What does UDL have to do with assistive technology?
The recently released federal guidance on assistive technology (AT) for students with disabilities (link) arrives at a pivotal moment. Schools’ technology use rapidly accelerated amidst the pandemic, yet persistent gaps remain in understanding assistive devices’ essential role in serving students under IDEA. This guidance intertwines rising technological capabilities with lagging accessibility, clarifying the law’s mandates through an equity lens.
The issues are multilayered. IDEA requires assistive technology be considered in Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), yet confusion clearly exists on appropriately providing such supports. Simultaneously, the pandemic forced a technology leap, making legal clarification urgent. However, notionally “neutral” technical infrastructure frequently overlooks disabled users’ needs, reflecting ableist notions of “normalcy.” Rectifying this demands proactive design per principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), benefiting all learners.
This guidance tackles appropriate assistive technology inclusion where policy and practice intersect. It dispels misconceptions about the law’s requirements while uplifting technology’s potential to transform special education. Explicitly furthering UDL’s vision of accessible educational technology, it situates assistive devices as integral to systemic equity. The guidance supports schools keen to embrace technology’s promise for disabled students, but lacking understanding of legally mandated accessibility standards. It arrives at an opportune transition point offering clarity on existent regulations amidst shifting technological and social frontiers. With this base established, progress beckons.
What this means in reality …
As a SpEd RSP teacher and case manager accustomed to legally mandated integration of educational technology, the persistence of traditional handouts and handwritten assignments feels perplexingly outdated. Whilst change presents challenges, avoiding digitisation ignores research on improved learning outcomes and equity principles undergirding IDEA itself. Progress requires openly examining assumptions and limitations.
Transitioning pedagogical formats remains difficult. Time constraints preclude redesigning entire curriculums. Comfort with familiar teaching methods unconsciously perpetuates their use. Critically however, handouts and handwriting embody ableist notions of “normal” academic participation excluding assisted functionality. Legally, IEP-stipulated assistive technology constitutes the agreed standard; relying predominantly on handwritten materials violates this.
Undoubtedly, factors like instructor age, insufficient teacher training in integrating technology, and funding imbalances contribute. Addressing deficits non-punitively allows progress. Critically analysing how traditional formats centering handwriting skills reflect internalised ableism provides grounds for self-reflection, not condemnation. Perfect universal implementation remains aspirational, but legal guidelines establish assistive technology as the norm, not exception. From this equitable footing, collaboratively elevating practice becomes possible through open-minded, constructive dialogue.
Transition challenges cannot obscure assistive technology’s immense potential assisting disabled students. Inclusive design principles should shape IEP accommodations moving forward. All students deserve learning experiences built around their capabilities. Though obstacles persist, sidelining assistive devices ignores legal guidelines and restricts educational access. Keeping equity at the core, patient, collaborative advancement of more integrative formats serves all learners’ best interests according to research and federal policy alike. Our shared goal is furthering inclusion and achievement.
The fear of generative AI
My perspective here can provide an insightful counterpoint in challenging ableist assumptions. Fears by teachers of generative AI enabling plagiarism seemingly drive some resistance to legally mandated assistive technology. Indeed, my employer blocks all such tools (e.g., ChatGPT) at the network level. However, for neurodivergent students, language models are communication aids rather than cheating devices. Their proper use dismantles barriers preventing academic participation and social connection.
Autistic and other neurodivergent students have faced accusations of “misusing” technology to mimic neurotypical outputs throughout educational integration efforts. Generative models’ rapid advance makes mistaking our aided written communication for AI plagiarism increasingly likely. However, these ableist notions of “normalcy” underlie cheating concerns ignoring disabled individuals’ need for alternative functionality.
These students utilise integrative language tools to interact with educational materials and instructors as themselves, not AI proxies. Banning assistive resources to constrain generative models constrains them too, isolating them from information streams and discussions integral to learning. It removes scaffolding enabling equitable academic engagement and societal inclusion according to their strengths.
Guidance now clarifies assistive devices’ protected status under IDEA. Generative models help students participate actively in school discourses vital for achievement. Our capabilities should inspire innovative teaching methods, not reactionary tech bans marginalising those we assist. Supporting neurodivergent communication needs fosters agency and inclusion—special education’s purpose. Technological leaps ahead will keep arising; equitable access need not get left behind.
How I use generative AI to assist my students with Specific Learning Disabilities
As a Resource Specialist Teacher, it often falls upon me to differentiate lessons for students with IEPs. Teachers carry large rosters and simply don’t have the time to do what each student needs in terms of UDL. Given that I often am differentiating lessons after they’re given, either during my morning tutoring hours or in my homework help time in my Learning Centre, I don’t have the time to read, digest, then adequately differentiate lessons for students - some of which are in classes I’ve never myself taken (e.g., AP Human Geography).
For example, I can use generative AI to examine a text, the request / questions, and (providing the specific accommodation requested) receive a differentiated text in seconds. For maths students, I do this quite often when the accommodation requires lessons be simple and sequential, given our curriculum’s tricky wording and heavy spiraling of lessons and units.
More critically, rejecting technology’s potential based on assumptions of misuse propagates ableism privileging singular teaching approaches. Students have unique needs; declarations that generative models inherently cheat implies neurodiverse thinking is somehow “cheating” too. Instead, we must evaluate tools in context rather than making blanket bans ignoring very real support required.
Under law, IEP accommodations constitute civil rights protections, not advantages. For a student needing sequential, straightforward math content, an AI-adapted version allows comprehending class materials essential for future inclusion and independence. Without differentiation, they face exclusion and reduced agency. Far from enabling dependence, this application provides initial scaffolding for self-directed participation.
And practically, as noted previously, undertaking manual differentiation at scale is utterly unworkable. Efficient generative reformatting of lessons empowers meeting each student’s needs. Teachers instructing subjects we ourselves haven’t taken can still provide adapted materials through AI’s assistance. This upholds access while avoiding assumption alterations inherently devalue original texts.
Instructional time constraints are no excuse for denial of accommodations. Generative AI can assess needs and efficiently transform texts, allowing me to uphold my duties equipping students to progress. Far from facile accusations, we must evaluate technology’s role navigating tensions between accessibility and ideals. The ultimate metric is whether it serves inclusivity. Here, application clearly indicates it does.
Reducing stigma
The intertwining of these dual policy guidance on assistive technology and educational technology writ large promotes a unified, holistic vision of equity and inclusion (oh no, there they go with DEI again). Rather than siloing assistive devices in a separate domain, integrating discussion situates accessibility as an essential component of technology’s educational capacity. This conceptual framing reduces stigma around assistive accommodations by uplifting their benefit for marginalised disabled users explicitly.
Stigmatisation of assistive technologies frequently stems from misconceptions that accommodations give disabled students “unfair advantages” over peers. However, ableist assumptions underlie this belief that academic achievements only “count” if derived through specific normative means. In reality, assisting disabled students in demonstrating their knowledge and capabilities serves equity.
This policy guidance’s integrated framing challenges such notions. Discussing assistive technology alongside UDL principles clarifying that accessibility serves all students contests conceptions of accommodation as aberrant. It cements accommodations as proper, protected functionality. With stigma thus countered through authoritative policy messaging, the stage is set for greater understanding of assistive technology’s role furthering an inclusive educational system.
Concerted efforts must continue dismantling barriers to accommodations, assistive technologies chief among them. But definitive legal guidelines now couple with a stated philosophical commitment elevating their standing. Holistic integration of accessibility within broader educational technology conversation has arrived. The policies synthesise technological potential with the imperatives of equitable access, jointly furthering the futures of both to students’ great benefit.