Assistive technology is defined in IDEA, or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, as any item or piece of equipment or system, that is used for the purpose of maintaining, increasing or improving the functional capabilities of children with disabilities.This is part of a free and appropriate education as outlined in IDEA. Assistive technology can help students with a variety of disabilities, from significant physical impairments, visual problems or learning disabilities.

History
When home computers became commonplace, the potential to help disabled learners was recognized. However, many school districts were overwhelmed with the new technology. As a result, the usual scenario was to have a technology expert do an evaluation of a learner and determine whether there was a need for assistive technology. If so, then the student was referred to another expert. Consequently, many students particularly those with mild to moderate disabilities or learning disabilities were left out of the technology boon. Also, many educators and administrators feared technological accommodations would become crutches for learning disabled students, and they would not learn without reliance on those tools. Eventually, the opinions changed, and educators realized that assistive technology enabled the learning disabled to work at a higher level and do more difficult work than before.

Significance
Due to greatly increased numbers of disabled students being instructed alongside non-disabled peers, teachers have to deal with a range of learners and their needs in the classroom. That is why assistive technology has become such an important issue for teachers. Through assistive technology struggling students can become equal participants in a regular classroom setting, with technology leveling the playing field for them. This also takes pressure off the classroom teacher when devices and technology provide students increased function.

Types
Assistive technology includes things such as products to help a child with physical disabilities to position comfortably for different tasks, or alternate controls such as switches, trackballs, alternate keyboards and mouth wands to operate computers or other technology. Visual aids are available such as lighted magnifiers, large screen readers, large type books, talking books, braillers, scanners, and speech to text word processors or text to speech computer programs. Hearing devices are available such as personal FM units, hearing aids and closed captioned tv. Those with communication problems can use symbol systems communications boards, speech synthesizers and voiced word processors.

Features
Assistive technology specifically for learning disabilities include things, such as abbreviation expanders, which are basically shortcut keys to make typing easier, alternative keyboards, recorded books, electronic math worksheets that align math problems and may have speech capability, data managers to help with organization, portable word processors which can be used easily at a student desk, proofreading programs, speech recognition programs, screen readers that read aloud text from books that have been scanned or from the Internet, talking calculators, talking spell checkers or dictionaries, and word prediction word processors.

Benefits
Rather than a crutch, assistive technology can enable a learner to do things that wouldn't be feasible otherwise, and will also enable the student to have a normal or near-normal level of fluency. Assistive technology opens access to activities otherwise not available or possible for the disabled learner and will allow a child to perservere at tasks that would otherwise be too frustrating and time-consuming. Assistive technology allows learners to focus on learning rather than the mechanics involved in the task, and allows students to participate fully in social and academic activities. The results are education in the least restrictive environment that benefits all learners.