Assistive Technologies System for Children with Special Needs

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Prof. D-r. Dragan Mihajlov,
•  
• Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering,
• Ss. Cyril and Methodius University,
• 1000 Skopje,
• Republic of Macedonia,
•  
• dragan.mihajlov_at_finki.ukim.mk
•  

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Whatever you teach you have to consider people
  with special needs

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs
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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs
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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs
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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs
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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Assistive technologies have existed from
  the moment our prehistoric ancestors started
  using tools

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Assistive technologies 
• Purpose-built hardware or software,used by
  individuals in order to perform functions that
  would otherwise be difficult or impossible

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Mary Pat Radabaugh,
• Director of IBM National Support Center for
  Persons with Disabilities  
• "For people without disabilities, technology
  makes things easier.
• For people with disabilities, technology
  makes things possible.  

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• In Republic of Macedonia the use of assistive
  technologies for children with special needs is
  in a very early phase
• We have been developing many systems for
  different people, supporting different kind of
  activities
• This system is different

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Macedonian Assistive Technologies System
  (MATS) for children with special needs

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Children with special needs have been
  classified into several categories
• mobility impairment,
• sensory impairment (visual and hearing impairments
  ) and
• intellectual impairment (difficulties in
  understanding, expressing or interacting with
  other people)

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Different classification
•  
• Physical Disabilities
•  
• Visual Disabilities
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• Hearing Disabilities
• Cognitive Disabilities and Learning Disorders
•  
• Communications Disabilities

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

Different categories of children with special
needs
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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• MATS is a collection of
• - conventions,
• - devices and
• - services 
• particularly chosen and applied for helping
  children with disabilities
•  

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Some tools are very simple like cane for the
  visually impaired
•  

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Other tools are very high technology
•  

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

•  
• Rules of Engagements or Disability
  etiquette

What have we done until now First step Sticks
and stones may break my bones but words will
hurt forever
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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Use respectful language
• Examples
• - Using the term person without a disability
  instead of normal person
• - Never move a person in a wheelchair unless you
  have permission from
• that person
• - Do not refer to people as blind, they are
  visually impaired
• - Do not refer to people as deaf, they are
  hearing impaired
•  

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Center for people with disabilities "Open the
  windows
• - adaptations (magnification, color, sound, keys
  and mouse speed, ...)
• - developing tools that will be in Macedonian
  language (Braile printer, )
• - developing specialized educational software
  for students
• with special needs
•   . Macedonian alphabet to children with
  disabilities
• . First grade math
• . Macedonian speech synthesizer for visually
  impaired
• . Software for learning hand signs for hearing
  impaired

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• EU-funded project
• AsTeRICS
• (Assistive Technology Rapid Integration and
  Construction Set)
•  

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

Facilitate access for people with a physical
disability to different devices - personal
computers, - cell phones - smart home
devices The core of the software suite is
provided as Open Source
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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

AsTeRICS contains about 100 plugins like -
speech recognition, - environment control
(KNX, FS20, IR-Trans), - mouse/keyboard
emulation, - PS3 gamepad emulation - ...
...
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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Gerhard Nussbaum

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• We are proudly working on UNIX and Android
  implementations of AsTeRICS

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Assistive Technologies System for Children with
Special Needs

• Teaching or helping child with special needs is
  like touching god