The Assistive Technology Center (ATC) on the first floor of Meriam Library (adjacent to the main computer lab) is a joint project between Disability Support Services and Student Computing. Use of the equipment is open to students registered with DSS. Student Computing provides hardware and software maintenance and lab assistants to support the center. Some assistive technology is also available in the open access computer labs.

Available Software in the ATC

The ATC provides the following accessibility software:

• Speech recognition
• Screen reader
• Screen magnification
• Text to speech
• LD assistive reading software

A brief description of each software and links to software manufacturers are provided below.

Speech Recognition Software

Speech recognition software attempts to "humanize" the interface between people and machines by expanding the use of speech. The speech capabilities of this software include continuous and discrete dictation systems, voice command systems and text to speech systems. The ATC has the following software installed on several computers:

Dragon Naturally Speaking

Screen Reader Software

Screen reader software reads aloud the contents of the computer screen, including text on drop down menus, dialog boxes, help files, email, web pages, or any text documents.

Jaws by Freedom-Scientific

Screen Magnification Software

Screen magnifiers magnify the display of word processors, spreadsheets, databases and online services on the computer. The Student Computing labs have built-in screen magnification capability in the Operating System software installed on the PCs in all the open access labs as well as in the ATC. In addition, there are two other magnification software programs available on the ATC workstations:

Zoom Text by AI Squared

Text to Speech Software

Text to speech software is primarily used with read aloud printed text. The text is scanned on a flatbed scanner, then converted into speech or saved as a file. The user can scan articles, newspapers, books or any type of printed text. The user can listen to the scanned words as they are read out loud by the built-in voice synthesizer. Student Computing has two scanners available in the ATC as well as two text to speech software programs:

Kurzweil 1000 by Kurzweil Educational Systems

LD Assistive Reading Software

Kurzweil 3000 is software that helps people with reading or learning difficulties increase their reading speed and comprehension. Kurzweil 3000 can read virtually any scanned document or other electronic file on your computer or the Internet, using a high quality synthetic speech. Plus, with Kurzweil 3000, words are highlighted in a contrasting color to the reading unit making tracking easier.

Kurzweil 3000 by Kurzweil Educational Systems