AT Assessment Tools
After reviewing the SETT, WATI, and AT Planner, I believe that the WATI is the most thorough model that school districts should use when systematically selecting technology tools that are the most appropriate for students. WATI addresses a vast array of student needs, including seating and mobility, organization, recreation and leisure, math, vision, hearing, and writing. IEP teams can focus on the student’s specific area or areas of need and use the convenient checklists and questionnaires to effectively determine the AT tools that would be most useful. WATI promotes progress monitoring and accountability by providing a Trial Use Guide so that the IEP team can determine who will be responsible for monitoring effectiveness of AT tools and make additional recommendations as necessary. The part that I find the most useful is the AT Assessment Checklist, which provides an extensive list of AT accommodations that could be useful for students with specific needs. This provides IEP team members who are not familiar with the wide range of AT tools available with a menu of ideas that they may not have considered previously.
If I had to pick a runner up it would be the AT Planner. This model is nowhere near as thorough as WATI, but it does stress the importance of fidelity and educator responsibility when it comes to implementation and monitoring of AT tools. AT Planner would be best suited for schools whose staff is very knowledgeable of the wide array of AT tools that can assist students with disabilities. On the other hand, when IEP team members are not as familiar with AT options, AT Planner does not provide that information.
SETT guides the IEP team in a systematic process of considering whether a student could benefit from AT, and then in determing which AT might be most beneficial and how to implement and evaluate its use. Like AT Planner it does not address specific AT tools that could be useful to students, however the site provides several scaffolding forms to assist IEP teams.