What are the school’s responsibilities regarding assistive technology?

Daniel Cochrane, MA, MS, ATP

Implementation is everything. There’s a saying attributed to Thomas Edison, the one that goes “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. So for me the translation in AT is it’s one percent consideration and 99 percent implementation. And actually, in saying that, I’m interpreting implementation to mean everything that comes after we’ve determined that AT is potentially effective. I’m lumping together consideration, assessment kind of at the beginning. And, of course, that one percent is really, really important, too. But implementation is the real work.

If the student doesn’t have the operational skills that they need to use their AT, I would say they’re not ready for classroom implementation. And if they’ve never functionally used AT to do the activity at the level expected by classroom activities–for example, using speech recognition to write a full blown essay, not just a couple words–then I don’t think they’re ready for classroom implementation either. So they need to have the operational skills and the functional skills. And if they don’t, we need to arrange for individualized training.

There’s a tipping point, though, where this type of one-on-one training or small-group training can’t adequately simulate a classroom expectation or the unexpected barriers of using AT in the classroom environment. So at this point we need to embed the use of AT in the classroom and provide the support that is needed to encourage the growth of strategic skills and social skills. By strategic skills, we mean when should I use this tool and when should I use something else? And by social skills, we mean how do I handle using this tool in front of my peers?

Megan Mussano, MS CCC-SLP/L, ATP

Training is essential to success. You have to train the student, train the teachers or the paraprofessionals, whoever’s working with the student. But also often we try to train the parents, especially if the assistive tech that we’re talking about is a communication device. They are an integral part of the IEP team. We want them understanding, knowing, and supporting the assistive technology at home just as much as we do at school. When I train parents, I say, “Rule number one is model, model, model.” I say it three times, because it’s that important. Once you train the student and the teachers or anyone else who is supporting the assistive technology, that is the first step to implementing it correctly in the classroom. The more people know how to use it, the better it’s implemented.

Daniel Cochrane, MA, MS, ATP

If the AT’s isolating the student from their peers then something’s wrong with the classroom environment. Now, just saying that doesn’t mean that it’s an easy fix. The classroom environment includes social and cultural and institutional factors, not just the physical arrangement of the room or how noisy it is or the lights or something. And a huge factor in that classroom is the cultural stigma that’s attached to disability and the way that AT functions to sort of exacerbate the stigma.

You know, alert, alert. Here’s a kid who’s different. I don’t think the AT causes the stigma. I think it just makes it worse. So we have to address this, meaning teachers need to plan for this eventuality and figure out ways to minimize it. Of course, universal design promises to be an answer here, but I don’t think it always is. Sometimes there’s no way around the fact that a particular impairment requires a very specific tool that the peers don’t need to use. I’m thinking of students with complex impairments who are using a wheelchair and an AAC device. I think it’s our responsibility then as educators, as parents, together to work against the potential for stigma by bringing kids into the conversation about AT. Sort of letting them in on the secret of what this thing is and what it does and why it’s cool that it really helps their classmate do something that they couldn’t otherwise do.

This is going to always be challenging, and it’s because it’s a problem that has to be addressed at a much broader cultural level. We’re just looking at the classroom level of this issue, but it’s within the context of our society as a whole.

Megan Mussano, MS CCC-SLP/L, ATP

Isolating the student from his or her peers is actually something that I attempt to preemptively avoid. When we talk about the student, it’s not just their present levels but also their feelings, emotions, and the environment. If they’re in an environment where they are receiving peer pressure, that’s something you discuss at that point in time. So when you’re identifying the tools that match the student’s needs, you take that into consideration. So, for example, many of our high-incidence students who struggle with reading and writing, we can implement two programs with word prediction, with text-to-speech and speech to text. Both of those tools are just a small extension that is added to their Chromebook. So a lot of the tools already have taken that into consideration where they try to make it look a little more universally designed for everyone so that the student doesn’t stand out.

At the same time, there are some communication devices the size of a cell phone. So when the student actually has the ability to isolate their finger and use the small buttons, I often give a student a smaller communication device so that they don’t stand out from their peers, so that they look socially appropriate. I would say, addressing whether AT is isolating the student is preemptively done but then again, at every single IEP, all the team members sit down at the IEP and discuss is this assistive tech working? Is it not? If the assistive tech isn’t working then maybe it’s time to trial something else. The assistive technology process is fluid. So if you try something, data shows it’s working, you implement it and then it starts to fail, you have to come back as an IEP team and say, “Well, either we didn’t train people appropriately, or this wasn’t the right assistive technology to support the student’s needs.” And you have to sit down and see if there’s a better technology out there to support the student. It really has to be a continual and fluid process.