A Research Of The Cultivating Pattern Of Assistive Technology Literacy Of Special Education Major In The United States And It's Implication

For those individuals with disabilities, assistive technology is a significant means, which aids them in improving life quality with enduring inconvenience and raising working efficiency in the fields of activity, medical treatment, education, and career, to live independently and rejoin social life. Yet in the area of special education, the obstacles brought by the aiding objects make the progress full of difficulties and require proper assistive technology, which means an equal education condition and accessible environment, to overcome the function defects and improve the independence and participatory both in life and study so as to rejoin the mainstream. Special education teacher's assistive technology literacy directly affects the application of assistive technology in the field of special education, the students of special education majors as a main force in the future special education teachers, must have a certain degree of assistive technology literacy in order to give full play to the advantages of assistive technology in special education to support and promotion the study performance of special students. Therefore, how to develop the assistive technology literacy in our special education major is the key point nowadays.In the United States, application of assistive technology in special education is very common. There are many Public Laws like Assistive Technology Act, Rehabilitation Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Americans with Disabilities Act to protection the rights of those individuals with disabilities access to assistive technology devices and assistive technology services. The wide range of applications assistive technology in special education and faultless legislation has laid a good social background to protect the cultivating pattern of students'assistive technology literacy for special education major. The United States special education major have explicit cultivating objectives , abundance cultivating contents and reasonable cultivating method to develop students'assistive technology literacy which constitute a faultless assistive technology literacy cultivating pattern.As a developing country, neither the special education nor the assistive technology is in the sufficient condition in China, especially the application of assistive technology, compared to developed countries, and the writer believes that the lack of support in corresponding higher education is the decisive reason to cause this situation. The aim of this paper is, by researching the social background and implementation means of the cultivating pattern of assistive technology literacy for students in the United States special education major, comparing the status of China, try to make reasonable suggestion for the development students'assistive technology literacy in Chinese special education major.