Interesting+Articles

I found a title to an article in the journal of assistive technology that struck my interest. However, all I could access was the abstract because U of D does not subscribe to this journal. If anyone has access to the journal please let me know. On the other hand, for everyone who works with students with Autism in the class I thought you would find this article title intriguing: //Building Robota, a Mini-Humanoid Robot for the Rehabilitation of Children With Autism.// Yes, you read that right, robots! The abstract goes on to discuss how they are using human shaped robots to teach low functioning children with autism imitation skills. Watch out Brennen school they might replace us with robots. Seriously, look how advanced our assistive technology is getting. [|__http://www.resna.org/ProfResources/Publications/ATJournal/Volume19/Volume19.1/Robota.php__]

Another interesting article, //Reading Disability and the Brain//, was brought to my attention in another course that I am taking this summer. The article talks about using FMRI's (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to diagnose learning disabilities in children and/or adults. TITLE: Reading Disability and the Brain SOURCE: Educational Leadership 61 no6 Mr 2004 PAGE(S): 6-11 WN: 0406203461003

I came across an article that discussed library services for distant learning. The writer stated that people with disabilities benefit from the websites for long distance learning even though they are not designed for them. Hence he argues that librarians should design web sites to accommodate people with learning disabilities and other disabilities. He also feels that people with disabilities would benefit more if assisted by people in their institutions that are knowledgeable about special needs accommodations for people with disabilities. This article makes sense because there very smart people with learning disabilities, who may wish to pursue their studies through distance learning, and definitely may make use of websites as resources for their studies.

The topic we studied today in class about legal mandates in the United States me ponder about such laws in other parts of the world. I read an interesting article that implied that other countries are not lagging behind in enacting laws. The united states world program did a report on how other countries implemented policies concerning disabled persons. The report indicated that Governments have enacted policies and legislation to enable accessibility for the disabled persons, e.g, to buildings, public facilities, and transportation. There are many countries involved in this initiative, for instanced china, Cyprus, and Greece. Other areas the Governments have tried to make accessible to people with disabilities include Budgeting, health and social services, employment, promotion of inclusive societies, and in education.

There is a nice overview article "Accessible Education Through Assistive Technology" at [|http://thejournal.com/articles/16270]The article discusses the use of assistive technology in the classroom and focuses on students with learning disabilities.

There is an article talking about learning through listening and involves recoding for the blind and people with Dyslexia. There is a non profit organization that provides texts books and novels in a digital audio format to individuals in a standard way using CDS.

There is a Parents information center in delaware which in collaboration with the Department of Education provides information for families and students about the universal design learning. The organization helps families and students to understand that UDL is meant to help students with diverse interests, abilities, and disabilities have access to general education alongside their peers.

There is an interesting news article in the web that points out that 70% of the people with disabilities are unemployed, but they would like to work. The writer talked about the mentoring day for the students with disabilities, visit other disabled persons in different organizations, to show them that they too can make it to work in organzations.

According to Harrison‘s (1999) article “Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a sub-committee of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The mission of this group includes promotion of a high degree of usability for people with disabilities.” In addition, here are some principles that Harrison (1999) says to remember when making an accessible design: use structural elements as they were intended, provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content, add accessibility features to ensure pages can be navigated by keyboard only, and ensure graceful transformation.

I read an article in which the Delaware assistive technology initiative held six public forums. The forum noted that general education educators needed training in Assistive technology to cater for special education due the inclusion policy. That makes sense because the general education teacher needs to know the special education students' needs and how to cater for them.

I found a great article on the two switch step scanning process that was discussed by the AT specialist at the John G. Leach school. The author of this brief article is one of the co authors who wrote the handout we received titled "Can We Chat? Co-Planned Sequenced Social Scripts." The link to this article is http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2002/proceedings/208.htm

This article is a quick reference to the guidlines relating AT to IDEA. http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/assistive_technology/24315



Marvin Williams is photographed in the article in "The AT Messenger" titled "Senator Carper Visits New Castle ATRC". The article described Tom Carper's (US Sen.) visit to the Assistive Technology Resource Center at A.I. DuPont. He had a first hand look at the wide range of reusable assistive devices availabe to individuals with disabilities. The article also mentions the $600,000 grant that was awarded to DATI at the University of Delaware.

[|__http://www.nwrel.org/request/june01/child.html#research__] this is an article about what researchers say about technology and child development.

http://jset.unlv.edu/17.2T/tasseds/rose.html this article is talking about the limitation of using text books to teach in the classroom for regular and special education students. It points out that this is limiting to the instruction of indivual students and that schools need to turn to the digital textbooks.

http://www.ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=707 The writer of the article claims that although the IDEA aims to give special needs students access to education,, the curriculum is designed to suit the students without disabilities. The writer states that it takes along period of time for those working with the special needs student to modify and adopt the curriculum in order to adapt it for the special needs students. The universal design of learning can avoid wastage of time by designing appropriate curriculum considering diverse students with varied abilities.

http://udl.cast.org/udl/MovingTowardtheVision623.cfm This website is from CAST and shows how universal design " in use" for the first time in a classroom. Looks interesting and i encourage all to read. It exhibits the constructive model of learning whereby the teacher acts as a coach and students use the discovery method of learning.

http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Technology/equal_access_uddl.html this website says there universal design courses for long distance learning to cater for all diverse students. This is a positive move. Accessible web-based Distance Education Principles of best practices reading supports the need for accessing long distance education to diverse students. It points out that education is a basic right to everyone. The legislation also protects discrimination of any individual due to a disability. The web has become very crucial for learning and communication between the students and the instructors.

This is a wonderful article I found in __Business Week__ back in 2001 about Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of Kurzweil computer products. Check it out, it talks about his previous and more recent endeavors.http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2001/nf2001052_325.htm

[|__http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9E04E0DD153AF935A15752C1A9669C8B63__] this article talks about a parent trying to get toys for their disabled child. The article is titled “Parents Make Toys For Disabled Children” and was printed in The New York Times today, 7/20/07.

This isn't really an article but it is deals with some commonly asked questions about assistive technology and disabilities by faculty at the College of San Mateo. I think you'll find it interesting. http://www.smccd.net/accounts/fiori/atcenter/resources/faq_faculty.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3372/is_199903/ai_n8106585 Article discussing the use of AT in inclusive classrooms