Bureau for Students with
Physical & Health Impairments

Before we can decide which tool best suits the needs of the student, we must first examine the requirements of the various courses and the student's educational plan. The student's educational planning team must be clear about the expectations for the student's performance within each of the individual activities. In the  Assistive Technology Consideration Checklist and the accompanying Resource Guide (www.gpat.org), the team first identifies the various instructional areas (e.g., writing, reading, spelling, daily living) and identifies the specific activity based requirements. Some examples in the area of writing are: 

"The student is required to write 3 - 5 sentence paragraphs using correct punctuation." 

The team will closely examine each of the specific activity based requirements and specify how the student is currently approaching this activity. The student may approach these tasks: a) independently with standard classroom tools, b) using accommodations/modifications, or c) using assistive technology. The exact types of tools, accommodations or assistive technology is recorded across each specific activity based requirement. 

The team then evaluates if the student is successful with how s/he currently accesses each activity, whether it be by using common classroom tools, accommodations and modifications, or assistive technology.  If the student can not adequately compete the task with the current modification or  assistive technology, additional solutions will be needed. The Assistive Technology Consideration Resource Guide may assist the educational teams in considering assistive technology to meet the student's needs in performing the specific activities. 

The Consideration Checklist and Resource Guide help the team narrow the focus to the specific task areas in which the student requires assistance. It is at this point that the team can make a feature's match between the student's needs in specific learning environments and the available assistive technology.

Physical Accessibly for Writing: PaperPort Deluxe and OmniForm

After completing a Consideration Checklist, the team may determine that the student needs  electronic versions of standard classroom material. If the student requires electronic versions of classroom material due to only "writing" issues, s/he falls into the category of students needing physical accessibility. For whatever reason, these category of students are prevented from completing the typical worksheet and other writing assignments using standard pencil and paper methods. They may not be able to  manipulate the materials due to physical disabilities, fatigue, or writing legibility. These students have the knowledge to complete the tasks, but not the motor skill to do so. Most likely, they cannot take notes or highlight text. These are students who need a writing only solution. They need to be able to “write” directly onto the electronic version of the worksheet, form, map, and diagram. This feature is called annotation and is what form-filling applications contain.

PaperPort Deluxe and OmniForm are two commonly used applications that can be used to address these students needs. They automatically locate and create fields for all the blank lines on the page where text is supposed to be entered. The student can navigate between these fields using the Tab key. The teacher and user can also manually add new fields, thus providing the student with a way to type onto any section of the page. Unlike paint programs, these form programs keep the added text editable so the user can go back in and move the text box/field and also edit the spelling and content of the text. This means spelling mistakes and incorrect answers can be fixed in the same manner as text is changed in a word processing document.

The main difference between these two applications is that PaperPort does not translate the document. It only displays the graphic image. The student can highlight, draw, and type anywhere on the electronic copy of the original document. OmniForm does OCR (Optical Character Recognition); the page translating the image back into the text while also displaying the graphics. Because it was designed to enable a company to change existing forms and create new ones for the business world, it has less drawing features, but has more editing features. You can choose to see and use the editable version or choose to just view and use the graphic. This means that the image may be more accurate and can be used for more purposes, like with a text reader or to be sent to a word processor because you can correct the mistakes caused by such things as a poor photocopy. Additionally, OmniForm has a spell check feature of the document as well as the text that is added in the fields. PaperPort does not.

PaperPort is the application most often recommended by this Assistive Technology Specialist because the interface is very user friendly. Students need a fast, consistent and easy way to get materials ready to use in class. Students and staff can be using it within a few minutes because the graphic image is used. No editing and formatting are necessary. In the Windows version, there is a FormTyper feature that automatically finds the blanks and creates fields for them, but also enables you to type in the font size, style and color most visible to the user. This font adjustment can be set to default values so it comes up ready to use each time. Additionally, the zoom values are helpful to those students who need to enlarge the image.

In the Page view of PaperPort, the student who needs to freehand draw, draw arrows/lines, and color can do so with the Paint tools. Once again, these additions are editable, unlike the permanent changes that would be made to the document if these same additions had been made in a Paint program. Another feature in this view that makes this inexpensive program a valuable tool for students who need an accessible version of a standard paper assignment is the highlighter tool. It enables students to highlight key points in as section of text to be read or highlight correct responses rather than “write out the answer”.

The last feature that makes this tool valuable to the students is that it is compatible and has a relatively easy interface with many other assistive tools suit as word prediction, voice recognition software, scanning keyboards, and onscreen keyboards.

Current pricing, local resellers, system requirements, and additional product information about both of these programs can be found at the ScanSoft website, at http://www.scansoft.com/.

Print Disability: Kurzweil 3000, version 5

Another category of students are those who require electronic versions of classroom material due to a print disability from such problems as visual acuity/skills, visual perceptual issues, processing problems, poor writing rate, and spelling difficulties. Some of these students may need the materials to be enlarged or presented in alternative color set that they can manipulate virtually using computer based access tools. Other students in this category may also require some writing support, through the use of word prediction for spelling or rate enhancement. Still other students in this category may need some additional academic support provided by auditory reading or arrangement of text since most writing tasks involve a reading component. In this situation, a reading, viewing and writing solution may be needed to allow access to writing activities. One solution for this category of students is Kurzweil 3000, version 5.

Kurzweil 3000, version 5 has the capability of addressing many of these problems found in this category of students. Some students in this category have difficulty "seeing" the presented material, whether due to such problems as poor acuity, visual perceptual difficulties such as SSS (Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome). In this situation, the font size, background and font colors may need to be adjusted for greater contrast, the spacing between line and between words may need to be adjusted to keep the text from “running together”, and the margins may need to be adjusted due to visual field cuts and tracking issues. Making all these adjustments "manually” with a photocopier and colored paper would be a very time consuming and possibly frustrating endeavor because much time and effort would need to be spent on each assignment. The common solution of having the document read aloud to the student by a peer or adult as he completes the writing portion takes away his independence and the time of another person. These and other visual accommodations can be made in a student specific fashion within Kurzweil 3000, version 5. The student signs in when the program is launched. Once the document is placed on the scanner, the software will then automatically scan, OCR, and present the document using the writing, viewing and reading features configured for that student. This can be done in as little as 30 seconds per page for a black and white image.

The Kurzweil 3000, version 5 also has many writing features such as a fill-in-the-blank option that will locate and mark all blank lines. There is an annotation feature called Add Text that enables the student to write in any location on the page. There’s a sticky note feature that enables the teacher or student to add a virtual sticky note to the page. There’s a note feature that automatically creates a “numbered answer sheet” document. Finally, there’s a four-color highlighter feature that not only lets you mark sections of text, but also allow you to extract those notes off of the page for individual viewing and printing.

The Kurzweil 3000, version 5 also has a talking word processor environment that also features a talking word prediction option, a talking spell checker, and a talking dictionary and thesaurus option. Version five can also support reading and writing in multiple languages. It is the only software on the market at this time that has all of these features.

Current pricing, system requirements, and additional product information about Kurzweil 3000, version 5 can be obtained from Kurzweil Educational Systems and Dunamis, a local reseller. The websites are http://www.lhls.com/ and http://www.dunamisinc.com/, respectively.

Conclusion and Resources

When building an assistive technology intervention plan for your students remember that a good plan typically includes a variety of tools from no-tech to high-tech. The student and staff need to be comfortable with all the solutions and knowledgeable about the use of each so that the appropriate one can be employed on the spot. This takes time. I hope this information in this article will be helpful to you as you consider the needs of your student.

Additional Information concerning the use of these programs, the Assistive Technology Consideration Checklist and additional services provided by the Georgia Project for Assistive Technology can be obtained by visiting the GPAT website at http://www.gpat.org/, calling the GPAT office at 404-362-2024, and e-mailing me at critts@doe.k12.ga.us.