features:
The Apple Education website includes a fantastically organized and detailed description of the different accessibility features, as well as an excellent Beginners Guide on how to personalize a Mac for diverse learning needs). They group their features under several categories. All the information below was adapted from the Apple Education website. In addition, I took several of the screenshots to better illustrate different features.

LITERACY AND LEARNING

These built-in features accommodate learning disabilities and help improve productivity and academic performance in reading proficiency, math, spelling, and more.

Name

Screen Capture

Function

Helpful with

Text to Speech

Text-to-Speech (TTS) can read aloud a selection of text or an entire document. It includes natural-sounding male and female voices. Alex (the male voice) actually Reading- Can assist to pauses to breathe when speaking long passages. TTS practice reading. works with all applications that support the OS X Speech engine, including Mail, iChat, and TextEdit.

Word Completion

When the user begins to type, suggested words are highlighted. After typing a few characters, the user can press the Escape key to open up a list of words beginning with those characters. It highlights correct word usage.

Spelling- Typists can avoid spelling mistakes and reduce keystrokes with the word completion feature. Motor

Finder & Spotlight

Using the Finder, various documents can be displayed as images, icons, or text. Spotlight is a searching feature that finds all files related to a search term, wherever they are located on the computer. Very quickly!

Organization- looking for a particular file among a variety of files, folders, applications, etc. can be irritating and time consuming.

Spaces

Spaces allows users to group applications and documents into separate areas for each subject (math, science, etc.) Different resources such as the New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford American Writers Thesaurus, Apple Dictionary, Wikipedia, scientific reference materials, and grammar and pronunciation guides are available for use. All of the Mac applications access the same dictionaries, ensuring consistency when grammar- and spell-checking documents. Adding new words to the spelling or grammar dictionary in one application are automatically applied to all other applications. A built-in calendar application.

Organization- to avoid clutter, users group their applications and documents.

Built-in 5 Spelling and Grammar Checking

Writing/ Spelling- When working on assignments, students can quickly find definitions, synonyms, etc.

iCal

Organization- Mark calendar for deadlines, create meeting alerts, etc. Organization- When working on math assignments, this calculator is a built-in feature. No need to bring a calculator along

Grapher

A full-featured graphing calculator

VISION:
These built-in features allow blind and low-vision students to magnify the screen, adjust display contrast, increase cursor size, and more.

Name

Screen Capture

Function
An advanced screen-reading technology. Users can hear a spoken description of whats on screen and can control the computer using only the keyboard (no mouse required). VoiceOver can also be used to browse the web, chat, send and receive email, use iTunes, edit text documents, and more. Settings can be customized, and preferences can be saved on a USB flash drive and applied to other Mac computers. And OS X Lion includes built-in voices that speak 22 languages. Speech technologies that include talking alerts (which speak the content of dialogs and alerts), a talking calculator, a talking clock, and Text to Speech (TTS), a feature that reads selected text aloud. TTS works with all applications that support the OS X Speech engine, including Mail, iChat, and TextEdit. VoiceOver supports more than 40 different models of refreshable braille displays including wireless Bluetooth displays that work as soon as they're connected. OS X Lion includes built-in support for more than 80 braille tables serving a wide range of languages. VoiceOver exhibits spoken output as text or braille onscreen.

Helpful with

VoiceOver

Vision- Blind or low-vision students can use audio commands to do a variety of things.

Text to Speech

Vision- Blind or low-vision students can use these audio-version features to work on a variety of assignments. Vision- Blind or low-vision students can do anything with this add-on, assuming they can type in braille. But they can also collaborate with non-blind students more effectively.

Refreshable 3 Braille Display Support

Braille Mirroring

Braille Mirroring allows one Mac to control multiple USB braille displays simultaneously.

Vision- Blind or low-vision students can collaborate or even teach a lesson to multiple users.

Screen Magnification

Zoom lets users to use picture-in-picture magnification, allowing them to see the zoomed area magnified by up to 20x in a separate window while keeping the rest of the screen at its native size. Text, graphics, and even video can be magnified without affecting system performance.

Vision- low-vision students can view any assignment.

HEARING:
Deaf and hard-of-hearing students can use features ranging from caption support to Internet-based sign-language communication to auditory comprehension tools.

Name

Screen Capture

Function

Helpful with
Deaf and hard-of-hearingStudents can collaborate in real time with teachers or other students using text messages or video conferencing.

iChat

iChat is a chat room feature that connect to the builtin camera.

GarageBand

Deaf and hard-of-hearingTeachers can create podcasts of conversational speech and GarageBand is a music-making and sound-recording download them to an iPod or iPad. program. Students use the podcasts to learn inflection and how to differentiate one voice from another.

Closed Captioning 3 Displaying open and closed captioning in QuickTime and DVD Player. Deaf and hard-of-hearing-Students can download and watch captioned movies and other iTunes content.

Photo Booth

Photo Booth is an application for taking photos and video.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing can communicate using sign-language.

PHYSICAL AND MOTOR-SKILL

Students with physical and motor-skill challenges can control their computer using the keyboard, mouse, or trackpad.

Name

Screen Capture

Function
Automator allows the user to record the task once, and from that point on, Automator will perform the entire task on demand.

Helpful with
Motor- Teachers can automate complex tasks for students with motor difficulties, such as opening certain applications.

Automator

Adjusting Mouse and Trackpad Sensitivity (Video) 2 Slow Keys

Slow Keys adds a delay between when a key is pressed and when its action is accepted, so theres less chance of a mistake.

Students who have difficulty typing can avoid unintended multiple keystrokes by activating Slow Keys.

Mouse Keys moves the mouse pointer using the keys on a numeric keypad. 3 Mouse Keys

Students who find it challenging to control a mouse can more easily navigate menus, windows, toolbars, color palettes, and more.

Keyboard Shortcuts (or key combinations) allow for the use and creation of one-click operations for different tasks. 4 Keyboard Shortcuts

Students can quickly perform a wide range of tasks (copy, paste, save, open windows, etc.) without touching a mouse or opening menus.

Sticky Keys

Sticky Keys allows users to complete commands by pressing keys in sequence instead of simultaneously. The Multi-Touch Trackpad allows users to complete different operations using the trackpad instead of the keyboard.

Multi-Touch Trackpad

Students can enter key combinations such as Command-Q (for Quit). Students can use the Trackpad to navigate the screen, zoom in on text, flip through a photo library, or fine-tune a photo using simple gestures with their fingertips.

Inkwell

A built-in handwriting recognition technology (requires connecting a graphics tablet), Inkwell translates what the writing into onscreen text. Inkwell supports several standard stylus gestures, making it easy to select, edit, and delete text. It can also convert English, French, and German text.

Students can continuously work with Inkwell to improve their handwriting and to turn in assignments while still practicing their handwriting.

Below you can find additional resources I found on the Apple website. These resources are not from Apple, but were created by other developers for Apple Inc. and are compatible with the different Apple operating systems:

For Mac From screen loupes that magnify portions of the screen to software that speaks PDF documents, a wide range of hardware and software products have been developed for Mac users with special needs. Learn more For iPhone, iPad, and iPod Adapt your iOS devices using products that bear the Made for iPhone, Made for iPad, and Made for iPod logos. Add new software features and functions by downloading apps from the App Store, available on iTunes and directly from iOS devices. Learn more Community Resources ATMac ATMac reports on all Apple products with a focus on disability. Its audience includes people with a disability, assistive and adaptive technology users, teachers, educators, content producers, and application developers. Learn more at ATMac.org AssistiveWare AssistiveWare develops innovative accessibility software for people with vision, motor-skills, speech, and language impairments. It provides cutting-edge assistive technology products, including communications solutions for people who have difficulty speaking. Learn more at AssistiveWare.com