ABSTRACT
Assistive technologies (AT) are often promoted to schools, parents and educators as tools to assist students with special needs by providing a compensatory value, to remediate learning problems and to promote personal independence. These technologies range from simple spellcheckers to more complex speech recognition systems and educational software. The heightened interest in the use of assistive technologies for students with special needs can be traced to legislation introduced in European and North American countries in the 1980s and 1990s. In the United Kingdom (UK), the Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) of 1993 sparked research on the types of technology that could improve the performance of disabled students in a variety of tasks. The term AT is generic and used to describe assistive, adaptive and rehabilitative devices for people with varying degrees of disability. According to the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA) in the US, any equipment that is used to improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities is considered AT.
