How can special needs of differently abled students be met while teaching computers?

Q. How can special needs of differently abled students be met while teaching computers?

Answer =

1. Hearing impaired students would want more of visual input than oratory, rather oratory instructions should be available in sign language if possible.

2. A lot of children, not all, with loco-motor disabilities are both keyboard disabled and mouse disabled; however, they can use virtual keyboards for writing computer programs. For virtual keyboards supporting such students, following types of hardware are required: -
• Sophisticated virtual keyboard software.
• A joystick that is specific to the needs of the child.
• A programming editor that can be interfaced with the virtual keyboard, and does not require any mouse movements.

3. For low-vision students, Braille keyboards, Braille monitors, and Braille printers along with screen readers should be made available to facilitate their learning and working on computers.

4. There are many types of software features and voice assistants that visually impaired students can use, e.g.
• Microsoft's Narrator and Cortana and Ubuntu's Orca and onBoard, the voice assistants which blind people can use for a variety of essential tasks.
• A special version of Linux called BLinux especially meant for the blind.
• Host of accessibility features of various Office software that can be easily activated. These features are present in both Microsoft Office and open source offerings such as Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
• Specialized editor for visually impaired students for typing programs.