Track: Technology Management

Abstract

Every human being has the right for education regardless of her or his culture, race or disability. Students with disabilities are having a challenging experience when they go through the education stages during their life. Education institutions should care about the needs of students with disabilities and try to do whatever is needed to accommodate them in the education programs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify the needs of students with disabilities and identify the available assistive technologies used with the various types of disabilities. Based on the results of a literature review, legal documents, and ISO standards, it was possible to identify eight needs for the students with disabilities. Furthermore, we identified the state of the art of the technologies that are internationally available and being used with five types of disabilities, i.e. deafness, blindness, dyslexia, physical disability, and autism. Benchmarking University of Sharjah’s assistive technologies with best practices at other international universities enables the University of Sharjah to know where it stands with respect to other’s best practices. Furthermore, they can develop the needed strategies required to adopt the best practices, which will enhance the disabled student’s life in the campus.