Abstract
Technology has been a revolutionary mean to offer students with disabilities the affordances they require to be able to access the mainstream classroom. It has been a groundbreaking tool to provide accommodations. While acknowledging the key role that assistive technology has played thus far, this chapter suggests the time has come to take a hard look at exactly how assistive technology has been integrated. Three concerns are examined: (1) assistive technology can be so specialized, non-user-friendly, and expensive that it stigmatizes students with disabilities; (2) while technology is often available in the classroom, it generally remains integrated very clumsily and fails to optimally serve pedagogy; (3) the notion of assistive technology may now be possibly obsolete since most operation systems include a wide array of accessibility tools. It is hence time to rethink our use of technology in the classroom with students with disabilities, and the chapter suggests that Universal Design for Learning is a particularly pertinent framework to shift educators' practices and beliefs.
TopContext And Literature
Technology has had a transformative impact on approaches to teaching students with disabilities (Svensson et al., 2019). In fact, the Civil Rights movement and the emergence of assistive technology are two societal trends which have had the combined effect of radically transforming approaches to inclusion in the classroom, and it is at times difficult to distinguish their individual impact, so tightly have they been connected in the history of the integration of students with students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms (Steel, 2019). The right to access assistive technology has quickly become a central demand of the Civil Rights movement (Batavia, 2019).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Retrofitting: Describes a process which seeks to address instances of discrimination experienced by individuals with disabilities once they are identified. Retrofitting happens after the fact, which means that it does not address the actual design of products, spaces, services, or experiences. Instead, it focuses on providing individuals with disabilities with specific and individualized support, services and tools to address the barriers they experience. Accommodations represent the main form of retrofitting.
Universal Design for Learning: UDL is a framework for inclusion in the classroom which translated the social model of disability into teaching practices. It focuses inclusive practices on the development of inclusive design in delivery and assessment rather than on the identification, labelling and diagnostic support of diverse learners. UDL breaks down this reflection on inclusive design into three lenses on classroom practices: multiple means of representation (offering optimal flexibility in the way information is provided to students), multiple means of action and expression (offering optimal flexibility in the way students are encouraged to complete assessment, contribute to class, and create content), and multiple means of engagement (offering optimal flexibility in the way students are able to demonstrate the affective connection between their lived experience and individual context and the content of teaching and learn).
Deficit Model: Describes a medical model approach which sees the individual with disabilities as inherently having a deficit, missing competencies, or requiring ‘fixing’. The deficit model usually translates into targeted and individualized practices that seek to support the individual as they attempt to fit into a mainstream environment which creates specific barriers for them.
Assistive Technology: Technology which historically and traditionally has been designed and produced specifically to allow the inclusion of individuals with disabilities. It can be highly specialized, costly, and often requires training both for support staff and service users. It forms part of a retrofitting approach which address discrimination affecting individuals with disabilities once it is identified.
Social Model of Disability: The social model of disability is a theoretical framework which offers a construction of disability as a lack of fit between individual embodiments and the design of services, spaces, products, or experiences. It positions disability as friction between individuals and the design of social spaces, rather than as an inherent characteristic of individuals.
Accommodations: Set of tools, strategies and practices which address discrimination in the access to spaces, or the provision of products or services to individuals with disabilities, and allows these individuals to receive the support and assistance they require for equitable status. These provisions are offered based on a Human Rights approach, and are often guaranteed by legislation.