What is Assistive Technology?

"It makes people feel better if they can do things for themselves ..."

To listen to the audio file click the green play button.

Assistive Technology, or just AT, is any piece of technology, any gadget that has been designed to be of help to people who have sight impairments.

• Recent advances in computers mean that people can now access their own correspondence, regain personal control over their affairs, maintain privacy and use IT for study or for work

• Hand-held, mobile GPS technology has now been developed that can help you when you're out and about, telling you the names of streets, giving directions and announcing intersections and landmarks

• And there's mobile phone software that allows you to snap a picture of virtually any printed text, including letters, receipts, posters or pages from a book and then reads it back to you (and it can translate in to other languages as well!).