Reducing the Barrier of Special Needs A variety of technologies is available to support special populations and their unique needs. Every class presents a cross section of learning needs. Technology can be utilized to provide a full complement of remedial, primary, or enrichment activities and to support populations that might have—at one time—missed or misunderstood instruction due to limitations in time, language, or location. Students With Disabilities Students with disabilities receive learning support from a variety of adaptive technologies. Such hardware and software tools include speech synthesizers, larger monitors, touch screens, scanners with scan-reading software, voice recognition systems, speech output devices, keyboard of various sizes, trackballs, joysticks, and Morse Code sip and puff switches. These and similar devices have made it possible for many students to participate more fully in mainstream education and continue their educational experiences outside the classroom. Did You Know? The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) promotes the concept of universal design, which endorses the creation of artifacts and environments that support optimal use by students, teachers, and parents with different backgrounds, learning styles, abilities, and disabilities. Universal design does not suggest that one solution will work for everyone but that the learning environment must remain flexible to include as wide an audience as possible. CAST has developed a popular tool for analyzing the accessibility of Web sites, called Bobby. This simple tool analyzes any Web site and provides suggestions on how to make it more accessible to Web surfers who might be using assistive technology, such as browsers that read text.