Assistive technology is any piece of equipment or product that is used to help people with disabilities be as independent and successful as possible.
Professionals, families and consumers with disabilities are encouraged to check out more than 100 products that are on display.
Vendors travel from all the country. Some are from the Chicago area. AIMEE Solutions is a company that focuses on classroom products for students with learning challenges.
"We focus on a lot of language and early literacy skills and accessibility for the kids," said Julie Rick, AIMEE Solutions' president. "We make thematic language units that teach students core vocabulary, and each unit is presented in a number of different ways so that students have a lot of opportunities to be exposed to that language."
AIMEE Solutions is a small business that has been around for 10 years.
"Our units are sold on a CD, where the teachers print the materials and then put them together, and those cost $40 each, and we also put it together as ready-to-go units, where we do all the work and the assembly, and those are $160."
Professionals like Valerie Donnan, who works as a sector leader for Special Education District of Lake County.
"I worked with Julie Rick at SEDOL," said Donnan. "She was working with our teachers and helping them really use technology and that's when I first came across it...I started using them in the classroom and working with my teachers"."
"One of our presentations this year at the conference actually is a group of educators that use our products, and they are going to be sharing how they adapt as individual units to students in their classroom of varying grade levels and varying inabilities," Rick said.
This is just one of many companies showcasing their product at ATIA, says CEO David Dikter.
"The challenges we have and the challenges for people with disabilities is really to build greater awareness, and to help folks understand that there are incredible technologies available to help people to learn to work and to be more independent," said Dikter.
ATIA starts Thursday, October 28, and will be at Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Conference Center until Saturday. Admission is free.
For more information go to www.atia.org.
