After completing the Five-Step AT Consideration Process, any assistive technology needs are documented in the student’s IEP. Now you must identify appropriate AT tools or strategies to support your student in accessing the general education curriculum. One way to determine a tool or strategy to address your student's AT needs is to conduct AT trials. Trialing AT involves testing a variety of assistive technologies that match the student's need and comparing the effectiveness of each tool or strategy. The most effective tools and strategies will have the greatest positive impact on the student's performance. Conducting trials requires time and resources, but AT implemention and evaluation are much improved as a result.

Benefits of the AT Cycle Choose and Trial Phase:  

• Maximizes the match between student need and the tool/strategy's capacity to increase performance throughout the student's day across environments (school and home)
• Provides opportunities to explore AT solutions across a continuum of no-tech to high-tech tools
• Creates a dynamic decision-making process to meet the student's need because of trialing multiple tools/strategies
• Involves the student in decision making
• Leads to better developed IEPs because the documented tools/strategies have been trialed

Click here to hear what the experts say about Choose and Trial AT.

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