January 2007 — Features
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Assistive Technology :: Making the Impossible Possible
Assistive technologies are helping students who don’t respond to conventional means of instruction, and in the process...
A KEYBOARD THAT’S COLOR-CODED and arranged alphabetically. An audio book that lets users
hear what they’re reading—at several speeds. A 21-inch wand that can be used to manipulate
objects on an interactive whiteboard. A school that tailors its curriculum to individual modes
of learning. These are glimpses of today’s world of assistive technology: hardware, software,
and systems for students who can’t quite get by with the usual pedagogy. With each technology
comes numerous success stories. Here are a few that stand out.
“By using the keyboard, he doesn’t feel so out of it.”
Eight-year-old Kevin Hogan has been diagnosed with pervasive developmental delay, a mild form of autism. He also has dyslexia, sometimes hearing—in addition to seeing—words differently. He goes to public school in the morning and the HillSprings Learning Center in Colorado Springs, for students with learning disabilities, in the afternoon. For him, writing is a long, frustrating task; typing is hunt-and-peck.
Or rather it was. When Kevin’s mother, Diane, a former teacher, came across a local Colorado Springs newspaper article about different assistive technologies, a device called the New Standard Keyboard caught her eye, and she ordered one for her son. It has made a world of difference.
The New Standard Keyboard, produced by New Standard Keyboards in Santa Maria, CA, will look radically different to anyone trained on the traditional QWERTY (the first six letters of the top finger row) keyboard. The letters are arranged alphabetically and color-coded, which is meant to give students a better understanding of the different functions of the keys. For example, red means “Stop and be sure; these keys issue commands and could delete all your work.” Green means “Go ahead and type.”
Why is it considered a new standard keyboard? Ask John Parkinson, who designed it. He took a traditional typing class as preparation for writing a book and was frustrated with the old system—he kept looking back at the keyboard as he was composing. Finally, he decided that he could invent something better: a new standard. “It was designed,” he says, “to make typing easy for everybody—easy to learn and easy to do.”
