University of KY Assistive Technology Research Institute

The National Assistive Technology Research Institute (NATRI) is operating under a cooperative agreement funded by the authority of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA.) The project is being conducted by the University of Kentucky in collaboration with several local, state, and regional education agencies, institutions of higher education, and related national institutes and agencies that address assistive technology (AT) topics. The mission of NA TRI is to produce data and products that will help improve the delivery of AT services to students who can benefit from the use of AT to enhance their abilities to function in schools and in society. Project Goals There are two primary goals for this four-year project. The first is to examine factors related to the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of AT services in schools. The second is to disseminate the findings of the research in ways that will assist school personnel to develop or improve AT policies and practices for students with disabilities. These two goals have been translated into seven areas of research that overlap in their scope. In other words, data garnered in one study may guide the direction of future studies or may be used in conjunction with new data to generate results. Figure 1 depicts the overlap of the studies by research areas.