The value of technology, as Apple Education states, is in its empowering character, when individuals use it to extend their physical and cognitive limitations and transform their learning. Technology opens a world of limitless learning possibilities for persons with learning difficulties and in today’s post we are featuring some of the important features embedded in iPad that can help complement learners’ vision, hearing, motor skills, and literacy. To access these assistive features head over to your iPad home screen and click on settings icon, next click on General and select Accessibility and then turn on the features you are interested in. Some of the assistive features as lied out in Apple’s guide include:
Click on each link to access the features.
1- Assistive features for blind and people with low vision: Colour filters
“The iPad display comes with a range of customizable colour filters to complement different forms of colour blindness or other vision challenges. So reading documents, surfing the web, or putting together a presentation is more accessible than ever”. One of the important assistive feature in this regard is the Voice-Over. This is an integrated gesture-based screen reader technology that helps users with vision problems enjoy their their iPad. “With VoiceOver enabled, just triple-click the Home button to access it wherever you are in iOS. Hear a description of everything happening on your screen, from battery level to who’s calling to which app your finger is on. You can also adjust the speaking rate and pitch to suit you.”
2- Assistive features for deaf and hard of hearing: Siri Shortcuts
“You can now cue complex, multi-action commands through simple phrases designed to fit your needs.1 A custom phrase like “Heading Home” can simultaneously alert a family member that you’re leaving work, pull up directions, and adjust your thermostat — all without having to go into each individual app.”
3- Assistive features for physical and motor skills: Switch Control
“Built directly into iOS, Switch Control is a powerful accessibility technology for anyone with extensive physical motor limitations. Switch Control allows you to navigate sequentially through onscreen items and perform specific actions using a variety of Bluetooth-enabled switch hardware. It also has features like expanded word prediction and a media playback menu to make it easier to use. And Switch Control is customizable for both beginners and advanced users — you can simplify existing actions or create your own.”
4- Assistive features for learning and literacy: Guided access
“Guided Access lets parents, teachers, or therapists limit iPad to one app at a time, and limit the amount of time spent in an app. So iPad can be a powerful tool for autistic people or those with attention and sensory challenges.”
Photos source: Apple
