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WA invests $4m in classroom accessibility technology

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The West Australian government has promised $4m for interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in the state’s public schools. IWBs, which use touchscreen functionality, offer interactivity and multimedia capabilities which not only boost student engagement but allow for easy use of assistive technology, such as captions.

WA Education Minister, Dr Liz Constable, said that IWBs are particularly beneficial for students with special needs, including those with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders. “Students with autism are visual and the technology allows teachers to run image-based programs on the screen.”

IWBs are used in Media Access Australia’s Classroom Access Project, a series of prototype classrooms in mainstream schools which exemplify how technology can best be used to fully include Deaf and hearing impaired students.

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Captions

Interactive whiteboard

Education

Deaf or hearing impaired

IWB solution

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Deaf/hearing impaired Education news

Research & Policy news

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Broadway theatre becomes autism friendly

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USA: The Broadway based Theatre Development Fund (TDF) is piloting a new program to make theatre accessible to audience members on the autism spectrum.

The Autism Theatre Initiative is part of TDF's Accessibility Programs and the inaugural performance will be of The Lion King at its matinee session on Sunday, 2 October. An advisory panel of autism experts are working with TDF to ensure the audience’s needs are met, and TDF has purchased every seat in the theatre to re-sell to families with members within the autism spectrum.

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Customise your news alerts now

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There are many ways you can choose to receive news from Media Access Australia, and with a few easy steps you can customise your subscription by selecting both the type of news you are interested in as well as the frequency you receive it.

Here are a few points about your subscription and how you can personalise your news from Media Access Australia.

If you have already subscribed to the news alerts you must first be issued with a new password for the website.

Once logged into the site you can change your news alert preferences by going into the subscriptions tab and then choosing tags.

You are then presented with choices in both disability and media type:

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