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 * OPEN SOURCE AT – FREE ****BUT AT WHAT COST? **
 * By Terry Poirier, Autism Consultant, ErinOakKids**


 * "WE DISCLAIM ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY HARM RESULTING EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY FROM DOWNLOADING OR ACCESSING ANY INFORMATION OR MATERIAL FROM OUR SITE. WE DO NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTY AS TO THE QUALITY OR PERORMANCE OF CONTENT ON OUR SITE. ANY MATERIAL THAT YOU DOWNLOAD OR OTHERWISE OBTAIN THROUGH OUR SITES IS DONE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK. YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY POTENTIAL DAMAGES THAT RESULTS FROM YOUR DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL.” - // Legal Disclaimer from OATSOFT.org//**

 The idea of accessing free AT under the banner of Open Source is not only inviting but necessary to many. Commercial AT seems to be getting more and more expensive and the school board special education software budgets are tightening their purse strings. For some then Open Source Assistive Technologies are seen as a welcome advantage for students.

As noted in the above legal disclaimer, there are some drawbacks to their use. Some of the software is very buggy, such as [|Audacity] 1.3.7 Beta for creating podcasts for students. There are many listservs that report lost content, corrupt files, or lost data from extended projects. We have all typically had exposure to [|ReadPlease] and perhaps we could all have a story or two about lost text during computer speech feedback, sudden high speed ‘Mickey Mouse’ sounding voice synthesis, and some limitations to preferences for this FREE Text To Speech (TTS) software.

However, I now make it sound as though Open Source Assistive Technology Software (OATS) is the bane of existence for many. Although there should be a ‘buyer’ beware disclaimer (as there is for many commercial AT titles) the fact remains that many of these tools are not only positive, but in many environments they could become essential.

Several OATS sources have surfaced over the past few years and provide a number of alternatives to commercial products for [|TTS], [|Voice recognition], [|word prediction], access to computers, [|alternative keyboards], [|mouse navigation], [|Accessibility add-ons] and the [|list continues to grow]. Investigating the [|possibilities] for your school board? One would be wise to look at these titles, even if only to address the many issues of accessing software tools for a trialing period for a student assessment on a SEA claim.

While the OATS environment grows, so too do the issues, IT system integrity, malicious hacks, bugs, and these might translate to many IT issues in your board, i.e. crashes. OATS is what could be a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) staple, but in order for it to evolve to this [|usability], don’t forget to.