Universal Design Features

Now that you've seen some really awesome AT devices, I'm going to switch to focusing on computers.

Universal design is the concept that products should be usable for as many people as possible without having to get special adaptations!

So there are some features that are designed on computers to help students with disabilities and that's what I'm going to discuss.

What are some features for these students? Who are these features good for?

1. - the option of controlling a computer with a mouse or keyboard - good for students with poor motor skills, limited motion, and difficulties seeing the mouse pointer!
2. one button mouse- good for students only able to use one hand or has better control with one
3. Enlarged icons- good for low vision, vision issues, coordination issues, poor motor skills and cognitive deficits
4. Speed of mouse- can increase and decrease!- good for visual tracking, poor motor skills, difficulty moving head to track pointer, or typing accuracy trouble, and limited range of motion.
5. Hear info from monitor- good for reading disabilities and speech issues.

Other operating system features!

• alternatives to mouse devices-
• alternatives to keyboards
• speech recognition
• scanning

All of these additional operating features are great for students with a variety of needs like cognitive deficits, poor motor skills, vision problems, limited movement, and much more!

 

There are so many more features to try and to remember that each feature will not work for every student!

I never new how many features are included in computers and how many additional ones can be used!