Discover accessibility features for Apple Education
At Apple, we believe that technology is most powerful when it empowers everyone. That's why for more than forty years, Apple has worked with educators to define the role of accessible technology in learning, beginning with the introduction of computers to classrooms in 1978, establishing the Office of Special Education Programs—the industry's first disability solutions group—in 1985, and co-founding the Alliance for Technology Access in 1987 to share expertise and advance accessibility in education.
Apple continues to support the diverse needs of every learner with powerful, built-in assistive features that help students create, communicate, learn, build confidence, and achieve independence.1 And with Apple Intelligence woven throughout, those features are more capable, more personal, and more responsive to each student’s needs than ever before.2
Learn more about Apple accessibility features
Engage all learners with Apple
With built-in accessibility features, customizable learning and writing tools, and alternative communication methods, Apple devices help students engage with content in ways that resonate with their unique learning styles.
Early learners
Apple's accessibility features support early learners—including children just beginning their educational journey, students who are neurodivergent or who have developmental or physical disabilities—by removing barriers to interaction and tailoring the digital experience to how young minds naturally learn. Read & Speak features like Speak Screen and Speak Selection support emerging readers by reading text aloud to students. Guided Access helps minimize wandering taps and distractions, limiting a device to a single app to keep young learners in the experience their teachers intended.
Multilingual learners
To support multilingual learners, Apple devices offer robust language customization. Students can use Read & Speak to hear their writing aloud in 80 distinct voices, with support for over 60 languages and locales. Live Captions provide real-time, on-device transcriptions of conversations, enhancing clarity and participation for learners.3 The Translate app enables quick and easy translation of voice and text between languages, while Safari automatically translates text when viewing webpages or images in another language.
Accessibility features for your learning community
Apple devices are designed to be inclusive, with built-in accessibility features for vision, hearing, speech, mobility, and cognitive needs.
Vision
Vision features help students who are blind or have low vision do more on their devices by enabling them to navigate their surroundings, control their devices, or customize their display.
Learn more about Apple vision features
VoiceOver
VoiceOver describes what's onscreen—audibly, in braille, or both—enabling easy control and screen navigation through simple gestures on a touchscreen, trackpad, or Bluetooth keyboard. Students can type in braille directly on the touchscreen with Braille Screen Input. And with Live Recognition,4 students get descriptions of objects in the real world, such as people, doors, text, and furniture in indoor spaces.5 Image Explorer uses Apple Intelligence to give richer descriptions of images on screen, including complex visual materials like photographs and diagrams in assignments, scanned handouts, school forms, and personal records. Students can even ask follow-up questions in their own words to get more visual information.
Magnifier
Magnifier works like a digital magnifying glass to detect, zoom in on, and describe physical objects. Learners can format text within the frame for easier reading, read textbook or whiteboard words aloud, or use Apple Intelligence for detailed visual descriptions, answers to follow-up questions, and voice controls like "zoom in" or "turn on flashlight." Detection Mode uses on-device machine learning to scan surroundings, with LiDAR-equipped iPads providing spatial feedback for detecting nearby people, doors, and furniture.5 On Mac, Magnifier connects to an external camera to zoom in on surroundings—such as a screen, a whiteboard, or a printed worksheet—while multiple live session windows let students multitask between viewing a presentation and a book using Desk View. These views can be captured, grouped, and saved to return to later.
Braille Access
Braille Access is a braille-first experience that turns iPad or Mac into a fully integrated braille notetaker. With a built-in app launcher, students can open apps via connected braille devices, access Braille Ready Format (BRF) files, take notes in braille format, and perform calculations using Nemeth Braille or UEB Math, two codes often used in classrooms for math and science. Integrated Live Captions enable students and teachers to transcribe conversations in real time on braille displays, while Apple Intelligence generates summaries to help students who read braille at a slower pace follow along without missing the thread of a lesson or conversation.3
Learn more about Braille Access
Read & Speak settings
Read & Speak is a collection of features that enhances a student's reading and writing with audio, powered by over 80 voices across 60-plus languages and locales. Learners can have entire screens or selected text read aloud, with automatic language detection ensuring smooth voice transitions. Speech Controller keeps playback controls handy for pausing or adjusting speed, while Highlight Content accentuates words as they are spoken. These features integrate with Accessibility Reader, allowing students to customize fonts, colors, and spacing and have the content read out loud at the same time.
Learn more about Read & Speak settings
Display Settings & Text Size
Display settings and text size tools enlarge content and optimize contrast so students with low vision can read textbooks, notes, and assignments without eye strain. Students can adjust text size with Larger Text or add weight with Bold Text. They can also invert colors for a dark background that helps text stand out, add Color Filters for vision deficiencies, tone down bright displays with Reduce White Point, enhance foreground-background contrast with Increase Contrast, or make backgrounds solid using Reduce Transparency. These settings can be assigned globally or per-app, ensuring a student's preferences follow them across every subject.
Learn more about Display & Text Size
Zoom
Zoom is a screen magnifier that enlarges the content on a device to enhance readability. Learners can choose Full Screen Zoom to magnify the entire screen or Window Zoom to magnify only a portion of the screen with a resizable lens and apply filters such as Inverted, Grayscale, Grayscale Inverted, or Low Light to the magnified area.6 Students can track text selections, the text insertion point, and typing with Follow Focus. Smart Typing magnifies the text area while keeping the keyboard unmagnified during typing, so students can see what they’re writing without losing their place.
Hover settings
Hover Text makes it easier to view text on iPad or Mac. If a paragraph, caption, or footnote is too small to read, students can hover over it and press the activation key for a bigger, higher‑resolution version. Hover Color on Mac helps students decipher the color beneath their cursor by translating color pixels into simple-to-understand color names. With Hover Typing, learners can display larger text when typing in a text field—in a customized font and text color.
Learn more about Hover settings
Share Accessibility Settings
This feature helps students quickly and temporarily share accessibility settings with another iPad in the classroom. Students can easily share settings for features that support visual accommodations—like Increase Contrast or Reduce Motion—or transfer Touch Accommodations to support a peer's unique taps and touches on another device, eliminating the need to reconfigure settings manually each time.
Learn more about Share Accessibility Settings
Hearing
Hearing features can help students who are Deaf, hard of hearing, or are experiencing hearing loss stay connected and support their hearing health.
Learn more about Apple hearing features
Subtitles & Captioning
Closed captions and subtitles offer real-time transcriptions so learners can follow along more easily with audio and video. Closed captions transcribe speech in a scene and capture nonverbal communication, music, and sound effects. With Generated Subtitles, videos can display automatic transcriptions of spoken audio when captions or subtitles are not already provided, including in clips recorded on iPad, received from friends and family, or streamed online.7 Students can customize the appearance of subtitles and captions—including font, size, color, and background—to suit their preferences.
Learn more about Subtitles & Captioning
Hearing Health
AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 offer an end-to-end hearing health experience, giving students and teachers 18 years or older access to a Hearing Test, a clinical-grade Hearing Aid feature, and active Hearing Protection. The clinical-grade Hearing Aid feature can help those with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss get more from the classroom.8 It allows for customizable adjustments to improve the clarity of voices and sounds. AirPods Pro also provide active Hearing Protection to help prevent exposure to loud environmental noise.9
Live Captions
Live Captions can help students who are Deaf or hard of hearing, or who prefer reading text, understand and communicate more clearly. Live Captions offer real-time captions for live conversations with teachers and students, classroom app audio, Phone and FaceTime calls, and web content—all securely on-device.3 Students can customize the Live Captions window so that the size, placement, fonts, and colors suit their needs.10
Learn more about Live Captions
Live Listen
Live Listen helps students have conversations in loud places, such as a school cafeteria, or hear teachers clearly from across the room by picking up audio from a distance. Students can turn on the feature and move their device toward the people they are talking with. Audio is picked up by the device's microphone and sent to their AirPods, Beats headphones, or Made for iPhone hearing devices, so they can hear what's being said more clearly.11 Live Listen also displays Live Captions of what's being said on another paired device, so students can follow along even when the device microphone is across the room.
Sound & Name Recognition
Sound Recognition listens for certain sounds, like a fire alarm or school bell, and uses on-device intelligence to notify students when they are detected.12 Name Recognition helps students who are Deaf or hard of hearing know when their name is being called, ensuring no student misses a moment in a classroom conversation or a busy corridor.13
Learn more about Sound & Name Recognition
Background Sounds
Background Sounds provide ambient audio to help students minimize distractions and increase their sense of focus and calm, which can help users with tinnitus. Students can choose from balanced, bright, or dark noise, alongside natural sounds like ocean, rain, and streams, which play continuously in the background to mask excess environmental noise. Background Sounds can also mix into or duck beneath other audio and system sounds. Students can personalize the audio with equalizer settings to suit their comfort, and use a timer option to stop playback automatically—making it especially useful for structured classroom settings or quiet reading time.14
Learn more about Background Sounds
Speech
Speech features can help students share their voice or communicate by text, whether they have a speech disability, atypical speech, are nonspeaking, or simply prefer to communicate without speaking.
Learn more about Apple speech features
Live Speech
Live Speech takes typed words and speaks them out loud.15 Students can choose from dozens of system voices or use a customized Personal Voice that they create.16 Students can use Live Speech to stay connected during Phone and FaceTime calls as well as in-person conversations, and save commonly used phrases to respond easily during daily interactions. For example, they can create a classroom category to group phrases frequently used by students, such as "Can you please repeat the question?" or “When is this due?" Live Speech can also appear on-screen simultaneously with Live Captions, creating a tailored communication solution for students who need captions to follow conversations and Live Speech to respond.
Personal Voice
If a student is at risk of voice loss or has a condition that can progressively impact their voice, Personal Voice is a simple and secure way to create a voice that sounds like them.16 Students read through a series of randomized phrases to generate a voice in under a minute, thanks to advances in on-device machine learning.17 For students who have difficulty pronouncing or reading full sentences, a Personal Voice can be created using short, three-word phrases instead. Personal Voice integrates seamlessly with Live Speech, allowing students to type what they want to say and have their iPad or Mac speak it aloud in the voice they created. Everything is processed on-device to keep student information private and secure, and the feature also works with third-party applications, such as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) apps.
Learn more about Personal Voice
Mobility
Discover features that make it easy to modify touch input, create custom gestures, or control devices in the ways that work best for every student.
Learn more about Apple mobility features
Voice Control
Students can navigate their device using just their voice. Commands like click, swipe, and tap make it easy to interact with classroom apps. Students can precisely select, drag, and zoom by showing numbers alongside clickable items or by superimposing a grid on the screen. With Voice Control spelling mode, they can dictate names, addresses, and even custom spellings letter by letter.18 If a student is new to Voice Control, the feature includes an onboarding experience to help them learn the ins and outs quickly and easily. Powered by Apple Intelligence,2 Voice Control can also use natural language descriptions to take action on-screen, eliminating the need to memorize exact labels or numbers.19 This option to "say what you see" using intuitive language—such as "tap the introduction to fractions" or "open the purple folder"—is ideal for navigating apps with complex visual layouts.
Learn more about Voice Control
Switch Control
Students can use a variety of adaptive switch hardware, wireless game controllers, screen taps, head and hand gestures, AirPods gestures, Back Tap, or even simple sounds like a click, a pop, or an "ee" sound to control their devices. They can use item, gliding cursor, and manual scanning to navigate sequentially through on-screen keyboards, menus, and the Dock, as well as create custom panels and keyboards system-wide or app-by-app on iPad and Mac. With Platform Switching, a student can use a single device to navigate other devices signed in to the same Apple Account, allowing them to control a Mac directly from an iPhone or iPad without setting up switches on each individual device.20
Learn more about Switch Control
Head Tracking
Head Tracking uses the iPad camera to follow a student's head movements to control a pointer and tracks facial movements to perform actions.21 When a student looks at an item and hold their head steady, they can perform an action, such as a tap. Specific facial gestures—such as raising an eyebrow or smiling—give students with limited mobility a powerful and personalized way to interact. Head Tracking integrates with AssistiveTouch so learners can access additional functions such as physical buttons and swipes. Similarly, Pointer Control on Mac enables students to use different methods, like head movements, to control the pointer.
Learn more about Head Tracking
Eye Tracking
Eye Tracking uses the front-facing camera to help students control an iPad without additional hardware or accessories.22 Students can use Dwell Control to interact with elements by keeping their eyes fixed on them for a selected amount of time. Together with AssistiveTouch, Eye Tracking enables students to access additional functions—such as physical buttons, swipes, or typing—using only their eyes. Eye Tracking also integrates with Switch Control on iPhone and iPad, giving students the option to use a physical switch or dwell to make selections.
AssistiveTouch
AssistiveTouch helps students adapt their touchscreens to fit their physical needs. If certain gestures—like a pinch or a two-finger tap—don't work, a student can swap them with a gesture that does or create a touch that is all their own. Students can customize the layout of the AssistiveTouch menu or connect a Bluetooth device to control an on-screen pointer, tailoring the pointer experience by adjusting its color, shape, size, scrolling speed, and more to make navigation easier and more precise. They can also use dwell, sound actions, or custom gestures to control their device in the way that works best for them. With the Virtual Trackpad on iPad, students and teachers can control their device using a small region of the screen as a resizable trackpad.
Learn more about AssistiveTouch
Touch Accommodations
If a screen responds to unintended actions, or repeated or misplaced taps, students can customize how their device reacts to touches, taps, and swipes using Touch Accommodations. It's quicker than ever to set up and configure Touch Accommodations to prevent accidental selections with Hold Duration, which adjusts how long a touch needs to be made before the screen responds. If tremors or limited dexterity cause a single tap to register multiple times, Ignore Repeat can recognize only one touch within a specific timeframe while ignoring the rest. With Tap Assistance students can adjust their finger placement before a tap is officially recognized. Students can place a finger anywhere on the screen and move it to their desired target before a brief timer finishes with Final Touch Location, ensuring every tap lands exactly where they intend.
Learn more about Touch Accommodations
Cognitive
Every student has a unique way of thinking, focusing, and processing information. Cognitive features empower students by adapting to individuals with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, or other learning differences to reduce distractions, simplify complex tasks, and create an environment where every learner can perform at their best.
Learn more about Apple cognitive features
Accessibility Reader
Accessibility Reader is a system-wide reading experience designed so students can customize font, color, spacing, and background to improve readability and reduce distractions. Accessible from any app, Accessibility Reader is built directly into the Magnifier app on iPad and Mac—enabling students to interact with text in the real world as they do on-screen. Using Apple Intelligence, Accessibility Reader cleans up and formats complex materials containing multiple columns, images, and tables, such as scientific articles.2 On-demand summaries give students the option to get an overview of an article before diving into the details, while built-in translation lets students preview content and read in their native language without losing their custom formatting.
Learn more about Accessibility Reader
Assistive Access
Assistive Access helps trusted supporters—including teachers, therapists, or family members—set up an iPad for a student with cognitive disabilities to reduce their cognitive load and tailor it to their unique needs and preferences. With a simplified interface featuring high-contrast buttons, large text labels, and visual alternatives to text, Assistive Access provides customized experiences for core apps like Phone and FaceTime (which have been combined into a single Calls app), Messages, Camera, Photos, Music, Magnifier, and the Apple TV app—creating a supportive and focused environment for learning and communication.
Learn more about Assistive Access
Guided Access
Guided Access temporarily restricts an iPad to a single app and allows a teacher or supporter to control which features, hardware buttons, and areas of the screen are available. Keep a student focused on one task without the risk of navigating away, reduce the complexity of an interaction, or set up a device for a specific activity with exactly the right level of access. Teachers can set a time limit, restrict access to the keyboard, or turn off touch input on certain areas of the screen.
Learn more about Guided Access
Siri
Students can use their voice or type to find definitions, set reminders, turn features on or off, or answer questions they're curious about.23 Students can change how fast Siri speaks and adjust how long Siri waits before responding with Siri Pause Time, so they can speak at their own pace without being interrupted. Siri can listen for atypical speech.24 On devices that support Apple Intelligence,2 if a student changes their mind mid-sentence, Siri can follow along.
Siri AI (Beta), powered by Apple Intelligence, can take students 13 years or older even further.25 It can understand personal context to help with open-ended questions, brainstorm ideas, or give feedback on something they’ve written. With Siri mode in Camera and Visual Intelligence, learners can ask questions about images or on their display and take action on it with a tap.
Shortcuts app
A shortcut is a quick way to automate one or more tasks across apps with a single tap or by asking Siri. Using the Shortcuts app, students and teachers can create or add ready-made custom automations that combine multiple steps across various apps. Siri can suggest shortcuts based on user habits, and learners can run any custom shortcut just by speaking or typing its name. The app's Gallery features Shortcuts for Accessibility—a curated collection designed to support diverse needs—including the Accessibility Assistant shortcut, which asks questions about a user's needs and generates a personalized guide to the features most relevant to them, saved directly to Notes.
Learn more about Shortcuts app
Additional resources for your learning community
Apple offers a wide variety of educational content, customer support options, communities, instructional programs, and other resources for students and teachers alike.
Accessibility support videos
Learn tips and how-tos from Apple on YouTube
Accessibility Support page
Get help with accessibility features or connect with an expert
Contact Accessibility support
Call or chat for accessibility support
Contact Apple Support using a sign language interpreter
Use SignTime to connect with a sign language interpreter
Email accessibility@apple.com
Email feedback, ask questions, and report issues
Assistive technologies
Browse third-party devices for vision, hearing, and mobility
Education Community Accessibility forum
Search discussions or ask a question about accessibility
Coding and app development resources for teachers
Get hands-on coding and app design resources
Coding concepts in American Sign Language
Receive advice on app development from a Deaf perspective
Today at Apple Group Sessions
Explore accessibility-related Today at Apple Group Sessions
Apple Camp
Enroll in a summer program at the Apple Store for kids ages 6–10
Apple Professional Learning
Receive meaningful resources for your entire school online or in person
Developer Accessibility
Learn more about accessibility tools and resources for developers
Teach Access
Access free programs and resources to help students and educators learn accessibility fundamentals
Accessibility Nutrition Labels
Learn how to review app accessibility before downloading an app for classroom use
Regulatory information
Features are subject to change. Some features, applications, and services may not be available in all regions or all languages. See iOS and iPadOS feature availability or macOS feature availability.
Apple Intelligence is available on all iPhone 16 models and later, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad mini (A17 Pro), iPad models with M1 and later, MacBook Neo (A18 Pro), Mac models with M1 and later, Apple Vision Pro with M2 and later, and Apple Watch Series 9 and later, Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later, and Apple Watch SE 3 when paired with an Apple Intelligence–enabled iPhone, with Siri and device language set to Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, or Vietnamese. Some features on Apple Watch require an iPhone nearby. Some features may not be available in all regions or languages. Some devices may not be available in all regions.
Live Captions are available on iPhone 11 and later, iPad models with A12 Bionic and later, paired Apple Watch models, and Mac computers with Apple silicon. Live Captions are available for calls and media. Accuracy of Live Captions may vary and should not be relied on in high-risk or emergency situations.
Live Recognition should not be relied on in circumstances where you could be harmed or injured, in high-risk situations, or for navigation.
Detectors for doors, people, and furniture in Magnifier and VoiceOver require devices with the LiDAR Scanner. The LiDAR Scanner is available only on iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPad Pro 11‑inch (2nd generation and later), iPad Pro 11‑inch (M4 and later), iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (4th generation and later), and iPad Pro 13-inch (M4 and later).
Picture-in-picture view is not available on Apple Watch.
Generated subtitles are available in English in Canada and the U.S.
The Hearing Aid feature has received FDA authorization. The Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features are supported on AirPods Pro 2 and later with the latest firmware paired with a compatible iPhone or iPad with iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 and later and are intended for people 18 years or older. The Hearing Aid feature is also supported on a compatible Mac with macOS Sequoia and later. It is intended for people with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. Hearing Health features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages.
The Hearing Protection feature works with AirPods Pro 2 and later with the latest firmware when paired with a compatible iPhone, iPad, or Mac with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, or macOS Sequoia and later. Hearing Protection is not available in all regions or all languages. Learn more about total attenuation and other feature information. The Hearing Protection feature is not suitable for protection against extremely loud impulse sounds, such as gunfire, fireworks, or jackhammers, or against sustained sounds louder than 110 dBA.
Customization options are not available for Live Captions in FaceTime.
Live Listen is available on iPhone 4s and later, iPad Pro, iPad (4th generation and later), iPad Air, and iPad mini. Live Listen requires compatible Made for iPhone hearing devices, AirPods, or Beats headphones.
Don't rely on Sound Recognition in circumstances where you may be harmed or injured, in high-risk or emergency situations, or for navigation. Sound Recognition in CarPlay is available on iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 16e, iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, , iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17e.
Don't rely on Name Recognition to recognize your name in circumstances where you may be harmed or injured or in high-risk or emergency situations.
Equalizer, stopping sounds with a timer, and Shortcuts actions for Background Sounds are available on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and visionOS 26 and later.
Live Speech is available on iPhone XS and later with iOS 17 or later, iPad with iPadOS 17 or later, Mac with Apple silicon running macOS Sonoma or later, and Apple Watch Series 4 and later, all Apple Watch SE models, and all Apple Watch Ultra models with watchOS 10 or later.
You can use Personal Voice only to create a voice on your device that sounds like you using your own voice for your personal, noncommercial use.
Personal Voice is available on iPhone 15 Pro models, iPhone 16 models and later, iPad mini (A17 Pro), iPad models with M1 and later, and Mac models with M1 and later.
Voice Control spelling mode is available when users have their system language set to English (U.S.).
Natural language descriptions in Voice Control using Apple Intelligence are available in English in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the U.S.
Use Other Devices requires all devices to be signed in to the same Apple Account and connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
Head Tracking is available on devices running iOS 26 and later or iPadOS 26 and later with a front-facing camera.
Eye Tracking is available on iPhone 12 and later, iPhone Air, iPhone SE (3rd generation), iPad Pro (M4 and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation and later), iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation and later), iPad (A16), iPad (10th generation), iPad Air (M2 and later), iPad Air (4th generation and later), iPad mini (A17 Pro), and iPad mini (6th generation).
Siri features may vary by area. Internet access required.
Listen for Atypical Speech is available in English (U.S.).
Siri AI is available in beta in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27 and requires an Apple Intelligence–enabled device with Siri and device language set to a supported language. Supported languages vary by device and region. Siri AI is available to users age 13 and older. Siri AI will not be initially available in the EU on iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Certain Apple Intelligence features that rely on server-side models are subject to daily usage limits, including but not limited to Siri AI, Intelligent Photo Editing Tools, Image Playground, and AFM 3 Cloud models in Shortcuts. Daily limits may vary by feature, request complexity, system demand, system policies, and other factors. Expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future. Use of these features is subject to the Apple Intelligence Terms and Conditions. Learn more at apple.com/apple-intelligence.