digitalLEARNING-Nov-2010-[15-18]-Waking up to Needs of Differently Abled

tech focus

Waking up to Needs of Differently Abled Diverse range of assistive technologies has the potential of bridging the gap and bringing down barrierswhich were earlier seen as inevitable for the differently abled population. We explore the world of assistive technologies and find out what it has to offer to the population with special needs Assistive technology for learners with low vision

By Sheena Joseph

W

ith the passage of the Right to Education Act, India has taken a historic step in providing education to all its citizens. However, within this population also include Persons with Disabilities (PWDs). Increasingly, there has been a growing concern for the rights of the disabled, which has till now surpassed the attention of policy makers in India.

According to the estimates of the World Health Organisation, 70% of the world’s disabled reside in developing countries.

The millennium development goals have given high priority to universalisation of primary education by 2015 and also reiterates its commitment towards the provision of an inclusive society with equal opportunities for the disabled.

However, major efforts still have to made in India for the promotion of education for the disabled. It is estimated that only two per cent of the 70 million

Guiding Principles of the UN Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities There are eight guiding principles that underlie the Convention and each one of its specific articles: • Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons • Non-discrimination • Full and effective participation and inclusion in society • Respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity • Equality of opportunity • Accessibility • Equality between men and women • Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities

disabled persons have proper access to education in India. Children with special needs are excluded from mainstream schooling because of a variety of reasons. This may include lack of proper

awareness about the needs of the disabled, absence of relevant infrastructure and dearth of training for teachers. Advancements in technology have brought in several means through which educa-

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tion of children with disabilities can be promoted. These have included assistive technologies, diverse learning platforms, ubiquitous web, digital libraries and resources. It becomes mandatory therefore that stakeholders in the education sector are fully equipped to harness the power of technologies in this field.

Assistive technologies for an inclusive society “Assistive technology solutions can range from the simple to the complex, but they all have one thing in common – they assist people with a wide range of disabilities and impairments to overcome their limitations and achieve greater independence.” Shilpi Kapoor, managing director, BarrierBreak Technologies There are 70 million people with disabilities in India and still on the rise. Technology can be the enabler in the lives of persons with disabilities. It can impact their lives in education, employment, and social life. Any aid, device, gadget or tool that helps someone with a disability or a handicap overcome the barriers caused by their disability or handicap can be called assistive technology. These are technologies that help the blind to perform activities that typically require ‘seeing’, the deaf to do things that would typically require them to ‘hear’ and the non-verbal to accomplish tasks that would typically need ‘speech’.

“Assistive technology solutions can range from the simple to the complex, but they all have one thing in common – they assist people with a wide range of disabilities and impairments to overcome their limitations and achieve greater independence”

Shilpi Kapoor managing director, BarrierBreak Technologies

A person with cognitive or learning impairment who has difficulties reading, writing and spelling or has Dyslexia can use literacy software solutions. It includes Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and converts scan printed pages into electronic text, the digital talking book player allows the user to read and listen to content through a combination of text, audio and images. A hearing impaired person can use the hearing aid compatible and large key phone for assistance.

For Aswin Chandrasekaran, CEO, Invention Labs, assistive technologies have helped the disabled persons integrate better with society and, as a consequence, have promoted a more inclusive society. When the barriers posed by a disability are overcome and are no longer perceived as barriers or handicaps, the

The 2001 census report of India for the first time incorporated disability in its count and listed a massive 4.3 million differentlyabled children in the age group of 6-14 years in India, majority ofwhomaredeprivedofeducation.Assistivetechnologiescanplay an important role in addressing issues of accessibility and support an inclusive society

Several technology companies have been trying to develop products that can help the disabled use computers comfortably and effectively. They provide assistive technology for all disabilities such as mobility, visual, hearing and learning impairment.

A person with mobility impairment can use technology with adaptive keyboard featuring keys that are four times bigger or mouse alternatives such as the Trackball Mouse to operate a computer.

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person with disability can and does become a meaningful contributor to her/his community and the society benefits as a whole due to their contributions.

Srinivasu Chakravarthula, accessibility manager at Yahoo! Software Development (India) Pvt Ltd elaborates that people who have difficulty with their hands and can’t use a regular mouse will use something like Track ball, Switch or Head mounted mouse. “Assistive technologies allow for greater independence

by enabling people to perform tasks that they earlier couldn’t carry out or even had great difficulty completing. This is done by providing enhancements to or changed methods of interacting with the technology needed to accomplish such a task.” Assistive technologies are of immense help to people with disabilities to lead an independent life, he adds.

Assistive technologies for education among disabled children Education can be made much more effective and accessible to persons with disability by including assistive technology products and services into the system. Text books used by students can be converted to digital talking books and be made available for the print impaired (people with learning and visual impairment). Computer aids such as screen readers, adaptive keyboards and desktop magnifiers can have a major impact in the education of persons with disability.

The primary problem that needs to be addressed, says Kapoor, is the limited access to technology for people with disabilities. In education and day-today life, assistive technology is not available to the persons with disabilities. This hampers them in their education and growth.

Assistive device that allows a person to use a pen or pencil when they would otherwise be unable to grasp one

Many schools in India are not even aware of available assistive technologies, and thus the use of these technologies is minimal in schools across the country.

Also, one needs to work on training the special educators so that they are aware of the technology and how it can benefit the students. Children are taught many skills, concepts and activities as part of their education, and some of these may be difficult to accomplish for disabled children. Assistive technologies can help in ensuring that the medium of instruction can be sufficiently modified to help disabled children overcome these challenges that are part of their education. These technologies will empower children to actively participate in their classrooms and ensure that they are provided a wellrounded education.

Talking about the work of Inventions Lab in this regard, Chandrasekaran adds, “The experience of Inventions Lab has been limited to schools that are working with children with developmental disabilities. From what we have observed, assistive technologies can play a vital role in the education of children with special needs as well.”

“Assistive technology is very useful in the education sector; may it be for visually impaired, mobility impaired or students with learning disabilities”, says Chakravarthula. A visually impaired person, who can’t read a physical book, can scan the same and read it using a computer with the help of screen reader such as Non

Visual Desktop Access (NVDA). They are able to attempt their examinations using the computer, instead of depending on a scribe to write for them and this will in fact, improve their output quality too. A mobility impaired student, who can not write using a pen can use voice recognition software on the computer. A learning disabled person, who can not read text can learn with the help of graphics, available through computer based AAC devices, like the Aavaz from Invention Labs.

ICT tools for tracking education of intellectually challenged children Assistive technology offers effective solutions for independent learning to intel-

lectually challenged or learning disabled children. It can address various kinds of learning disability. Assistive technology has made considerable progress in helping intellectually challenged children become independent in classrooms and other day to day activities. “A child who finds it difficult to write words can use word prediction software to write efficiently”, says Kapoor.

The clevy keyboard that features attractive playful colors for vowels, consonants, numbers and function keys can help students with learning disabilities.

Specific softwares also have the power of inbuilt speech output facility which enables children using computers to write, read, view and check text alongside a human sounding voice. The use of ICT based integrated assessment tools for tracking the education and rehabilitation of intellectually challenged children also depends a lot on the disability.

Explaining the diversity of assistive technologies Chakravarthula adds, “Today there are companies all across the world which are doing research on highly intuitive and advanced assistive technologies. We hear about advances like mind mapping, study skills, symbol based and touch-typing software. However, it is their adaptation and inclusion in different spheres of life that is more of a challenge.”

Society in general needs to accept and implement these solutions keeping the various segments of society in mind.

Like many tasks that have benefited with the right kind of ICT tool, ICT based integrated assessment tools, if they are designed well, can be very helpful in tracking the education and rehabilitation of intellectually challenged children.

Braille e-book readers transcribes text into Braille

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Revolutionary technologies for the disabled “Just like a person with a mild visual impairment can use spectacles to correct his or her vision, we envision a world where non-verbal persons have access to a portable solution like AVAZ to help them speak”, say Chandrasekaran.

Each disability requires different kinds of technologies and there are many such technologies which are being developed that will revolutionize the world of persons with disabilities and create a more inclusive society. Invention Labs is working on one such technology for non-verbal persons AVAZ is the product which is India’s first portable speech synthesizer and enables non-verbal persons to convey virtually any thought in their mind by providing them an ‘artificial voice’.

The principles of universal design is being followed by Inventions Labs so as to enable non-verbal persons with different kinds of disabilities to use the device. For example, the lack of motor control skills prevents persons with Cerebral Palsy, many of whom are non-verbal, from using traditional means of communication like writing or typing. AVAZ can easily be adapted for use by such persons with the help of commercially available access switches, many of which are compatible with the device.

BarrierBreak Technologies has

“India is still a sleeping giant and is slowly waking up to concepts like assistive technologies and creating a truly inclusive society. If you look around, many of our government offices are not disabled friendly.

The same is the case for public utility services like transport”

Srinivasu Chakravarthula accessibility manager, Yahoo! Software Development (India) Pvt Ltd

bridge to connect the hearing impaired with the hearing world.

Literacy software solutions are also useful for those who have difficulties reading, writing and spelling or have Dyslexia. By harnessing the power of the inbuilt speech output facility, computer users can write, read, view and check text alongside a human sounding voice.

High tech readers can be used by a visually impaired person to read any kind of printed material.

Role of government in promoting use of assistive technologies Acording to Chakravarthula, “India is still a sleeping giant and is slowly waking up to concepts like assistive technologies and creating a truly inclusive society. If

Technology for the special educational needs of children

launched the Signntalk website (www. signntalk.org) in India, the first of its kind, to enable the hearing impaired community to communicate with the hearing world using sign language. Signntalk acts as a

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you look around, many of our government offices are not disabled friendly.

The same is the case for public utility services like transport.” Overall, the use of assistive technologies for the promo-

tion of the rights of the disabled requires greater support and encouragement from the government. As Kapoor puts it, “There has not been much initiative from the government in promoting the use of assistive technologies among persons with disabilities. Provisions have been made under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan stating that the needs of children with disabilities should be fully addressed in the mainstream education and that all children must get the opportunity to go to their neighbourhood schools. However, not much has been done in making these products available to the students or the educational institutes.”

Building awareness in is one of the areas which requires special attention.

The government, NGOs, and corporates had not even heard of web accessibility. It is only through advocacy and awareness building initiatives that the Government of India released the ‘Guidelines for Indian Government Websites’. The impact of this has been felt by every disabled citizen of India, since every person can access government resources.

The requirement for provision of aids and appliances to the disabled came into focus after the enactment of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, which came into force in 1996. There are some initiatives which have just started like distribution of assistive devices by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. Additionally, Delhi University is going to set up the Disability Cell. Chandrasekaran highlights some of the positive initiatives of the government in this field. “The Government of India has implemented many innovative schemes to help persons with disabilities to have access to relevant assistive technologies. For example, the ADIP scheme provides these products at subsidized rates to persons with disabilities who may not be able to afford it.” \\