A guide to deploying Assistive Technology

for students in the Fine Arts.

Students are increasingly declaring a disability due to the more proactive and open approach of UAL and my open educational resource triesto provide a snapshot of the AT marketplace which hopefully would be relevant to our challenged colleagues as well as any artist who feels they are not reaching their full potential due to issues engaging with digital media.

Essential components of Assistive Technology are the ease of access tools plus an ongoing community of involvement to support the challenged student over the learning curve.

Apple and Microsoft provide a range of AT tools as part of their operating systems ‘out of the box’ Tobii provides gaze controlof the graphical user interface (GUI) and applications throughtheir specialized hardware and software, and Nuance marketthe popular Dragon Naturally Speaking speech to text application.

These are the tools I briefly describe in my resource although thereexist numerous companies who manufacture bespoke hardwareacross the spectrum of disability which I provide links for.

Our student population is diverse.The most commonly revealed disability is dyslexia but we also encounter Asperger’sSyndrome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, along with visual impairment in varying degrees(including colour blindness). Often, mature students reveal arthritis, Parkinson’s tremoror other neurological conditions which make operating a keyboard/mouse, touchscreenon a tablet, or controls on a video camera both frustrating and painful.

Rather than just another list of available resources of which there are already about a hundred or so on the web, I wanted this to be a more interactive activity where potential users can see how a software or hardware tool has been deployed, and a worked example of how it might assist them in their particular situation. Having consulted this guide, tutors or technicians may wish to suggest one or more of these tools to a challenged student, or the student themselves may wish to try something out.

My open educational resource may be found at: http://inclusion.myblog.arts.ac.uk/