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Overview

Assistive technology products are mechanical aids designed to provide additional accessibility to individuals who have physical or cognitive disabilities or who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing and as a result, enhance communication. Assistive technology includes the entire range of supportive tools and equipment from splints to wheelchairs and computer systems for distance communication.

Examples of Assistive Technology includes but are certainly not limited to:

  • Typing on a computer,
  • Communication boards/pictography,
  • Internet,
  • Instant messaging - A free online service that lets you communicate over your computer in real time. Using certain features you can see when people are available to “talk” with you. There are various kinds of IM services.
  • Amplification devices for a telephone help a person with partial hearing loss.
  • Portable text-to-speech synthesizers – A device that is used to convert words from a computer document (e.g. word processor document, web page) into audible speech spoken through the computer speaker.
  • TTY(TDD) -  A device that allows people who are deaf, hard of hearing or have speech difficulties use the telephone to communicate, by typing messages back and forth to one another. The messages get sent over the phone line, and other person’s responses can be read on the TTY’s text display.
  • Video Relay Service (VRS) - A free service for Deaf and hard of hearing individuals that enables anyone to conduct video relay calls with family, friends or business associates through an interpreter via a high-speed Internet connection and a video relay solution (or VRS call option).
  • IP Relay enables deaf, hard-of-hearing, oral, and late deafened individuals to place text-to-speech relay calls from their mobile device (i.e., Sidekick, BlackBerry®, Treo™, and similar devices) or a personal computer (PC) to any standard telephone user in the U.S

Assistive Technology and the Law

  • The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal special education law, provides the following legal definition of an assistive technology device: "any item, piece of equipment, or product system... that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities".
  • Legal Requirements, under Title III of the ADA, call for ‘Effective Communication.’  “Places of public accommodation are required to ensure that customers or clients with disabilities affecting hearing, vision, speech, or cognition are provided with effective communication through auxiliary aids and services that enable them to fully benefit from services, goods, and programs”.
  • The Assistive Technology Act of 1988, also known as the “Tech Act” provides funds to states to support three types of programs:
  1. the establishment of assistive technology (AT) demonstration centers, information centers, equipment loan facilities, referral services, and other consumer-oriented programs;
  2. protection and advocacy services to help people with disabilities and their families, as they attempt to access the services for which they are eligible; and
  3. Federal/state programs to provide low interest loans and other alternative financing options to help people with disabilities purchase needed assistive technology.

For a list of state projects funded under the Tech Act, visit the Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs' website This link will open a new browser window. 

Replacing Technology

In a shelter environment, if a survivor arrives without communications equipment, there is the potential to get an assistive technology loan in some states. For more information on short term loan programs visit the National Assistive Technology Technical Assistance Partnership (NATTAP) This link will open a new browser window..

For those states that don't have a short term loan program, the best alternative resource would be to go through an Independent Living Center --they would know what local resources exist.