Penny Reed, Ph.D., is an independent consultant in the field of special education specializing in assistive technology services. She was founder and director of the Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative, a statewide technical assistance project on assistive technology funded by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction from 1993 to 2003.  She has been a teacher, consultant and administrator in the field of special education for over thirty years. Much of her experience involved working with children with physical and multiple disabilities, which led to her interest in assistive technology. Dr. Reed has worked for local school districts, education service agencies, and state education agencies and has taught both graduate and undergraduate courses at the post secondary level. She has mentored several other states as they developed statewide assistive technology programs. In 1992 Dr. Reed received the National Leadership Award from the Technology and Media Division of the Council for Exceptional Children.

Dr. Reed regularly consults with state education agencies in several states and provides training on a variety of topics related to assistive technology with a special focus on helping school districts improve their delivery of assistive technology services.  Dr. Reed is co-author of the Educational Tech Points (Bowser & Reed, 1995), Navigating the Process, Educational Tech Points for Parents (Bowser & Reed, 1997), Educational Tech Points: A Framework for Assistive Technology Planning (Bowser & Reed, 1998, 2006, 2012), Assistive Technology Pointers for Parents, (Reed & Bowser, 2000, revision in press), Assessment for Assistive Technology (Reed & Best, 2001) and Assistive Technology (Best, Reed, & Bigge,; 2010) in Teaching Individuals with Physical or Multiple Disabilities,  How Do You Know It? How Can You Show It? (Reed, Bowser, & Korsten, 2002), A School Administrator’s Desktop Guide to Assistive Technology (Bowser & Reed, 2004), Considering the Need for Assistive Technology within the Individualized Educational Program (Castellani, Dwyer, McPherson, Reed, Rein, & Zabala, 2005), Assistive Technology and the IEP (Reed & Bowser, 2005) in the Handbook of Special Education Technology Research and Practice, and Reed, P., Bowser, G., & Kaplan, M. (2009) The Assistive Technology Trainer’s Handbook. She is editor of Designing Environments for Successful Kids (2003) and co-editor of Assessing Students’ Need for Assistive Technology: A Resource Manual for School District Teams  (Reed & Lahm, 2004).

Dr. Reed is a member of the Leadership Team for Quality Indicators for Assistive Technology Services (www.qiat.org) and in that role works with others to develop guidelines and materials to help school districts evaluate and improve their assistive technology services. Dr. Reed has co-authored the content for four websites on assistive technology, one for Georgetown University (www.teachingat.net) one for The Center for Technology in Education at Johns Hopkins University (www.matnonline.com), one for the National Assistive Technology in Education (NATE) Network (www.natenetwork.org ) and her own website maintained in partnership with Gayl Bowser (www.educationtechpoints.org) through which she can be contacted.