What is Assistive Technology?

You may have heard the term before, or you may be able to figure out what it means just by breaking down the phrase. Assistive technology is simply a “generic term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities.” These devices can be used to do tasks out in the “real world”, and include things like wheelchair ramps, braille on ATMs and elevators, audible crosswalk alerts, to name just a few. Other examples of assistive technology are hearing aids, speech recognition software, captioning on videos, web accessibility software, and more.

The Office of the Governor of Texas released a bulletin of some really helpful materials about assistive technology if you would like to learn more. The “Accessibility Coffee Break” has links to a YouTube video (shown below), an audio file, as well as Word and PDF documents all about understanding assistive technology. We encourage you to watch the video below, or click through to the bulletin linked above.

Understanding Assistive Technology

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43RnHgcCOGA[/embedyt]