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Technology For Special Needs Children Essay

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Computers and educational technology can be powerful tools for assisting children with special needs and disabilities. Computers can help children with attention deficit disorders focus more effectively on their learning tasks and can also assist autistic children by improving their communications and interactions with peers as they use computers together. This topic became very important to me when my cousin was born deaf. He is only three now but the assistive technology that awaits him during his educational career are very promising. Assistive technology includes adaptive tools that help students with disabilities to learn and perform tasks better in their daily life (Kauchak, Eggen, Carter, page 390). Adaptations to computers …show more content…

These speech recognition computers can be invaluable to students who have physical disabilities that affect their hand and finger movements. Special Braille printers can also be used to convert a text document into a understandable form of communication for a student so that they can understand the assignment or be able to take a test in their own classroom with out having to leave to take their test in the Special Education classroom. I feel these technological advances are very important to the future of education and to all the special needs children of today and tomorrow. With equipment such as these, special needs children can stay in their classrooms, all day with their classmates and take advantage of a normal childhood instead of being pulled out of class, segregated from the "normal" children and having to go to the "special" children's classroom where they miss out on valuable educational and social interaction with their peers.
The Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act, passed in 1988, (Henniger, Michael L., page 438) ensures that all children with special needs and their families have access to technological resources. Henniger identifies two important reasons for the importance of this law:
"Children with special needs spend more time on instructionaltasks and have improved self

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