Every Mac comes equipped with assistive technologies to help students with special needs experience the power and simplicity of OS X. With features like an advanced screen reader, FaceTime and Photo Booth, OS X helps a wide range of learners get more from their Mac.
The Mac has several features designed to help students with cognitive and learning disabilities get organised, stay focused and learn in ways that fit their unique capabilities.
Simple Finder
Using parental controls, the Mac can be set up to provide a greatly simplified experience that may be better for students with cognitive and learning disabilities. Simple Finder reduces the Dock to just three folders. Limit the list of apps a student can open to only the ones you choose, so students can stay focused. Files, folders and apps are displayed in a single window of neatly arranged icons so everything is easier to find.
Safari Reader
For some students, navigating the web can be a sensory overload. Safari Reader reduces the visual clutter on a web page by removing distractions. It strips away ads, buttons and navigation bars, allowing students to focus on just the content they want. And Safari Reader works with Text to Speech and VoiceOver, so students with print disabilities or vision impairments can get auditory feedback.
Hear Alex Speak
Text to Speech
We all learn in different ways. Some of us learn better when more than one sense is engaged simultaneously. With Text to Speech, students can have the word or a paragraph read aloud as they’re reading it onscreen. Choose Alex — the voice of Mac — or other male or female voices to do the reading. Students can also adjust the speaking rate and select from over 20 built-in languages.
Dictionary
Stumbling across unfamiliar words is bound to happen when reading new texts or learning new subjects. With the Dictionary app, students have quick access to definitions and synonyms to help with grammar, spelling and pronunciation — even if they’re offline.
Word Completion
Word completion in OS X can help students who have print disabilities or cognitive challenges or are learning English improve their vocabulary and word-building skills. After typing just a few letters, press the Escape key and OS X suggests words. Students can see the list of all the words that start with certain letters so they can pick the right word. This helps highlight correct word usage and can turn spelling into a more positive experience.
Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track
Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track converts text to spoken audio and allows students to download tracks to any iOS device. So students who benefit from hearing text rather than reading it can listen to assignments in their own time. And because it’s a service built into the operating system, creating the file takes only three simple steps — so there’s no need for teachers to spend time recording audio.
Photo Booth
Students can use Photo Booth to take snapshots and make short videos, giving them another way to communicate. For instance, students who struggle with personal interaction — like answering a direct question — may find it easier to see their own face on the screen in order to begin communicating. And because Photo Booth is integrated with the built-in FaceTime HD camera, it displays photos and videos the moment they’re captured. Students can record a short video with one click, then share it with a second click. And therapists can use Photo Booth to model speech, motor skills or other forms of therapy.
Calendar
With Calendar, students can get pop-up reminders so they know when their next band practice is or when their next maths assignment is due. Alerts can help busy students keep on track and stay organised.
Photos and iMovie
For students who have a hard time communicating their thoughts in written words, Photos and iMovie allow them to express themselves through multimedia. With a digital camera and Photos, many aspects of learning that are traditionally print oriented can be captured in a concrete, visual way. This can help students who are struggling readers or learning English. And teachers can create photo books to teach social situations and life skills or model appropriate behaviour, so students can refer to these stories for future use.
With iMovie, students may find the process of writing both the visual and the audio elements of a script — and the overall excitement of making a movie — more engaging than other kinds of narrative writing assignments. iMovie can also help strengthen sequential ordering skills, and give students the chance to use visual-spatial strengths and develop their storytelling skills. And both Photos and iMovie come as standard on every new Mac.
Spotlight
File structures can be confusing. Spotlight gives students an easy way to track down files, assignments or email. It’s a lightning-fast search technology built into OS X that students can use to quickly pull up what they’re looking for. As students start typing in the Spotlight search field, they get instant results. Spotlight not only finds files, folders and documents, but also contacts, calendars, apps and even dictionary definitions. Students can search other computers on their network too, making it simple to share projects and homework in class.
FaceTime
FaceTime can be a window into the classroom. It lets students who are house or hospital bound engage with the rest of the class. Or allows a therapist to observe a student in action without disrupting the teacher’s lesson. Thanks to its high-quality video and fast frame rate, FaceTime is also ideal for students who communicate using sign language. Every gesture and facial expression shows in crystal-clear detail. And because FaceTime comes as standard on the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, students can use it to communicate with other OS X or iOS users.*
For blind or low-vision students, OS X comes with a variety of assistive technologies — such as a built-in screen reader and screen magnification — to help them get the most out of their Mac.
VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a remarkable screen reader that comes as standard with every Mac. More than just a text-to-speech tool, VoiceOver tells students exactly what’s happening on their Mac, and lets them navigate it using gestures, a keyboard or a braille display. And it uses Alex, the voice of Mac, who speaks the way people naturally talk. Learn more about VoiceOver
Zoom
Zoom is a built-in magnifier that enlarges anything on the screen up to 20 times. Students can use it full screen or picture-in-picture, which allows them to see the zoomed area in a separate window while keeping the rest of the screen at its native size. So students can better read an essay, view a diagram or focus in on maps. Activate it in a variety of ways, from a keyboard command to a trackpad gesture. And Zoom works with VoiceOver, so students can better see — and hear — what’s happening on their screen.
Invert Colours
If a higher contrast helps students better see what’s on the screen, OS X lets them change display settings. They can invert colours, increase and decrease contrast, or switch to greyscale. Once the colours are set, the settings apply throughout the system, so students get the same view in every app.
Students who are deaf or hard of hearing can take advantage of all that the Mac has to offer. FaceTime and iMessage allow for easy communication with teachers and classmates, and captions help students use videos and enhance their learning experience.
FaceTime
Thanks to its high-quality video and fast frame rate, FaceTime is ideal for students who communicate using sign language. Every gesture and facial expression is in crystal-clear detail. And because FaceTime comes as standard on the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, students can talk to OS X or iOS users in a classroom down the hall — or halfway round the world. As if they’re face to face.*
Closed Captions
Closed captions offer all kinds of visual learners the ability to see captions in video to help with comprehension. Captions appear onscreen in easy-to-read white type on a black background. OS X supports closed captioning — as well as open captions and subtitles — across a wealth of educational materials, such as podcasts in iTunes U courses.
Messages with iMessage
Messages is ideal for communication between hearing and non-hearing students. In these situations, typing is the fastest and most universal way to communicate. Students can get one-to-one homework help or send and receive group messages to stay in the loop on group projects. Thanks to its high-quality video and frame rate capabilities, Messages is also a great way to take advantage of hands-on video relay services. Students can clearly see the finger and hand movements of everyone taking part in the conversation. So they can communicate from far away with the same range of emotions as if they were together in the same room. Messages works with AIM (the largest instant messaging community in the US), Google Talk and Jabber.
Mono Audio
Stereo recordings usually have distinct left- and right-channel audio tracks. So students who are deaf or hard of hearing in one ear may miss some of the audio contained in that channel. OS X can help by playing both audio channels in both ears, and lets students adjust the balance for greater volume in either ear — so they can experience all the audio in a lecture, educational video or musical composition.
GarageBand
GarageBand may help improve auditory comprehension among deaf and hard of hearing students — particularly those adjusting to new cochlear implants. Teachers can create podcasts of conversational speech and download them to a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Students use the podcasts to learn inflection and how to differentiate one voice from another. GarageBand comes as standard on every new Mac and is great for speech therapy, learning tonal languages like Chinese, or helping deaf students gain an understanding of how loud things sound with an audio wave file.
For students who have difficulties using the keyboard, mouse or trackpad, OS X technologies help them make keystrokes and mouse gestures.
Multi-Touch Trackpad
The Multi-Touch trackpad is built into every Mac notebook. And the Magic Trackpad is designed to work with Mac desktop computers. These trackpads allow students to tap, scroll, pinch and swipe their way through their Mac. And because Multi‑Touch gestures are so precise, it’s the most fluid, natural and intuitive way to control what’s on the screen or zoom in on text and objects.
Slow Keys
Slow Keys adjusts the sensitivity of the keyboard to process only the keystrokes students mean to make. It builds in a delay between when a key is pressed and when it’s entered. Students can adjust the delay and choose to have a sound play when a key is entered.
Sticky Keys
For students who struggle with pressing keys simultaneously when entering key commands, Sticky Keys combines students’ keystrokes by letting them press keys one at a time. They can enter key combinations — such as Command-S (for Save) — and OS X displays each pressed key, accompanied by a sound effect, so students can make sure the right keys are entered.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Using keyboard shortcuts (or key combinations), students can quickly perform a wide range of tasks — such as capturing a screen (Command-Shift-4) or zooming in (Command-Option-+) — without touching a mouse or opening menus. In addition to using many preset shortcuts, students can create their own. Shortcuts can be made to work system-wide or only in specific applications.
Automator
With Automator, complex repetitive tasks — like renaming files or resizing images — that might overwhelm a student who has trouble using a mouse or trackpad can be executed with a single click. Students simply tell Automator which actions to perform and in which order by dragging them into a workflow, and Automator performs the task as often as they want. Or Automator can record actions as students do them and save them to use later.
