3 Ways EdTech Helps Students With Special Needs
School can be a tough time for many children. Students naturally face challenges in the classroom as they socialise with other children or find some subjects difficult, but these obstacles are magnified for those with special needs. Alongside this are dilemmas such as being away from family, making new friends, and having an equal amount of interaction with a teacher as with a teaching learning assistant.
The term ‘special needs’ umbrellas learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, and physical disabilities. Students with learning disabilities can have trouble with literacy and memory. Some examples of developmental disabilities are ADHD, dyspraxia, and executive functioning, as well as the most common, autistic spectrum disorders. Physical disabilities refers to partial or total impairment, including hearing, sight and mobility.
The mission of educational technology (EdTech) is to facilitate learning and improve performance so that more children with special needs are in harmony with the learning of their peers.
Here are 3 Ways That EdTech Helps Students With Special Needs:
Assistive Tools Are More Available
The demand for EdTech has encouraged consumer technology to merge with assistive technology (AT). This means that AT has become commonplace in classrooms today, with the percentage of students having access to an iPad, laptop or Chromebook soaring.
There are features that read aloud to those with hearing difficulties, remove media from web content to lessen overwhelming distractions, and lock specific apps to keep a student on task.
What many people remain unaware of is that these tech tools are already pre-loaded in devices, they just need activating.
Physical Barriers Are Diminishing
Students with mobility difficulties can find class participation especially daunting. Wall-mounted displays can be hard to reach and access alone, as many students with special needs are placed at the back of classrooms to enable independent discussions with teaching learning assistants.
Fortunately, devices like trolley carts, lifts and wireless keyboards offer ways to meet student access needs by bringing displays to them, while a rollerball mouse or switch aids cursor control and clicking for those with motor skill impairments.
It Offers New Ways To Communicate
Many learning, developmental, and physical disabilities make communication tricky. Having said this, EdTech advances mean students with special needs can join their peers in discussion, debates and creativity.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) encompasses writing, gesturing and expression — in other words, how we communicate without talking. AAC tools focus on using imagery rather than words — it includes tech that turns text into sound and braille along with headsets that are compatible with hearing aids.
Digital Influx is passionate about the implementation of EdTech into the classrooms of young minds. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved how much we rely on technology to learn and communicate; this will transfer into the future as our lives become more digitalised. Because of this, the world needs more children to be engaged with learning through technology in order for them to add to the tech-focused future that is upon us! Stay tuned for more EdTech content by Digital Influx via our social media platforms.
Author: Sophie Hall
