Assistive Technologies Demo

Demo Text 1 (Google Doc) | Demo Text 2 (Word Office365)

Alternative Format Books (Including Textbooks)

  • Bookshare – free membership for people with documented visual impairments, reading disabilities, or physical conditions that make reading traditional physical books difficult (more info on who qualifes). Bookshare provides access to over 1.2 million books in audiobooks, epubs, large-print, braille, and other formats. The collection includes college textbooks as well as books published to the general public.
  • Learning Ally – subscription service similar to Bookshare; more information on who qualifies
  • UNE Libraries
    • UNE Libraires’ Commitment to Accessibility statement.
      • We plan to offer further guidance on our Commitment to Accessibility statement under ‘ONLINE RESOURCES.’
    • Many library resources such Credo Reference, Ebsco, Gale, ProQuest, JSTOR, ScienceDirect, Project Muse, and Proquest’s Ebook Central provide read-aloud options and/or download to HTML, PDF, or mp3. Each database vendor is different. For instance, Palz State has a great site. In the meantime, UNE librarians are happy to help troubleshoot individual databases. 
    • Most library databases present articles and abstracts in two different formats: PDF or HTML. HTML articles can be read easily by read-aloud software. PDFs can present some issues. PDF accessibility depends on how the articles were scanned. In some cases, security features (to prevent the document from being altered) may interfere with PDF accessibility.
    • Teens and young adults ages 13 to 26 who live in the United States can now sign up for a free Books Unbanned eCard from the Boston Public Library that allows them access to the BPL’s collection of frequently challenged and banned eBooks and eAudiobooks. https://www.bpl.org/books-unbanned/ (Note: other libraries offer this, but Brooklyn only allows until 21).

Reading Assistance

  • Immersive Reader (Windows, Office365 online)
    • Provides a view of documents in MS Office products that allows the reader to format font, margin width, letter and line spacing, page background color, and differentiate syllables; also has text-to-speech capabilities
  • Omoguru (Chrome extension & Lexie app)
    • Formats most screen text for easier reading by people with dyslexia; works on webpages and in browser based versions of Word and Outlook; also has text-to-speech capabilities
  • Text-to-speech
    • NaturalReader (Chrome extension, online, & app)
    • Helperbird (Chrome extension [subscription to unlock some features], GoogleDocs add-on)
      • Embeds Immersive Reader, dyslexic fonts, text-to-speech, and translator capabilities to websites and GoogleDocs.
    • Spoken Content (MacOS setting under Accessibility)
    • Read Aloud (Windows control panel; built into Immersive Reader)
    • Speech (Windows control panel)
  • Bionic Reading (Chrome extension & app)
    • Formats texts to improve reader’s fixation and saccade rate, speeding up their reading and improving reading comprehension
  • Screen Mask (Chrome extension) – focuses a reader’s attention on just a few lines at a time
  • Readspeak – new text-to-speech tool in Brightspace; also works in lockdown browsers
  • Adobe OCR tool – converts “flat” PDFs into ones that can be searched and read by text-to-speech applications. Free Adobe account required. Click through the pop-up asking you to subscribe to the full Adobe Acrobat suite.

Writing Assistance

  • Text Help Read&Write (Chrome extension [free] & app [subscription])
    • Predictive text, dictionary, picture dictionary, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, custom vocabulary, annotation/markup tools
  • Speech-to-text
    • Dictation (MacOS setting)
    • Speech Recognition (Windows)

Focus Assistance

  • Focus (under the View menu on MS Word)
  • Focus Writer (Windows/Linux, MacOS [direct .dmg download) – a full-screen word processor that hides all the bells and whistles to help writers avoid the temptation of their other programs
  • Screen Mask (Chrome extension) – focuses a reader’s attention on just a few lines at a time
  • Freedom – blocks access to the internet on all of your devices for a specified period of time
  • Session – Pomodoro timer and distraction blocker app

Math & Science Assistance

  • Text Help Equatio (Chrome extension [free] & app [subscription])
    • Math notation, equation editor, LaTEX editor, speech-to-text equation writer, screen reader, calculator, formula prediction, visualization, digital manipulatives, handwriting recognition, whiteboard, STEM tools, Math Mentor
    • Demo Video