Welcome to Sonoran University’s Accessibility Office

Sonoran University’s Accessibility Office works with each student individually in order to develop an effective and comprehensive plan for appropriate services and accommodations for on campus and online students.  Appropriately accommodating students with disabilities is critical in keeping with our efforts to increase the diversity of the medical and health care professions. We are dedicated to provide information, support and resources necessary to allow students to pursue their academic, personal, and professional goals.   In addition, we are dedicated to working with administrators, faculty, staff and students throughout the entire Sonoran University community to promote and provide awareness of disability initiatives. Sonoran University is committed to building a community where all individuals feel respected, included, supported, and valued.   The Sonoran University Accessibility Office, will work with each student individually to develop an effective and comprehensive plan for appropriate services and accommodations for on-campus and online students. The office is dedicated to providing information and resources necessary to allow students to pursue their academic, personal, and professional goals while enrolled in programs at Sonoran. Contact information: 480.222.9203 Email: accessibility@sonoran.edu.

Meet your Accessibility Officer: Heather Wolff, Accessibility Services Administrator Phone: 480.222.9203 Email:  accessibility@sonoran.edu

Utilizing the menu options on the left, you can find additional information to assist you with applying for or amending current ADA services.

Common Accessibility Tools

Thanks to advances in technology, there are are an increasing number of tools available to students to improve their access to education. Below is a partial list of items that might be helpful in your courses here at Sonoran University. Please feel free to suggest any new items that you uncover or needs that need to be addressed to accessibility@sonoran.edu.

GENERAL RESOURCE LINKS

The Adaptech Research Network has developed a number of resources and an extensive database of free and inexpensive adaptive technology.

Technology Resources for College Students with Disabilities guide provides a quick overview of the different common disabilities some college students have and the different resources and technologies available to them.

Reading Support

JAWS – a screen reader for persons with visual impairments or reading disabilities. Text and links on the computer’s screen are read aloud.

Natural Reader – Basic text-to-speech program. Listen to PDF files, webpages, e-books, e-textbooks, office documents and even printed books. Magnification up to 72 point font or 200%. Available online or for download.

Zoomtext – a screen enlargement software program enlarges the entire computer screen by varying amounts and will also read the screen text aloud. Zoomtext Magic is useful for persons with visual impairments or reading disabilities.

Kurzweil 3000 – a computer screen reading system which converts text material displayed on the computer screen to voice output for persons with reading disabilities. Text can be displayed in various colors and words being read can be highlighted as they are read aloud. Kurzweil 3000 will also convert text files to audio files in WAV or MP3 formats.

NVDA Screen Reader – NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free, open source screen reader built for Windows based operating system computers. Works with most applications such as web browsers, email, and Microsoft Office programs.

Writing Support

Grammarly – Grammarly eliminates spelling errors, writing mistakes, contextual errors, and poor vocabulary usage.  Grammarly finds and corrects up to 10 times more mistakes than your word processor.

eType – Program auto-completes words as you type and spelling mistakes are corrected before they happen. Integrates within most programs including Microsoft Word, Outlook, Gmail, Facebook and more.

TextHelp Read&Write – a software program with extensive dictionary, thesaurus and word prediction features designed to aid students with composing, spelling, writing and grammar problems. This program also reads the text on the computer screen and highlights each word as it is read.

Note Taking Support

Evernote – A one-stop place to collect notes, files, web clippings, and images with the ability to access them on virtually any device. (Basic Version is free.)

Microsoft OneNote – Take all your notes in OneNote by typing, writing with a touchscreen, importing pictures, video, web links and other resources. You can also divide up your classes and work by notebook, section, and pages. Search your notes for the ability to easily find what you need.

Sonocent Audio Notetaker Software – With Sonocent Audio Notetaker for Windows and Mac it’s easy to capture full recordings of classes and meetings and to work with that audio. The software makes recordings of speech a real, tangible thing, by visualizing audio as chunks, phrase-by-phrase. This enables you to quickly return to any part of the recording later. For more information see this video on how Sonocent works.

Dictation/Speech-to-Text/Speech Recognition

Dragon Dictation (iOS App) – Speech recognition software that dictates words into text messages, emails, social media, or paste into other apps and programs using the clipboard feature. 

Dragon Naturally Speaking –  a voice recognition input system for persons with manual (hand/arm) impairments or written expression learning disabilities. Users enter text with punctuation into the computer by speaking rather than by keyboarding. Users can also control the computer’s operations with voice commands. This program requires a few hours of training, including building a personal voice profile, and practice, in order to become proficient with a good degree of accuracy. Students can train this software on their home computer, save their voice profile on a CD or flash drive, then load their voice profile onto another computer equipped with this software.

Voice Typing in Google Chrome – Speech recognition within google chrome or google docs. Go into your Tools menu in the Google Chrome Browser and select Voice Typing, click on the microphone that pops up and start talking. Your text will be entered into the typing field and you will be able to correct mistakes without moving your cursor.

Built-in Accessibility

VoiceOver – Doesn’t just tell you what’s happening, it helps you make things happen. It tells you what’s on your screen, and walks you through actions like selecting a menu option or activating a button using your keyboard or trackpad. VoiceOver gives you complete control of your Mac, with no need to see the screen. And it’s already built in.

Ease of Access Center – Centralized location in the Control Panel where you can adjust accessibility settings and programs.