Assistive Technology: Meeting the Needs of Adults with Learning Disabilities.

This monograph briefly describes a sampling of tools and technologies that can be used by adults with learning disabilities to improve their functional capabilities in employment, educational, or personal settings. Stressed is the importance of evaluating each technology in terms of the individual's unique profile, the function to be performed, and the particular context in which the technology will be applied. The assistive technologies are grouped according to the following functional areas: (1) organizational skills, memory, managing personal information, time management, and staying on task, through use of such devices as beepers/buzzers, tape recorders, and index cards; (2) auditory/listening management through use of pressure-sensitive paper for classroom note-taking, a laptop computer for notetaking, and books on disc; (3) visual processing through use of tape recordings, large print materials, and computers with voice output capabilities; (4) math assistance through use of color coding of columns, hand-held talking calculators, and special-feature calculators; (5) reading assistance through use of optical character recognition systems with speech synthesis, books on tape, and online services; and (6) written language assistance through use of spell checkers, grammar checking and proofreading programs, and speech-to-text programs. Also briefly covered is use of technology to foster independence, the multimedia approach, use of telecommunications for distance learning, and sources of various services and resources. (DB)