Apple believes every student has the right to a quality education — an education that’s creative, collaborative, engaging and relevant. And technology can enable and allow all students, with every type of learning style, to explore and open new doors to possibilities.
Apple’s approach to accessibility is different from many other companies. Accessibility is part of the hardware, software and operating system design process, so it’s an integral element of the user experience. The breadth and depth of accessibility features have been built to address a wide array of special needs, and to help students who experience challenges with vision, hearing, motor skills, and learning and literacy.
Did you know.
Students with disability represent a significant number of students accessing the Australian Curriculum.
1 in 10
(10%) school students aged 5-18 have disability
9 in 10
(89%) school students aged 5-18 with disability go to a mainstream school and 12% go to a special school
9.1% of people
aged 15-64 with disability are studying for a non-school qualification (15% without disability)
Talk to one of our experts.
Apple Professional Learning Specialists can help teachers and students get the most out of the accessibility features for both Mac and iOS, making learning accessible for everyone.
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Apple and Accessibility
Apple products are designed with accessibility features built in, enabling all people to learn and create in the ways that work best for them. Because technology is most powerful when it empowers everyone.
Vision
Speak Screen and Speak Selection
Students can have all the content onscreen read to them. Or they can highlight only text they want to hear and follow along as the words, sentences, or paragraphs are read aloud.
Zoom
Students can enlarge an area of their screen and get a picture-in-picture view, allowing them to see the zoomed area in a separate window while keeping the rest of the screen at its native size.
Larger Text
A single setting makes text larger and easier to read across apps, including Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Messages, Music, Notes, Settings, and some from third parties. In iPadOS 15, students can even customise text size settings on an app-by-app basis.
Mobility
Voice Control
Voice Control allows students to navigate and interact with iPad using their voice to tap, swipe, type, and more.
AssistiveTouch and Switch Control
AssistiveTouch makes the Multi-Touch screen more accessible to those with physical or motor challenges. With Switch Control, students can use switches to select, tap, or drag items, type, and even freehand draw.
Siri
Type instead of speaking to Siri on iPad. Using the onscreen keyboard, students can get answers to questions, type a text, open apps, and get reminders of upcoming activities.
Hearing
Facetime
FaceTime is a great way to communicate using sign language. With high-quality video and a fast frame rate, FaceTime helps students catch every gesture and facial expression — from a raised eyebrow to an ear-to-ear smile.
Sensory Alerts
The device lets students know when something’s up, in a way they will notice. Choose visual or vibrating alerts for incoming phone and FaceTime calls, new text messages, new and sent mail, and calendar events.
Sound recognition
Sound Recognition listens for certain sounds and uses on-device intelligence to notify students when a specific sound is detected.
Cognition
Spoken content
Enhance student reading or writing with audio. Hear the entire screen read aloud with Speak Screen. Control speech playback with Speech Controller. Or use Speak Selection to have a specific range of text read to students. Then follow along as Highlight Content highlights words or sentences as they’re spoken.
Safari reader
Sometimes navigating the web can be a sensory overload. Safari Reader is an assistive technology feature that strips away ads, buttons and navigation bars, allowing students to focus on all the content they want — and none of the clutter.
"Through our partnership with JB Hi-Fi Education, we are proud to offer Apple’s program that supports greater learning outcomes for all our students, regardless of their specific needs.
The Accessibility features built into Apple’s hardware and software empowers our teachers to ensure every learner has the same opportunity to learn and succeed.
No matter if a student has a challenge with vision, hearing, motor skills, and/or learning and literacy, accessibility features like spoken content and dictation enables learning experiences to be personalised to meet each student’s needs.
Apple Teacher and professional learning has shown our teachers how to cater for these diverse learners in a variety of ways that are not possible without technology."
Tyler Harris, Information Technology Lead
Good Samaritan Catholic College
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