Accessibility Setup

AcademicVoice is built for students who reach a board in many different ways — by touch, by switch, by eye gaze, by ear, and with low vision or no vision at all. Setting up a student's access method is a normal, expected part of getting started, not an extra step. This chapter walks you through each method.

Badges: School · Pro · Clinician · AAC.

Most access options are saved per student — access method, scan speed, cell layout, and eye-gaze calibration all switch with the student. Low-vision scaling applies to the whole iPad.

1. VoiceOver (spoken navigation)

VoiceOver is Apple's built-in screen reader. AcademicVoice is designed to work alongside it: every button and board cell has a spoken label, and important changes are announced out loud.

• Turn VoiceOver on/off in the iPad's Settings app → Accessibility → VoiceOver (or triple-click the side button if you set that shortcut).
• Inside AcademicVoice, as the student moves focus, each cell speaks its word and role. Changing pages and starting an assessment are announced.
• What the student hears is the meaning — the app never relies on color or an icon alone to carry a word. A colored dot or a picture is always paired with text VoiceOver can read.

There is nothing to switch on inside AcademicVoice for VoiceOver — it responds to the iPad's system setting.

2. Switch scanning

For a student who uses one or two switches, the board can scan — highlighting items in turn so the student presses at the right moment.

In-app auditory scanning (no hardware switch needed)

AcademicVoice can scan and speak each item aloud so a student can listen and select. Turn the announcements on in Settings → Vision Accessibility:

1. Open Settings (enter your PIN if asked).
2. Tap Vision Accessibility.
3. Turn on Enable Auditory Scanning, then choose the announcements you want:

• Announce Category on Entry — says the category name as scanning enters it.
• Announce Folder Contents on Open — says what's inside a folder.
• Audio Cue on Selection — plays a sound when an item is chosen.
• Assessment confirm mode — choose how a choice is confirmed during assessments.

Setting the scan speed

1. Open Settings → Haptic Feedback.
2. Find the Scan Speed control.
3. Set the seconds each item stays highlighted. Slower gives more reaction time; faster moves quicker.

This speed is saved per student, so each learner scans at their own pace.

Using a real switch

Connect the student's switch as you normally would for the iPad. With scanning on, the highlight steps through the board and the student presses their switch to select. Pair this with the auditory announcements above so the student can both see and hear where the scan is.

3. Eye gaze and dwell

For a student who selects with their eyes, gaze assistance highlights the cell the student is looking at and can select it by dwell (holding their gaze).

Set up eye gaze in Settings → Accessibility → Eye Gaze Access:

1. Open Settings (enter your PIN if asked) and tap Accessibility.
2. Tap Eye Gaze Access.
3. Tap Start Calibration and walk the student through the 5-point calibration. (Tap Recalibrate any time tracking feels off — after the iPad moves to a new mount, for example.)
4. Set the Dwell time — how long the student holds their gaze on a cell to make a selection.
5. If the student selects with their eyes alone, turn ON Activate by dwell.

Activate by dwell is OFF by default. OFF means gaze highlights the cell and gets the voice ready, but the student (or a partner) still taps to confirm the selection. Turn it ON when dwelling itself should select — no tap needed.

While eye gaze is on, a marker shows on screen where the student's gaze lands — it appears automatically; there is nothing to turn on.

Word cells support gaze-dwell selection; navigation tiles (like a folder's "Back") are reached by touch.

3½. Bigger targets for head pointers, partners, and every pointing tool

Every access method needs targets the student can actually hit. In Settings → Cell Layout, pick the student's Access Method — the choices include Direct Touch, Head Pointer, Switch, Eye Gaze, Partner, and two Auditory switch options. The board then guarantees a minimum cell size that fits that method: pick Head Pointer and the cells never shrink below a size a head-pointer user can land on reliably, no matter how much vocabulary is on the page.

This is a sizing guarantee, not a tracking feature — a student using a physical head pointer (or a partner pointing with them) taps the screen like any touch. For eye tracking, see the eye-gaze section above.

4. Low vision and larger text

For a student with low vision, you can enlarge and adjust the board in Settings → Vision Accessibility:

1. Open Settings → Vision Accessibility.
2. Turn on the low-vision options and choose a larger symbol/text scale.
3. The board responds by showing fewer, larger cells per page and adding page controls, so nothing is clipped and the student never has to scroll a crowded grid.

You can also raise the system text size in the iPad's Settings app → Accessibility → Display & Text Size; AcademicVoice's text scales with it.

5. Reduce Motion

If moving animations are distracting or uncomfortable for a student, turn on Settings app → Accessibility → Motion → Reduce Motion on the iPad. AcademicVoice respects this system setting.

6. Putting it together for one student

A practical order when setting up a new student's access:

1. Student Profile — name, grade band, level.
2. Pick the access method — touch, switch, gaze, or listening.
3. For switch: set scan speed (Haptic Feedback) and auditory announcements (Vision Accessibility).
4. For gaze: calibrate and set dwell in Accessibility → Eye Gaze Access (the on-screen gaze marker appears automatically).
5. For low vision: set the scale (Vision Accessibility) — this applies to the whole iPad.
6. Confirm with the student on the board, and adjust speed/scale to fit.

The access method, scan settings, and gaze calibration are saved to that student's profile and travel with them each time you switch to them on this device; the low-vision scale applies to the whole iPad.

Access features in every edition

Every access feature in this chapter — VoiceOver, switch scanning and scan speed, auditory scan announcements, low-vision scaling and paging, Reduce Motion, and eye gaze with dwell — is available in every edition.