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Computer-based Assistive Technologies in Education for Students with Disabilities

Marko Arambašić Ivan Dunđer

INTRODUCTION

 people use technology to function more completely and efficiently in their lives  people with physical disabilities take advantage of a variety of methods to gain access to information technology and computer-based assistive technologies for (wireless) communication  assistive technology can be defined as any item, piece of equipment or system that helps people bypass, work around or compensate for learning difficulties

(Raskind 2000)

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 computers are needful instruments for students with disabilities, offering them a way to live and learn new perspective and a new  this research focuses on:  Speech technologies • • Text-to-speech synthesis Speech recognition   Wireless communication technologies Assistive input technologies • • • Optical character recognition (OCR) Touch screen technology Word prediction

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SPEECH TECHNOLOGIES

 are potentially students with of enormous benefit to unintelligible speech (or no speech) and therefore has an important role in support for spoken communication  in order technologies to be should successful, effectively speech take into account the needs of user groups and have the ability to adapt to the needs of individuals

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

Text-to-speech synthesis (TTS)

 first real use was in reading systems for visually impaired people  sophisticated systems can help impaired users to navigate around a computer system  TTS converts text that is displayed on the computer monitor into speech, allowing students to gain independent access to assignments, books, and learning material  teachers or students do, however, need to pre-scan material before they can use it

(Wade-Woolley, 2005)

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

Speech recognition

 is a complex process, in which a sound is converted into electric signal, processed and then transformed into text  can help physically disabled students to control a PC via voice trough a microphone or to input text  it is also useful for

Paz, 1999),

for comprehension

Raskind, 2000)

quickly writing down ideas practicing writing, spelling, reading and word-recognition

(De La (Higgins and

 speech recognition is most useful for students who are verbally fluent

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WIRELESS COMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

 use of computers for communication and networking activities via the internet can expand the learning environment beyond the walls of the classroom and allows students with disabilities, just like other students, to conveniently access and send information anytime and anywhere , without constraints of time or place (

Hasselbring and Williams Glaser, 2000)

 communication technologies become a for learning if they offer valuable tool disabled students opportunities to gather a wide variety of resources and information

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ASSISTIVE INPUT TECHNOLOGIES

 • • • • • are designed to provide additional computer accessibility to individuals who have physical or cognitive devices difficulties

(Obiozor, 2010):

using alternative on-screen keyboards, special pointing devices sip-and-puff switches, wands and sticks, joysticks trackballs, touch screens eye or head movement and eye gaze systems light-sensitive or pressure-sensitive speech/voice-activated systems systems • word prediction tools etc.

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

Optical character recognition (OCR)

 OCR systems when is combined with speech synthesis, machines might be used as reading  enables users to input into a computer hard copy text and then the synthesizer reads the text back out loud directly speech  the scanner reads printed material, converts it to a computer file and then shows it on a computer screen

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

Touch screen technology

 touch-sensitive screens are popular with young computer users and with individuals who have severe developmental or physical disabilities

2000) (Hasselbring and Williams Glaser,

 this technology allows users to the computer screen tasks simply touch to perform a variety of

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

Word prediction

 these programs wants to enter

Turoldo, 2006)

predict the word a person into the computer

(Mirenda and

 word prediction may be helpful to individuals who have problems with keyboarding, spelling or grammar  these programs may also assist people who struggle to come up with the exact word they want to use in a sentence

Heller, 2004) (Tumlin and Wolff

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RESEARCH AND METHODS



Main hypothesis

 is that students with purposes on a daily basis disabilities at the University of Zagreb assistive technologies use computer-based for educational 

The idea of research

 obtain a general overview of the students’ satisfaction with assistive technologies, but also to identify characteristics and problems in the process of education of this target group

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 the research undergraduate, was graduate carried and out among postgraduate students with disabilities at the University of Zagreb in June 2013, on a sample of 10 students  questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively via content analysis  questionnaire concerning how students and perceive computer-based consume assistive technologies for educational purposes focusing on: • earlier experience, usability of computer-based assistive technologies, and what technology they find most useful regarding their type of disability

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 respondents were asked to describe their type of disability using Barthel index 

Barthel index scale

 severe disability incontinent - constant nursing care, attention, bedridden,  moderately severe disability - unable to attend to own bodily needs without assistance, and unable to walk unassisted  moderate disability unassisted - requires some help, but able to walk  slight disability - able to look after own affairs without assistance, but unable to carry out all previous activities  no significant disability - able to carry out all usual activities, despite some symptoms

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RESEARCH STATISTICS



Research statistics and results male Respondents female total Average age of respondents 9 1 10 28,6 years Barthel index moderately severe disability (7) INFuture 2013

Education level Field of study Undergraduate Graduate Postgraduate Economics History Rehabilitation science Accounting and audit Information and communication sciences Public administration and public finances Sociology 1 1 2 2 1 5 2 3 2 1 INFuture 2013

RESEARCH RESULTS

 all respondents had prior experience based assistive technology with computer  70% of the respondents use a and commercial technologies combination of free  70% had used speech technologies, mostly TTS  50% had prior experiences communication technologies , e.g.

with wireless Bluetooth , which they mostly used for transferring data, homework assignments, for sharing and retrieving study-related information and for taking notes virtually on different electronic devices

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 50% had worked with assistive input technologies , mostly OCR for digitizing learning material, on-screen keyboards, but also word prediction tools for speeding up text input  perception of different types of computer-based assistive technologies was showed using Likert scale in this research:  ranging from 1 (strongly disagree)  to 5 (strongly agree)

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 ( TTS 4.5

( 4.7

) and ) scored optical character recognition best  according to our target group those two technologies have more educational advantages than other mentioned technologies  Word prediction tools scored worst ( 3.0

), indicating that students neither agree nor disagree with the claim that word prediction tools can help in the education process.

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 respondents were mostly satisfied assistive technologies on the market with the and their usability, but pointed out that for the effective use, technical knowledge and specific skills are needed  they also claimed having increased their level of independence in education ( 4.2

) and quality of studying ( 4.2

) by assistive technologies using computer-based

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 eventually, respondents were asked to name a computer-based assistive technology that they found the most useful during their education process  60% answered respondents) technologies optical character recognition and wireless (3 respondents) (3 communication  followed by speech technologies ( 40% ) - text-to speech synthesis (2 respondents) and speech recognition (2 respondents)  Touch screen and word prediction technologies were not mentioned

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CONCLUSION

 anything that makes a task easier to perform is considered assistive technology  this research gave valuable information on type of assistive technologies used by students with disabilities in order to enable and enhance education   it was shown that all respondents had prior experiences with computer-based assistive technologies and 90% them used those technologies on a daily basis of  therefore, the main hypothesis was confirmed the authors showed relevant information on type of preferred assistive technologies in education : technologies and OCR , followed by speech wireless communication and touch screen technologies

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 most of the respondents:  favored non-commercial technologies  and stated that computer-based technologies increased their level of independence in education and quality of studying  this underlines the of huge importance of accessibility computer-based assistive technologies for disabled students in their education process  generally, a very positive attitude towards assistive technologies was noticed, i.e. most of the scores were between 4 ( agree ) and 5 ( strongly agree )

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INFuture 2013 References are available in the main paper.