Here is everything you need to know about accessibility settings that can help you or someone you know set an iPad up to accommodate a variety of challenges from vision and hearing problems or even with those who have physical or motor challenges.
To get to the accessibility settings on your iPad tap on Settings, General and then Accessibility settings that will be near the top section. You will notice there are four sections in this setting including vision assistance, hearing assistance, learning based guided access, physical and motor assistance settings.
The visions settings can help you adjust font sizes for the pages and apps that are adjustable. For those that aren’t, the pinch zoom gesture will enlarge the screen for easier viewing. When you are in the Vision Assistance options on your iPad, you will also be able to choose text to speech which will speak text messages out loud when you highlight and tap on the “speak” button. To enable this feature, just turn on the Speak Selection option. The VoiceOver option will allow your iPad to speak when tapped so you can navigate by touching instead of having to see the screen clearly.
You can also turn Zoom mode on if you would like to have your iPad screen magnify to help you see it better. This option will not allow you to see your entire screen, but you can drag the page in order to view all parts of it. As a final accommodation, you can choose to invert the colors that show up on your iPad screen if you have difficulty viewing the content in the normal contrast settings.
If you would like to adjust the hearing settings for your iPad, you will find that you also have a variety of choices. You can turn on subtitles and captioning for movies and videos by tapping on the Subtitles and Captioning button. After you have activated this accommodation, you can turn it on at any time by tapping the Closed Captions SDH. You can then customize the captions for easier reading by changing the font, color and background color. Turning on mono audio is possible for your iPad if you have hearing issues in one ear. This option will allow you to set the mono audio to the right or left channels.
Your iPad also comes with Guided Access to better accommodate learning challenges, including autism, attention and sensory challenges. For example, you can disable the Home Button so apps cannot be exited out of so access to the rest of the content on your iPad is not possible unless you disable the option with a passcode first.
The AssistiveTouch included in your iPad allows for easier access to Siri so someone who is unable to double tap can use other gestures to command Siri to perform tasks. Along with being able to adjust these settings for Siri, you can also adjust the Switch Control to give access accessories control of the iPad such as being able to use sound effects or saved gestures for those who are physically impaired.