Accessibility solutions help students with special needs

One of the most wonderful developments seen in education sector over the past ten years is the way the technology has created possibilities for learners with special needs. For many years, disabled learners have struggled with their assignments or have been shut out of different classes or topics as the school has accessibility or instructional problems. The result was that they were subject to inadequate or unequal educational opportunities. But with the fast development of accessibility solutions, students with special needs are no more deprived of getting access to information useful to them.

Accessibility solutions have been designed to make it easier for disabled students to access educational materials, communicate their ideas and work and take an active part in educational experiences. The advent of online learning, in particular, has created greater convenience for those for whom attending traditional classrooms was a great obstacle. Generally, accessibility solutions allow disabled learners to take advantage of many of the same opportunities for success as other students.

What kind of disabilities might be present?

There are many categories under which disabilities may fall. Here they are:

Sensory – Sensory disabilities include visual impairment, deafness, hard-to-hearing conditions and blindness. These disabilities can prevent a learner from utilizing educational materials and classroom tools.

Physical – Physical disabilities can require the use of braces, cane or a wheelchair.

Cognitive – Students with cognitive disabilities can suffer from memory, self-expression, information processing and other learning disabilities that prevent them from performing tasks in the same manner as other learners.

There can be many other disability conditions including psychiatric and health-related conditions. From social phobia to many other personality disorders to suffering from conditions like diabetes, epilepsy or cancer, there can be a myriad of conditions.

Today, so many types of accessibility solutions are available to cope up with disabilities and foster learning. Many technology-based agencies are working to make learning products accessible and for creating better opportunities. The goal of these companies is to make learning products useful for learners, teachers, parents, and administrators with low-incidence disabilities. They partner with professional graphic designers, instructional designers and authors to assist them in the process of interactive content development and crafting customized accessibility solutions. They make sure the information and user interface components must be presentable to the users in such a way that they can perceive.

Hopefully, the days are over when the students were shunted off to isolated classrooms. The key feature of the custom-based educational technology is it is focused on accessibility and offers limitless opportunities to learners.

MagicSoftware is an educational technology company that partners with the world's leading publishers and eLearning content companies to provide consulting, digital publishing platforms and solutions, rich interactive content.