ICT and special educational needs

ICT has become an invaluable tool for children with special educational needs.

On this page, you will find a few tips for how best to use it to enhance learning.

• Supportive word processing with spell-checkers and speech feedback can support the development of literacy. 
• Word banks with graphics clues can be presented either on screen or on an overlay keyboard, providing instant access to specialist vocabulary. By selecting whole-word, whole-phrase or even whole-sentence insertion, the writer can concentrate on content.
• Software designed to reinforce spelling, memory or numeracy work can be valuable if the exercises are chosen to link in with current class work.
• Information-handling programs with their emphasis on describing, classifying and analysing, provide opportunities for language development. 
• For many learners, alternative methods of input to the computer such as switches, touch-screens, joysticks and trackerballs may provide easier access.
• Sending messages to the computer by a sound-activated switch can encourage children to vocalise. Using suitable software and blowing or speaking into the microphone, they can change the picture on the screen or create patterns in response to their voices. 
• By pressing a switch attached to the computer learners can control what is shown on the screen, turning sounds on and off or changing pictures. In doing so they are gaining experience of cause and effect. 
• Multimedia can present information in a variety of ways with graphics and sound as well as text. This creates opportunities for learning which are not dependent on the written word. 
• A symbol processor links symbols to words, making written information more accessible and encouraging youngsters to write themselves from an overlay keyboard or an on-screen grid.  

Visually impaired or blind pupils can access the curriculum through alternative methods of reading and recording work. Printers and enlarging photocopiers can produce large-print versions of work materials and Braille-translation software can produce text and Braille versions. On screen, pupils can work with larger font sizes than their peers or Braille keyboards, or use talking word processors yet still use the same material and do the same work. Many CD-ROMs have audio output too.  

Hearing impaired pupils also benefit from ICT; email being one obvious example of a technology that gives them equality of access to communications.

Multimedia technology can provide hearing-impaired pupils with access to information in a more immediate and visual form than was previously possible. The opportunity to create multimedia presentations can enable students to experiment with different methods of combining sound and vision. Where appropriate, the sound output can be linked to the enhanced amplification used by the pupil. These sounds become more meaningful when heard in conjunction with moving images on screen. For more information, see the British Educational Technology and Communications Agency (BECTA) website.

Children with poor motor skills can present work of equivalent quality to their peers as word processors make letter formation easier through the keyboard rather than a pencil, and data handling packages allow them to easily present tables and graphs.  

Overlay keyboards, trackerballs and joysticks, and predictive word processors are examples of devices that support learners with physical disabilities to use ICT effectively and enable them to take a full part in the life of the classroom.

Useful websites

• http://www.becta.org.uk

Resources

• Achievement for all - 2010, Pdf document, 1425 KB