Top best Assistive Technology and Apps for Learning Disability
Welcome to our overview of Assistive Technology, organized by category. This is not an exhaustive analysis, but a quick survey of the products that we consider to be valuable tools. Almost all of these apps and services have free trials so you can see if they work for you. We are not including prices because they change all the time, but we note if something is free, or involves a subscription.
Free built-in Text-to-Speech (in Operating Systems and Browsers)
This type of text-to-speech is useful to just get something short read to you. Another important use for text to speech is to read back pieces of writing so you can hear their grammatical or spelling mistakes.
Doesn’t have built in Text to Speech but can access Windows extension
TEXT TO SPEECH APPs:
Text to speech apps read text content you’ll find on websites making the web accessible to visually impaired and helping individuals with learning disabilities.
Name
Description/Features
Link/Requirements
ReadSpeaker offers online and offline text to speech (TTS) solutions for websites, mobile apps, e-Books, e-Learning material, documents, telephony & transport systems, media, robotics, embedded devices, IoT and more!
A highly recommended Android and iPad App that allows you to import from the web, Google drive, Dropbox and Gutenberg and Bookshare (see sources for eBooks).Reads and highlights the text. You can change font, color etc… You can take notes and highlight
Digital books are available to be read electronically on many devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, Amazon’s Kindle, and Android devices. Any book for which the translation or original text is 100 years or older is copyright-free and part of the public domain and usually available from several online sources. In addition, there are several resources that serve people with learning disabilities. Once you have a digital text, you can have them read to you using an appropriate text to speech tool listed above, or a literacy suite listed below.
Name
Description/Features
Link/Requirements
Free for children or adults with a documented reading disability.
Hundreds of thousands of books available.
Book can also be downloaded as an audio book
Free text to speech apps available for registered users.
It offers permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format.
The Internet Archive includes: texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages.
Amazon, Google Play iTunes, and Barnes and Noble are all commercial sources of digital books can download to your computer, iPad, Kindle or Nook. Many books are available but are not equipped with text-to-speech capability. If you buy a Kindle book that has an Audible recording of it, you can buy both at a discount and they will stay synced as you listen and/or read. Don Johnston product, Snap & Read (see below) allows you to TTS Kindle on a computer.
Cost of digital books can be cheaper than buying the printed version and classic books are often free and belong to the public domain
College/University Library
College libraries have a subscription service to check out ebooks, and professional publications. They can be downloaded and read by software (see above for list). Colleges are required to provide access to these tools. For more information, check with your college’s disability office.
Free
AUDIO BOOKS
Audio books offer speech only option, there is no text to accompany the sounds. These books are often read aloud by a human narrator. Pure audiobooks are nice for fiction but do not have any of the benefits of note taking, annotating or searching that are available for e-texts. Using an audiobook with human voice while taking notes or annotating on an e-text might be a good option if you want the book read with a lot of passion, or it contains dialect or something of that sort (i.e. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain).
Name
Descriptions / Features
Link / Requirements
Your Neighborhood Public Library
At your local public library, you can order and download online with your library card.
Free, but need to register with your public library.
Offers recorded human voices. Does not include a text version of the book. You can request a recording of a textbook for a college course in advance.
With Speech-to-Text Software, the user speaks to the device and it types it into written words. Most systems have a built in version of this, so try that first. Windows, Chrome, Mac, Android and iOS operating systems all offer their own versions of “speech-to-text” recognition as part of their accessibility options.
The industry standard developer of Speech-to-Text software is Dragon by Nuance, with versions available for Mac, PC and iPad/iPhone. For all of these versions, however, the technology is not perfect and sometimes it makes mistakes.
Name
Description / Features
Link / Requirements
The industry standard for Speech recognition and Speech-to-text for Windows. This software requires the user to set up voice recognition on their device
An intelligent tool that is more than just dictation, you can use it to make calls and set reminders. Siri lets you use your voice to ask your phone questions. Siri will answer most frequently asked questions.
By the time you get to college, or sometimes high school, you may want to use one of the more complex literacy suites. These programs combine several functionalities such as TTS, STT, word prediction, specialized dictionaries and different kinds of e-text annotation. Many have OCR capabilities so “inaccessible text,” such as text in pictures or locked PDFs, can be read. Most are compatible with a variety of e-text formats so a student can import an e-book, a web article, a Google doc or a text from Bookshare. Many support several languages.
Most of these packages have a web-based component, as well as downloadable software. Almost all have free trials so you can try them before you buy them.
Name
Description / Features
Link / Requirements
Toolbar floats over the desktop and reads or interacts with text in a variety of programs or formats.
Reads “real” PDFs, .doc files, .txt files, daisy files, or web pages. Includes TTS, highlighting and note taking (including voice notes), dictionaries, homophone checker, speaking spellcheck, word prediction, idea mapping, and echo typing. Available for most platforms, including iOS and Chrome.
Windows PCs, Macs, Google, iPad and Android tablets. A version is available as a Chrome add on.
Annual fee structure
Grammarly's writing app makes sure everything you type is not only correct, but also clear and easy to read. Grammarly's algorithms flag potential issues in the text and make context-specific suggestions to help with grammar, spelling and usage, wordiness, style, punctuation, and even plagiarism.
Grammarly's desktop app is compatible with Windows 7, Windows, 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10. If you use Mac, the app is supported on macOS 10.9 and higher.
Kurzweil allows you to import or create text, at which point you can access TTS, highlighting,
dictionary, word prediction, idea mapping, cross-out tool, and can create audio file from text. If a school owns the license, they can also use a web-based service called Firefly to push out text to users.
Firefly is web-based and allows you to upload your textbooks books from bookshare.org and from your Google drive. Accessibility from anywhere using wifi.
Traditional software lives on one computer. Available for Windows or Mac Computers.
Free trial available.
Available as Chrome extensions or Software. Snap and Read provides TTS, highlighting and note taking, leveled reading, automated bibliographer, dictionary, and a teacher portal to view reading data. Works with Kindle Cloud Reader (on a laptop). Co:Writer provides word prediction, and STT. Contains over 4 million topic dictionaries. Available for most platforms, including a limited iOS which is a version of Co:Writer.
Available for most platforms, including a limited iOS which is a version of Co:Writer.
The variety of features depends on which version you get. Includes TTS, dictionaries, homophone checker, speaking spell checker, word prediction, idea mapping, and echo typing. Other Claro products offer additional capabilities.
ClaroRead is available for Mac, PC and Chromebooks. Limited versions are available for free for iOS and Chrome browser. Some versions available as a USB device.
ORGANIZATION SYSTEMS
Cloud-based Google, Yahoo and live.com are complete organization systems, including slide presentation, document and spreadsheet creation, calendars, and email. Apple has it’s own integrated system that includes email, calendar, storage and free apps for creating documents, slideshows and spreadsheets.
Calendars and reminders can be used to help set up class schedules, remind the user when assignments are due, and alert the user about appointments.
Name
Description / Features
Link / Requirements
Open a Gmail account and you get Google Drive (can store items and can create text, spreadsheet and slideshow documents) and storage of those docs. You also get use of Google Calendar, a fully functional online and shareable calendar that can help develop Time Management skills and keep tracks of multiple responsibilities.
G Suite
Free
Open an Outlook account and you get OneDrive, similar to Google Drive and free online versions of the Microsoft Office suite
If you use Apple devices, your Apple ID will get you iCloud storage space and you can automatically store all your documents made with Apple Apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, iMovie, etc…). This automatically syncs with any Apple device you use.
There is a range of assistive technology equipment that can help you record audio and take notes for you to listen to and read at a later time.
Name
Description / Features
Link / Requirements
The SmartPen can record audio while writing. Audio is linked to the notes in real-time, so user can go back and click on their notes to hear what was being said when note was first taken. Can download visual and audio data onto a computer, Android or iOS device for storage,
Mac or PC or Android or iOS
Need to buy special paper
This is an app that lets you take notes or draw (for iPad or touch screen computers). Audionote records sound that is attached to the notes in real-time so the user can go back and click on notes to hear what was being said at a specific point in time.
The Notability app records audio while you are taking notes on the iPad either with a stylus or by typing. The stylus tracks your script and can convert it to typing or highlighted text. You can also insert pictures, maps etc. directly to the document you are working on. However this tool does not link audio to specific content.