Collaborative Environments: Accessibility and Usability for Users with Special Needs - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 323

For this kind of impairment, there are no specific ATs, but some tools developed
for other impairments can be adapted to the specific cognitive or learning difficulty.
For example, screen readers can help dyslexic users to monitor their own work by
allowing them to listen to what they have written. Word prediction facilities and
speech recognition systems can help users with dysgraphia to avoid typing mistakes
and storage of incorrect spellings.
Assistive Tools for Inserting and Accessing Information . Depending on their
specific use, ATs can be classified as INPUT ATs, when used to produce informa-
tion, and OUTPUT ATs, when used to access information. These classifications
stress the usefulness of ATs across different forms of disability and thus the
possibility of utilizing the same AT for different kinds of disability.
It is also important to observe that it is not rare the case of users affected bymultiple
disabilities and therefore ATs of different types can be combined together to help them
to access/produce information. Table 13.2 presents ATs divided according to this
classification and the associated icons underline that any effort to overcome a diffi-
culty can support people with different kinds of disability.

Table 13.2 Difficulties and ATs
Action Difficulty AT and main accommodation techniques

INPUT (Managing) Keyboard typing Alternative keyboards (e.g., reduced, larger,

touch-sensitive membrane), keyboard emulation

Voice recognition systems

Predictive word processors and programs with
built-in word lists

Keyboard accessibility options in operating
system

Pointing devices
using

Mouse alternative like trackball, track pad and
joystick, touch pad, head-controlled mouse and
eye tracking, touch screen, mouse emulator

Mouse accessibility options in operating system
(e.g., to adjust mouse pointer)

OUTPUT
(Understanding)

Reading (texts) Screen readers with vocal synthesis

Screen readers with Braille display

Screen magnification softwares

Display accessibility options in operating system

Listening (sounds
and speech)

Accommodation techniques: visual support;
captioning for additional text or information; LIS
(sign language), fingerspelling and cued speech
Audio accessibility options in operating system

Watching (images
and videos)

Alternative description, image processing (edge
detection, enhancement)

Icons stress that any effort to overcome a difficulty can support people with different kinds of
disability