Intellectual+Disability+and+VoiceThread

Intellectual Disability and VoiceThread

 Intellectual Disability, formally known as mentally challenged or mentally retarded, students suffer from limitations in mental functioning and skills in communication, taking care of him or herself, and social skills. These students have an IQ of 70 or less with substantial barriers to typical function. It is estimated that approximately 6.5 million people in the United States have intellectual disability where more than 545,000 children between the ages of 6 and 21 are affected. One in ten children serviced through special education have some form of intellectual disabilities. Intellectual disabilities causes include genetic and chromosomal abnormalities, infection, environment, physical trauma, toxic exposure, nutrition and metabolic disorders. Intellectually disabled children have limited functional ability in learning independence, communication, environmental control and choices. They need to have tasks presented in small demonstrated steps.

 There is a push for __21 Century Literacy__ in that use of technology to collaborate though group communication, collection, and sharing. Students with intellectual disabilities have trouble with both abstract concepts and the ability to complete task on their own without help or having step by step repeated demonstration. Web 2.0 technologies such as VoiceThread would be a challenge for students with i ntellectual disabilities. __VoiceThread__ is an asynchronous collaboration tool of multimedia slide of images, videos, and documents that is accessible to all students. It is visual interface for dialogue, provides commenting options for the user in several different ways, and has human interaction no matter where the users are.

 Intellectual Disabled students want to have control over their own lives, participate and contribute in activities, and interact with persons who do not have disabilities. With the use of appropriate assistive technologies, students with intellectual Disabilities can increase their functional ability to be independent, increase communication, and control their environment. They can use electronic notebook, organization software, manual boards, reader, or a computer. With the aid of appropriate assistive technology such as askSam, students with intellectual disabilities can use VoiceThread to increase communication skills and learn independence through recording and participating in group dialogue. They can watch and/or recorded task analysis projects to increase learning, social networking, practice speaking, and learn new concepts through repetition. The software askSam is designed for the user to store, organize, and view reminders.

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