NCTI Technology in the Works

Exceptional teams of researchers and vendors have been selected for funding from NCTI to examine the impact of innovative assistive technologies for students with special needs. This year’s winning teams represent a wide spectrum of research interests and approaches.

Recognizing the potential of neurofeedback as a tool for understanding the special symptoms of attention-related disabilities, SMART Braingames uses the latest neurofeedback technology advancements paired with a video game interface.

This research team shares keen insights into the importance of mutual trust to ensuring a productive collaboration. This team of emotionally and socially gifted professionals articulates what it means to build trust among new colleagues.

Researchers at the SEAT Center at Illinois State University, together with Don Johnston, Inc. and a 6-county coalition of special education programs, investigated the outcomes for students with learning and academic disabilities when tech-savvy teachers were given professional development and access to SOLO®, Don Johnston’s new state-of-the-art software.

IntelliTools, Inc., represented by Arjan Khalsa and Ed Murphy, and David Chard pose a key question that no one has attempted to answer for students with physical disabilities: “How can software accurately detect mathematical automaticity?”

Karen Erickson at the University of North Carolina’s Center for Literacy & Disability Studies with Don Johnston Inc.’s President Ruth Ziolkowski and Product Manager Ben Johnston proposed a Tech in the Works project to research the benefits of Don Johnston’s SOLO software. The modest project took off—with surprises from subject recruitment through data analysis.

Tech in the Works Shows Potential Effectiveness of the Signing Science Dictionary: For researcher Judy Vesel of TERC and her partners at Vcom3D, developer of the Signing Avatar® assistive technology, Tech in the Works-funded research demonstrated that a preliminary, 300-word version of the Signing Science Dictionary raised science achievement among students with hearing impairment.

With an NCTI Technology in the Works grant, the team of Matt Kaplowitz, Director of Technology and Content Innovation at Bridge Multimedia, and researcher Wendy Sapp of Visual Impairment Educational Services compared the ease of use for students and teachers of Bridge’s My School Day Online scheduler to ease of use of Microsoft’s Outlook scheduler.