There is no limit to how much money you should spend to increase a child's standard of living. The money spent on assistive learning would be more than worth it if one child's life was changed. A disability should not slow a child down just because the environment around him/her does not support their disability. With the technology today almost all disabilities can be put aside and children can learn to communicate, work, and learn with little trouble. Blind people don't have a disability if they have the proper tools around them, but if the tools are not provided they are starting out way behind. Braille embossers can alter text on the computer into embossed Braille. They can completely erase the fact of blindness in the sense that the kid would then have equal opportunity to read and write and see what was being done in the classroom.
All in all I don't think the question is how do you justify spending money on adaptive/assistive technology, I think the question is how can you justify NOT. The possibilities for assistive technology are almost limitless and each child's individual learning style can be addressed with a new device designed just for their style or even with just a tweak of an existing program.
CITATIONS:
Types of Assistive Technology Products; http://www.microsoft.com/enable/at/types.aspx
ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES http://dakotalink.tie.net/content/library/atiniepguide.htm#ATfor%20Students
http://www.disabilityinfo.gov/digov-public/public/DisplayPage.do?parentFolderId=109
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I believe that you are right in saying that since technology is so accessible today, that no child should be denied their right to an equal education. Especially seeing as to how many computers have Ease of Access Programs already installed into the computer already. Anyways, nice view point!!!
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