New facility at UCC to assist students with disabilities

A NEW UNIT at University College Cork aims to improve access to third-level education for students with disabilities by providing them with the most cutting edge technologies and equipment available.

The Assistive Technology (AT) unit will help students to maximise their potential and achieve their academic goals, according to Linda Doran, assistive technology officer at UCC.

She said assistive technology played a pivotal role in empowering students with disabilities to access the learning environment on parity with their peers.

The new facility will be available for use by the 535 students registered with Disability Support Services (DSS) in the university this year. They include students with sensory and physical disabilities, students with medical and mental health conditions/illnesses and students with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia.

Every computer across the campus now has zoom text software for visually impaired students and read and write software which is of great benefit to students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia and ADHD.

However, the computers at the AT unit, which is housed in the Boole Library, also boast additional specialist software. The Kurrzweil programme, for instance, allows blind students to scan lecture handouts and even entire text books into the computer which then reads the documents or books back to them.

Students can book a private computer booth if they need to work one-on-one with a tutor or are working with voice-recognition software and need to read out loud to the computer instead of typing.

The unit also boasts one of only two Tiger brailler machines in the State which enables blind and visually impaired students to print out documents, maps and tactile diagrams in braille.

Students can apply to the National Access Office for funding for the equipment and software they need to further their third-level studies.

Ms Doran said: "The problem in the past was that if a student got a computer or software, they usually had it at home and they had to go home if they wanted to work so they were not really using the university. We felt there was a need to mainstream the equipment and software as much as we could so that students with disabilities could work and study on campus if they wish, the same as other students."

Welcoming the new resource, Mary O'Grady, UCC's disability support officer, said: "At UCC, students with disabilities are encouraged to participate in all aspects of the university's academic, cultural and social life.

"Our aim is to play a pivotal role in the assessment and training of students with disabilities, assisting them to make the optimum use of the technologies available to them and enabling each student to find innovative ways of accessing their studies."