Topic > Availability - 2057

AvailabilityA large amount of money is needed to fund the use of assistive technology in schools. There are training costs, salaries to be paid to teachers and expenses for constantly updating technology. It also requires a great deal of testing to understand which students have disabilities and what would be the best course of action to aid their learning. For students who attend school in a low-income neighborhood, the facilities to which they are exposed are most likely not up to the standards of higher education, or at least cannot compete with the technology in schools in lower-income neighborhoods. high. People with higher incomes live in better areas and pay more in taxes, which, in part, goes to the schools their children attend. These schools are more likely to have teachers who are sufficiently trained in the different technologies used to help students. The socioeconomic perspective also highlights the fact that people with more money will have more resources outside of schools to help their children receive the best education possible. Whether it's hiring tutors, investing in computer programs, or simply reviewing children's homework with them, it's often easier for higher-income families to provide these resources to their struggling children. Teachers need to be well trained in the use of technologies needed to help students in their classrooms. Mull and Sitlington stated in a 2003 journal article: The success of integrating computer technology and assistive technology into special education programs depends on the training of the professional required to use it, and they cannot be expected to teach students how use technology if they themselves have not been adequately taught its uses. (pp. 26-32) If teachers are poorly trained, or not trained at all, students receive little or no useful assistance in their learning. There are many different types of technologies used to help students perform better in the classroom. There are proofreading programs, spell checkers, text-to-speech (Bryant, Bryant & Raskind 1998), Braille calculators, printers and typewriters, as well as electronic readers (Bryant & Rivera, 1995). Also helpful are tutors, interpreters and note takers, to name a few. Some other techniques that have been found to be useful in the classroom, as stated by Bryant and Rivera's (1995) study, are instruction and modeling, assessment, rewards, materials and resources, activity structure and roles, individual responsibility, and collaborative/social skills.