Mason & Assistive Technology

Remember Mason from my Meet Mason guest post in October? Here they are again! Mason and his mother April are featured in a video by the PACER Center (Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights), which details his use of assitive devices in the classroom.

If you have ever wondered how children with visual impairments participate in reading and writing activities at school, then this is a video you need to see!

The Family Center on Technology and Disability (FCTD) and PACER Center are pleased to announce the release of our new assistive technology awareness series, AT in Action.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), this fully-captioned video series is designed to strengthen awareness of AT devices that help individuals with disabilities participate fully in school, at home, and in the community.

In this third video, you'll meet Mason, a young boy with vision loss who, with the help of AT, is able to learn reading and writing in the same classroom as his sighted peers.



Mason can see large print but he is learning Braille because his parents understand that as his reading assignments get longer and more complex, it will become harder and harder to rely on his vision. 

I am very impressed by the level of support Mason is getting from his school. His school district purchased him a Mountbatten Brailler and seem to have been very supportive and responsive to the accommodations Mason's visual impairment requires. 

This video is excellent because it shows how a child with a significant level of vision loss can succeed in school with the proper accommodations. I love to see stories like this.