This tool is part of the SCALES (Supporting the Canadian Advancement of Literacy and Essential Skills) project, designed to develop resources to help career practitioners incorporate a Literacy and Essential Skills (LES) approach into their work.
It can be used by career counsellors to adapt material from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) to meet the needs of their programs.
The authors begin by explaining that assistive technology refers to any piece of equipment, product or system that directly assists, maintains, or improves the functional capabilities of people with learning disabilities.
In this brief document, the authors note that the formal identification and disclosure of the presence of a learning disability can benefit both the employee, by helping him keep a job, and the employer, by reducing costly staff turnover.
The authors describe signs that an employee may have a learning disability, including performance inconsistency; communication confusion; poor coordination; and difficulty concentrating.
This resource guide is designed to help adult educators discover and sort through the adaptive technology that is available to help people who have learning disabilities or other challenges that affect their learning.
Assistive technology can be any technological tool or strategy that helps people work around their physical or learning disabilities.
The authors of this guide note that there are many technological tools available to help people cope with disabilities but the technology can only help if the tool matches the person’s needs. Therefore, it is essential that the person’s challenges be accurately assessed or diagnosed.
This booklet summarizes information presented at a workshop sponsored by the Centre for Literacy of Quebec in 2009.
The authors say that while assistive technology can be expensive, many companies make some of their software available free of charge, though they urge everyone to read user agreements very carefully.
A survey of adaptive technology in learning programs
This manual was originally developed to accompany four online training modules for literacy practitioners in Ontario as
part of a project funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, National Literacy Secretariat in 2005.
Assistive technology can be any item, piece of equipment or system that helps work around or compensate for a disability, whether it is a learning disability or a physical disability.
