An Overview of Assistive Technology for People Who Are Blind or Have Low Vision

Formerly: Overview of Assistive Technology for Individuals who are Blind or Visually Impaired

This course provides an overview of the types and uses of assistive technology devices and software for individuals who are blind or have low vision.

Course developers: Tim Richard, Evan MacDonald, Tommi Sue Celli, and Michelle Mason

This course is available for 1.25 CRC, ACVREP, and NBPCB credit.

The course objectives are:

• Identify various types of powered assistive technology and categorize them based on function.
• Recognize the purpose of various types of assistive technology.
• Access resources for information and staying current with assistive technology used by people who are blind and visually impaired.

The following are recommended screen reader and browser combinations.

• Mac: Voiceover with the latest version of Safari,
• PC: JAWS or NVDA with Firefox

The course shows a start date, but this is simply the date the course was made available to the public. It is self-paced. So, there is not an end date. You can enroll at any time.

This course was developed by the National Research & Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision (NRTC) at Mississippi State University. We are the only national center funded to conduct research related to employment for people with blindness or low vision, and training and technical assistance for the federal Older Individuals who are Blind program. As a national center of excellence, we offer resources on a variety of topics for service providers, businesses, and persons with vision loss on our websites:

For daily content relevant to the field of blindness and low vision, connect with us on social media: