Part 4: Examples of Assistive Technologies in different countries and languages
Introduction
When we set out to plan this toolbox our section on Assistive Technologies was originally intended to mainly provide a directory of available applications. But two things became clear. One it wasn’t enough just to signpost to applications without talking about how they might be used, and secondly, we were completely overwhelmed by the numbers. Of applications there were – far too many for us to test and make an honest judgement about.
But we also found out that most of the applications and tools seemed to be in the English language and we were concerned to both explore and signpost to applications and tools in other European languages, especially those used in some of the less used languages. So we hasten to say that this short list of tools is in no way comprehensive but it is designed to show the variety of tools and applications available, at least in the languages of the project partner organisations who have written this toolbox.
DYS VOCAL
FRANCE/French
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| This software can be of great help to students with dyslexia but also students with reading difficulties. | Reading, dyslexia, syllabic imprinting, screen reading, word predictor, speech synthesis, virtual keyboard, talking calculator | Dys-Vocal is compatible with all Windows versions PC and tablet, including Windows 10 |
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Facil’iti
FRANCE/French
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| is aimed at people suffering from cognitive decline, dyslexia, visual impairment or or diseases such as Parkinson’s disease | Facil’iti is a free tool accessible via the Internet. It consists of setting the parameters of the browser of your computer terminal: computer, tablet, smartphone. This setting allows you to make partner sites accessible according to the specific needs of the user and needs, whether these are related to cognitive, physical or sensory impairments. | free |
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Astread
FRANCE/French
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| reading, visual impairment, motor disorders, oral transcription | Upload the text document in epub, pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf or odt format to convert to audio file | conversion text to audio |
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Authot
FRANCE/French
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| Writing, language learning, hearing impairment, motor disorders, dyspraxia, visual impairment, video, written transcription, SEO, subtitling, digital accessibility, live transcription | Authôt is an online application that allows the transcription and automatic subtitling of any audio or video document. | for reverse audio to text |
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CiviKey
FRANCE/French
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| Physical disability, Specific Language and Learning Disabilities (SLLD), writing, keyboarding, predictive input, computer control | Civikey offers a set of alternative solutions to the keyboard and mouse for students who, due to their motor disability, cannot or cannot easily access these peripherals. | free |
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Talk and play
Greece
https://www.scify.gr/site/el/impact-areas/assistive-technologies/talk-play
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For people with psysical disabilities or difficulty in speaking, without mental disabilities . People with aphasia (e.g. due to brain damage). | Talk and play enables users to communicate with their environment, be more independent and train or exercise for rehabilitation at home, under the guidance of their occupational therapist. | free (has to be dowloaded in Computer, available for windows-linux) |
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ICSee
Greece
https://www.scify.gr/site/el/impact-areas/assistive-technologies/icsee
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For people with vision issues (for blind or those with limited vision) | It is an application for android smartphones / tablets, which processes in real time the image / video of the device camera, applies a series of filters and displays on the screen a result that is easier to read or recognize. | free (app for phones and tablets) |
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NVDA
Greece/ Many languages including greek
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For blind/limited vision | NVDA is a software for computers that reads the screen. It fully support the greek language and the menue is in greeek too (screen reader for Windows) | free (only for Windows) |
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eType
Greece/ 15 languages including greek
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For those who cannot write fast due to low hands mobility, others | It is a software for the computer that predicts the words, corrects mistakes and helps the user to write faster | free (Windows) |
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AT HIVE
Ireland
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For students with a disability | Portal for students with a disability to discover the types of AT that can help them through answering a series of questions | free |
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Discover-your-AT AT in Ireland Webinar
Ireland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt_iS7TAsDk
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For students with a disability | A firsthand account about experience of using AT in the workplace, top 10 tips in AT, with demos of select recommended devices. AT Passport idea. | free |
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Lifetool
Germany(/Austria) – German language only
https://www.lifetool.at/hilfsmittel/hilfsmittel-uebersicht/
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For people who need technically supported communication | Homepage of the enterprise Lifetool – it offers different technical solutions for computer aided communication; there is also counseling offered. Homepage is primarily for stakeholder, parents etc.Lifetool is part of the Catholic Diakonie in Austria and Tschech Republik | hard to say; portal for finding hardware solutions |
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Datenbank barrierefrei kommunizieren (database barrierfree communication)
Germany(/Austria) – German language only
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For people with any impairment! | Very interesting portal for people with different impairments and a variety of competencies reading, writing moving etc.; pretty interesting page (maybe Jutta could have a look at it) | a portal for free and commercial hardware and software |
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Envision
Spain
| Designed for who | What does it do | Comments |
| For blind and visually impaired users | Envision is a fast, reliable and award-winning OCR application that tells us about the visual world, helping blind and visually impaired users lead more independent lives. Envision is a fast, reliable and award-winning OCR application that tells us about the visual world, helping blind and visually impaired users lead more independent lives. Envision is developed for and with the visually impaired community. The app is simple, works well and provides the best assistance experience for blind and low vision users. Simply use your phone’s camera to scan any text, your environment, objects, people or products and everything will be read to you thanks to Envision’s artificial intelligence and Optical Character Recognition (OCR). |