Assistive Technology

I was intrigued by the writing programs that are available for students. I have had a few students over the years that have had problems with writing skills, not the ideas but the actual physical activity of writing. One student had fine motor skill development problems and the other two I am not sure why but their writing was not readable. The word predictions software would have been very helpful for all of these students. I know that these students have problems just completing the simple daily oral language activities because they would have to concentrate so hard on the actual writing that they would make mistakes in the sentences or they would concentrate on the sentence and the teacher would not be able to read what they had wrote. The one student would write so large that he would run out of room on most of his worksheets so he would just go back to the beginning of the line and write over the top of the first part of his answer. Our special education consultants have been working with him and he now has raised line paper to write out his answers from the worksheets and any other writing that he has to do. His handwriting lessons are also completed on the raised line paper. It has helped him quite a bit to use this resource. I can see where the word prediction software would help him when he was writing stories and longer pieces, he wouldn’t have to worry about spelling and handwriting he would be free to just think about the context of his work. As he gains confidence his reliance on the program should subside.


I read quite a bit more about the speech to text and word prediction software. These could be used for note taking when the students get into the upper grades because it would be much faster. The students wouldn’t have to think so much about what they were typing because the software would help them with the words they may not know right away. Typing in text speak would also help these kids take notes quickly so just having the computer available to them in class would be a great asset to them. They would then translate their text speak to standard English when they were using the information to complete assignments.

One web site that I looked at to review different types of tools for writing was http://www.techmatrix.org/Home

This is a site that lets you look at reviews of the products and links you to articles and other resources to help find the right tool for your student. Also the AEA has many tools that can be used. I have serve on our school Student Assistance Team along with our AEA special education representative and we have talked a great deal about tools that be used to help students be successful in the classroom and what is available through our local office.