Disability and Dyslexia Support: Assistive Technology

There are various ways you can use the built-in accessibility features on your PC or laptop. Some examples are:

• Changing the appearance of your screen
• Changing mouse and keyboard settings
• Using audio alternatives
• Enhancing your web browser

The JISC website provides more information about assistive and accessible technology.

There are many free open software tools you can use to make studying and organising information much easier. The JISC website includes links to an number of free open source software tools.

Other useful links:

• Accessibility in Google docs, sheets and slides
• Open Office accessibility features
• Accessibility in Microsoft products (including Microsoft 365)
• RNIB Bookshare can convert texts for improved accessibility - please contact your Academic Services Librarian for any title requests
• RNIB member preferred e-reading tools list
• My web my way - Published by the BBC, these pages provide Internet accessibility help

Read&Write 11    

This is a very powerful tool with lots of different functions that will help you to

• Improve your written English skills with tense correction, word prediction and an advance spell checker
• Improve your comprehension by reading Ebooks, PDFs and webpages.
• Spot mistakes by hearing your own work read out loud,
• Read large blocks of text by changing the colour of the page or underlining words as you read.

Texthelp, the developers of Read&Write, have a number of instructional overview video playlists on the software.

Texthelp also provide a range of free short instructional courses.

Inspiration 9.2IE     

There are lots of ways to use this software. Test out different styles and make Inspiration work for you. You can use it for

• visualising mapping, outlining and writing and for making presentations.
• brainstorming ideas.
• structuring your thoughts.
• visually laying out concepts to strengthen your understanding
• organising information,
• structuring writing for plans, papers and reports,

Ask for help if you can’t find either pieces of software. They may be in the Software Centre and staff can show you how to access it.