What universal design features facilitate computer access for students with disabilities? What are the characteristics of students for whom the specific features may be appropriate?

This is a focus question from Chapter 7 in our course textbook, “Assistive Technology in the Classroom: Enhancing the School Experiences of Students with Disabilities”. It is important as teachers to understand the features available to our students with disabilities to help facilitate computer access. Some of these features include magnifying the entire computer screen or specific part of the screen for students with visual impairments. Keyboard modifications such as “Stickykeys”, which allows students who can only press one key at a time to use the functions such as shift, control, delete without holding all of the keys down at the same time. “Slow Keys” increases the amount of time a key must be held in order to deliver the function. This helps students who cannot let go fast enough not add too many letters or numbers that are unnecessary. This feature can help students who have poor fine or gross motor skills. “Mousekeys” allows users to use the computer’s numeric keypad to navigate the computer without using the mouse.  In addition to “mousekeys”, on screen keyboards place an image of the keyboard on the computer screen and student can use the mouse to click on the keys they wish to use without having to press a key. This is useful for students with physical disabilities such as muscular dystrophy or spinal muscular atrophy. I hope these universal design features gives you insight on what you can use in your classrooms to help your students with disabilities access the computer.

Reference: Dell, A., & Newton, D. (2008). Assistive technology in the classroom: Enhancing the school experiences of students with disabilities. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.