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Topic: The lack of diverse classroom curriculum and teacher training for student with disabilities 

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Topic: The lack of diverse classroom curriculum and teacher training for student with disabilities 

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Cramer, E. D., Gallo, R. F., Salum, C., Munoz, L. R., Pellegrini Lafont, C., & Baptiste, B. B. (2021). Challenges of Urban Educators in Implementing State Standards for Students with Disabilities. Education & Urban Society, 53(9), 1001–1018. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131245211004564

This source is an educational source.

This article identifies how there is a lack of knowledge and training that teachers have to properly aid the learning of learners with diverse backgrounds. The curriculum that is implemented now, is inconsistent with with the type of learning that neurodivergent learners need. The article then covers some ways that teachers can be more prepared in urban education classrooms.

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Topic: How lack of inclusivity adds to increased family issues and struggles

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Topic: How lack of inclusivity adds to increased family issues and struggles

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Emi Varfaj, An Vu Nguyen,

We chose this article as it analyzes the quality of life of a family with a member with disability. The article uses a theoretical framework which seems to make it fall under 2 categories which would be both scientific (research) and social/personal. It looks into how people's lives are impacted and how lack of inclusion can affect them even more negatively while also providing theoretical situations on how if certain changes were made families would not only focus on the negatives.

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This article debates whether the quality of life of the families is depleted or improved due to the presence of a member with a disability. A theoretical review is carried out of the impact on the family caused by the birth of a child with a disability, the detrimental effects of the disability and the positive effects of the empowerment offered by the family intervention programs.

When the family includes a member with a disability, time and effort must be dedicated to them as they normally have greater requirements for care. The repercussion of this is putting the needs of the parents and siblings to one side, creating a specific profile for these families. They show issues such as imbalance in the family system, unawareness of aspects of health and education, negative feelings, need for adaptation, etc., for which they require support programs.

With the family intervention, they are able to improve their awareness of problems, acquire efficient education strategies, initiate new friendships, improve conflict resolution, etc. In consequence, rather than focusing on the disadvantages, these families can achieve a series of highly developed skills such as communication, self-esteem, sense of humour, resilience. It is the own potential of these families that must be strengthened, not only to improve the quality of family life, but also for the benefits to extend to the community.

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Families with a Disabled Member: Impact and Family Education

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This article debates whether the quality of life of the families is depleted or improved due to the presence of a member with a disability.

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Topic: The use of technology in schools to be further accesable to students with disabilities

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Topic: The use of technology in schools to be further accesable to students with disabilities

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We chose this source because it does an excellent job comparing traditional pedagogical practices with more modern examples of technological benefits. It follows the transition from COVID online learning to in person learning, showing the adaptability of technology in relation to educational needs. This source's findings support the general use of technology in the classroom. Since it's an article published in a well-known medical journal, there is some merit in the findings of the scientist.

Peyton Silvius, Donovan de Hoog

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Teachers' Use of Technologies to Support Students with Disabilities

Much existing research about supporting students in various instructional modalities has occurred in fully online school settings (Rice & Dykman, 2018). Other studies have taken place in settings where learners attend school in person and use online programs and applications in strategic ways. These settings were termed blended by various educational technology organizations but are called hybrid in many research communities (Barbour, 2021). This section reviews literature about students with disabilities learning fully online and in blended/hybrid settings prior to the pandemic.

Students with Disabilities Learning in Fully Online Charter Schools

Before the pandemic, many students with disabilities receiving fully online instruction were doing so in online charter schools in the U.S. (Digital Learning Collaborative, 2019). A charter school is type of school that receives public funding while utilizing structures and program designs that are supposed to be innovative as compared to traditional public schools. The innovative aspect of an online charter school was that students would receive instruction fully or mostly online. Sometimes this instruction was synchronous, with an entire class learning from a teacher at the same time. In other cases, this instruction was asynchronous, with recorded lectures or guided lesson materials (Waters et al., 2014). Online charter schools in the U.S. are obliged to follow IDEA requirements to identify, evaluate, serve students with disabilities through plans developed alongside parents and other experts (Dunn et al., 2018).

Some scholars have emphasized the potential for positive outcomes as students with disabilities have enrolled in online schools (Beck et al., 2014; Schultz, 2019; Tonks et al., 2020; Tonks et al., 2021). Reported positive outcomes include an increased sense of belonging and increased opportunities for parental control over educational experiences. Other scholars, such as Bernstein ( 2012) have raised concerns about whether services guaranteed under IDEA ( 2004) are being provided as required. Research by Basham et al. ( 2015) and Ortiz et al. ( 2021) has suggested that there is a risk of losing articulated services with no replacements in the online setting. There is also research suggesting that some students with disabilities were already moving in a sudden manner between fully online and in person settings as a response to family crisis or agonistic incidents at school (Beck et al., 2021; Ortiz et al., 2021; Rice & Carter, 2015; Rice et al., 2019). The researchers have noted that students' need for transition support, especially when returning to the in-person setting, was not attracting enough practical or scholarly attention.

Another cause for concern is that teacher educators in the U.S. have reported that they have not prepared teachers to teach in online schools or mostly online settings, let alone move between modalities with ease (Smith et al., 2016). Despite the lack of preparation, teachers report trying to do their best to support students in online settings. For example, Crouse et al. ( 2018) interviewed online teachers of students with disabilities and developed a list of strategies teachers used. Teachers in these schools reported that they had little autonomy to choose or modify instructional materials or the assessments; nevertheless, they worked within their constraints to serve students. Teachers reported adjusting instructional delivery, student groupings, parent communication routines, and technological supports. Frazier ( 2020) also reported how teachers used technologies to monitor student progress, provide emotional support, recruit parent help with instructional tasks, and provide supports like graphic organizers and teacher-made presentation slides.

Students with Disabilities in Blended/Hybrid Learning Settings

Some previous research about students with disabilities in blended or hybrid settings has focused on comparison studies of the effectiveness of specific technology tools and perceptions of the modality (e.g., Alvarado-Alcantar et al., 2018; Bottge et al., 2014; Hawkins-Lear & Grisham-Brown, 2019; Pace & Mellard, 2016). Studies that have specifically focused on how teachers use technologies in these settings to support students with disabilities have been conducted by Stevens and Rice ( 2016), Stevens and Rice ( 2018) and Rice and Stevens ( 2021). In the first two studies, the technologies in the blended setting were somewhat important for monitoring student engagement and progress, but the most powerful uses of technologies emerged as relationship-building tools. For example, the teacher learned that they could give feedback with emoji, which was efficient while fostering feelings of connectedness. More recently, Rice and Stevens ( 2021) studied a classroom with students with disabilities who were also English learners. The teacher used the flexibility of the online technologies alongside the in-person instructional opportunities to support learners' agency in choosing which assignments to complete, when to complete them, and even when and whether to submit them. In both studies, teaching required collaboration with the learners about technologies they all liked using and were effective for supporting learning.

Teaching Students with Disabilities Remotely During the Pandemic

Teaching students during remote conditions is different than teaching students who chose an online school outside of the emergency of the pandemic (Faridah et al., 2021; Juanbe et al., 2020). Findings from extant studies conducted during the pandemic have focused on special education teachers' need to learn to use technologies to teach and to maintain relationships with students and families.

Learning to Use Technologies

During the pandemic, some special education teachers were not automatically able to use technologies to meet their goals for teaching students with disabilities. For example, Cardullo et al. ( 2021) documented teachers' lack of efficacy for delivering instruction during the early remote learning period in Spring 2020. In a similar study, An et al. ( 2021) found that special education teachers were primarily concerned with how to use various online tools, programs, and applications to teach students. In addition, Parmigiani et al. ( 2020) found that teachers of students with disabilities were interested in creating personalized activities both synchronously and asynchronously, but they did not know how to do so.

Other research highlights successes special education teachers have had. A study by Kim and Fienup ( 2021) focused on providing reminders and rewards to students for submitted work through a Learning Management System (LMS) platform. The grade 2 students reported appreciating the rewards for submitting work. In a study by Myers et al. ( 2021), teachers of students with disabilities were focused on adapting strategies they knew worked from the in person setting during remote learning. While the teachers felt they had much success, they still had concerns about recruiting and maintaining student attention and planning small group instruction.

Maintaining Relationships with Students and Families

Special education teachers have also reported an interest in maintaining relationships with students as part of meeting their needs during the pandemic. For example, An et al. ( 2021) found that special education teachers missed the proximity to their students during remote learning. In another study by Hirsch et al. ( 2021), 596 educators, including teachers, administrators, counselors, and therapists in the U.S. reported about working with students with autism spectrum disorder. These educators reported efforts to increase communication with parents through video conferencing, telephone conversations, email, and social media from April to June 2020. They further reported their priorities for monitoring the students' academic, social, and emotional well-being. In a study of smaller scale, Tremmel et al. ( 2020) studied their rural school district's effort to serve students with disabilities during the spring of 2020. The practitioner-researchers found video conferencing applications extremely useful for holding classes and maintaining district communication. They also used communications applications to provide information about assignments to children and their caregivers.

Methodology

My study adds to the research about teacher work in using technologies to support students with disabilities during the pandemic by expanding the descriptions of the technologies over time to include multiple modalities. For this study, I drew on commitments articulated within the narrative inquiry methodology (Clandinin, 2016). These commitments included an ontological framework that values relational ethics as teachers share their personal practical knowledge (Clandinin et al., 2018). Rather than as propositional knowing learned formal settings of initial preparation and professional learning alone, personal practical knowledge is embodied in the stories teachers tell of their practice. When teachers told me stories about their practice, they formed images that revealed understandings of their identities, their ongoing learning as teachers, and their relationships with students and others (Clandinin, 1985). The narrative inquiry methodology sustained teacher participation over time while providing tools for making sense of the long-term data gathered through extended interactions with me in a context where their lives and their professional work were in flux.

Establishing Connections Between Narrative and Experience

Dewey's ( 1938) theory of experience supports the view of teacher knowledge as personal and practical, connected to history, and part of ongoing relational orientation within communities. Two criteria of experience: interaction and continuity, emerged as teachers considered the past and future of their work simultaneously. Other support for the narrative orientation comes from Bruner ( 1985), whose work about paradigmatic and narrative knowing in psychology validates the use of stories as data; Carr ( 1986) and Coles ( 1989), who showed how narrative structure and coherence of lives are important in human relationships and professional practice; and Bateson ( 2001) whose ideas about continuity and improvisation as a response to the uncertainties in life contexts were important in this pandemic-centered project.

Teachers experiences across time as the pandemic ensued formed a narrative of their teaching that focused on telling teachers' stories instead of merely telling a story about teachers (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996). Part of that commitment to ontology required me as the researcher to be in the story as a narrator as well as character and actor during this time we worked together (Bal, 2009). This is the reason for the first-person narration of this project.

Inviting Teachers

Each of the four teachers had primary responsibility for working with students with disabilities. I had been engaging with these teachers with the intention of beginning a project before the pandemic. Since this study took place over multiple academic years, the quantity and type of disabilities of their students changed. However, teachers noted that typical challenges faced by their students regardless of specific identifications included paying attention during lessons and regulating learning; connecting to and/or building background knowledge; conceptualizing and completing multi-step problems; recalling information-short and long term; monitoring participation; cooperating with others; and regulating emotions. Some students also had difficulty with motor control skills for using various technologies such as computers without assistance.

Table 1 contains information about each teacher. All teachers taught in public schools in the Southwest U.S. Teachers were given instruction from district officials on how to use some of the technologies (i.e., the LMS, video conferencing systems, and surveillance programs). No teacher was receiving formal professional learning to support their technology use. Ms. Alpha and Mr. Beta consistently worked in a team with other grade level teachers to choose some technologies and learn with others. Ms. Gamma and Mr. Epsilon worked more autonomously to choose and use technologies to support their students. Of course, my work with each of the teachers provided the opportunity to talk through decisions. My goal was to let them talk as much as they wanted and for me to listen, provide supportive comments, and ask questions to help their thinking-I was not operating as a professional learning specialist, and I had no formal role within the district.

Table 1 Information about the Teachers in this Study

Collecting Data

Research conversations with the teachers were integral for gathering data. Research conversations differ from interviews in that they are designed to be reciprocal dialogues (Clandinin et al., 2018). Research conversations do not rely on highly structured schedules or question protocol. Instead, I met with teachers regularly and asked them to "tell me how things are going." As the teachers talked, I asked clarifying questions to direct their attention toward the research questions and to help them explain their reasoning. Examples of these questions included: What technologies that you have been using stand out as important for your work? How have those technologies supported the young people you are teaching? How are you thinking about your use of those technologies in the context of your responsibilities as a special education teacher?

While these questions were useful for sustaining the conversation about the research topic, I used more general conversational strategies to support the teachers in unpacking their personal practical knowledge (Clandinin, 1985). During these conversations, teachers occasionally referenced colleagues, students, and parents. Although participants told third-party stories about others in research, maintaining the privacy of those who have not agreed to be in the study was an important part of maintaining a relational ethic in this study. To protect the privacy of those other individuals, the teachers assisted me in using fictionalization strategies where details that may threaten privacy are eliminated or the facts of a students' situation are shifted slightly in the telling (Caine et al., 2017). Of course, fictionalized minor details were not used to develop broader meanings and implications from the research during data analysis.

The IRB approval for this study was originally granted to study teachers' use of technology to support students with disabilities in a non-pandemic setting. When the pandemic caused the closure of schools, the university ethics review board changed their guidelines for research and declared that no data should be collected in person. All the teachers had one initial interaction with me that was in person. Subsequent interactions occurred via video conference or as phone conversations. The research conversations were not recorded. Instead, I took notes by typing on a computer or writing in notebooks.

Learning with and from the Data

Teachers continued to share information with me until November 2021. As the research progressed, teachers accessed their data and made additions to their thinking or commented on new ideas they had. To facilitate this ongoing negotiation and reflection, I asked: "Have you thought of anything else since you first told me this?" and "Do you think this still reflects your thinking?" The notes that emerged functioned as field texts. Along with the teachers, I developed the field texts into formal narrative accounts, or research texts (Clandinin & Caine, 2008).

To shift the field texts to research texts, we used the three-dimensional narrative space as a thinking tool (Clandinin & Caine, 2008). This tool elicits understandings of how stories function in temporal, place, and social contexts. Temporal understandings captured the shifts in teaching expectations brought on by moving to emergency learning, more settled fully online learning, the form of hybrid learning that the teachers referred to as concurrent learning, and what they cynically called the 'return to normal' learning. Understandings of place were also integral as sites of learning and teaching shifted over time. These sites included school buildings and students' homes. The overlap of time and space formed chronotopes where instructional expectations for operating in each modality were sufficiently similar for meaning to be made about their experiences (Bakhtin, 1981; Johnson, 2002). Finally, social understandings were critical as different policies came into place that governed what technologies could be used, what guidance was available from various entities for serving students with disabilities, and how the various ebbs and flows of pandemic panic and fear reverberated across the teachers' lives and into the lives of their students.

To attend to these three dimensions, data were analyzed in interactive cycles where the teachers and I reviewed the data and asked questions: For this time, what do your collected stories say about what is happening with the technologies you are using? What are the social circumstances causing this to happen? How do the temporal, place, and social elements combine to tell the story of your teaching? As a result of these conversations, Table 2 emerged as an illustration of key technologies and their uses for each teacher during each of the chronotopes. A narrative account that appears below is another outcome. This account moves through the chronotopes as collaborative understanding for the teachers.

Table 2 Self-reported primary uses of technology and their uses

Table 3 provides additional information about the types of technology teachers used, descriptions, and then examples of those technologies.

Table 3 Types of technologies, descriptions, and examples

Since this study was not designed in a paradigm where statistical generalizability is an obligation, there are technically no limitations to generalizability. Instead, this study's value lies in its ability to resonate as emblematic with researchers, teachers, and practitioners (Mishler, 1990).

Findings

The findings of this study are organized according to the chronotopes, or time-space configurations developed in the methodology.

Initial Shutdown (Spring 2020)

The teachers agreed that teaching students with disabilities during Spring 2020 was a massive challenge for which they were underprepared. "In the past, when students are online, that usually means they left the traditional public school or they are in a very restrictive environment," Ms. Gamma explained.

We were flummoxed...we were also waiting for information from the government about whether IDEA would even continue. When we learned IDEA was still in force, we scrambled to figure out how to teach the kids and meet the legalities.

The teachers mainly relied on communications applications, video conferencing, and videos.

Maintaining Parental Contact with Communications Applications

During the initial emergency closure of school buildings, teachers relied on communication applications and emails. They reported that their priorities lay in communicating with parents about what assignments were due. Ms. Alpha explained the need to communicate with parents was "because we needed to show parents that we were still attempting to serve the students, even though the building was closed, and we wanted to keep children in their learning routines." Although the teachers initially reported using email communications, they quickly found that not all parents had email. Switching to texting or using both failed to reach all the parents. Mr. Beta attempted to contact all the parents, even visiting some families in person (standing at a long distance outside the house) to encourage the parents to download an application.

Learning to Use Video Conferencing

Providing instruction and delivering other services during this time relied on video conferencing. Teachers admitted that their initial use of these technologies was focused on trying to replicate the in-person experience. This approach was not sustainable. Mr. Beta explained.

Being online all day was exhausting. It gave me a headache. I also realized that I relied on being able to monitor student work by wandering around and looking at their papers on their desks and you can't do that in a video conference. Plus, the students did not want to look at me like I wanted them to, they didn't want to stay in the conference; they wanted to leave whenever they wanted, and they couldn't.

Ms. Alpha was working with kindergarteners expressed a sense that she was unable to gather informal information about how students were responding to her in a conference. "They are just looking at me and I am looking at them."

Ms. Gamma and Mr. Epsilon used presentation software in conjunction with video conferencing to show slides and provide information to students. However, they realized that students might not be very engaged during this time. Mr. Epsilon explained.

I admit I was initially excited about being able to 'mute' the students, but I came to see barbarity in it. Why would I want to use technology to silence students? Shouldn't the goal be to give them more voice, more power? However, I was also out of my comfort zone and desperate to feel control over the teaching situation and so I admit I used that feature more than was probably ethical.

Ms. Gamma had similar thoughts about the chat feature of the video conference.

At first, I was like 'okay, how do I get this chat thing turned off,' and then I realized that having students use the chat to ask questions or answer them in unison could be very helpful in getting them engaged and for me to do informal checking. As a special education teacher, it is part of my inclusion mission to help students use tools in positive ways, rather than always banning everything. But it required my effort to coach them through 'good uses' of chatting versus 'not-so-good uses' of chatting.

The teachers had a primary concern around providing access to peers per IDEA ( 2004) and the teachers had to think about how the features might support such access. Teachers also began to use video conferencing for parent meetings. Both teachers and parents with internet access seemed to prefer these over in-person meetings. "I don't know why we weren't doing that before," Ms. Alpha said. "In many cases, parents felt more comfortable advocating for their children when they weren't in overpowered by scariness of the institution."

Finding Videos on Social Media Sites

After teachers realized that they were not going to be able to instruct students with disabilities online for six hours a day, they started to consider ways to use technologies to keep students engaged while meeting the requirements for seat time in their schools. Ms. Alpha and Mr. Beta returned to a previous strategy of using videos from social media platforms to find stories for students that would show images and words. This met accessibility goals by having multiple ways for students to engage with the stories.

Ms. Alpha realized that she could read to students in the video conference. She undertook a project to read children bedtime stories, but then realized that not all the children were going to settle for bed at the same time and not all parents wanted to relinquish bedtime reading to her. Instead, she decided to make short videos of herself reading stories and post them for children.

Extended Remote Learning (Fall 2020)

The teachers began to feel more comfortable teaching remotely in the fall of 2020. During this time, the teachers greatly expanded their uses of technologies and their thinking about how these technologies could support students with disabilities. Primary technologies included communications applications, reliance on the LMS to organize assignments, new uses of videos and video conferencing, new ways to use mobile phones to support instruction, and applications such as digital whiteboards and sandbox video games. They were also introduced to surveillance technologies.

Continued use of Communication Applications and Email

Teachers placed a high priority on sending information to parents about assignments and the LMS support that goal. Communications applications and email became channels for some parents and caregivers to also send information back to teachers. Some students also became more involved in using these channels to communicate. "My students would write me emails for the first time in my career," Ms. Gamma said. "They would ask about assignments but also if I was doing okay. They wanted to make sure that I was not sick."

Many learners still were not attending remote schooling. Mr. Epsilon said that he tried to make phone calls to parents using numbers provided by the district, but some numbers did not work. When he did reach a family, he was overjoyed.

"Hi, this is Mr. Epsilon," he would say. "I am the history teacher for students who have IEPs. I want to help you participate in remote learning this year." Then Mr. Epsilon asked a series of questions. When families could not answer a question affirmatively, he stopped and offered resources and help.

Do you have a device you can use to get on the internet from the district or somewhere else? Do you have a way to log on to the internet? Can you log on to the LMS? Can you get into the video conference?

Mr. Epsilon estimated that he was able to answer questions and onboard about 40% of his students in this way. "I can't serve them under IDEA if I can't find them and get them into the virtual classroom spaces," Mr. Epsilon said.

New Uses of Videos and Video Conferencing

Mr. Epsilon and Mr. Beta both decided to open the video conference about 10 min early to let students have free chat time before class. Mr. Epsilon's high school students asked if he would open the conference room on the weekends for chatting too. Even though this required an investment of personal time, he gave the students an hour most weekends for free chat. Sometimes the students played a sandbox video game during these times.

Mr. Beta saw that parents and other caregivers wanted to participate in his synchronous video lessons.

One grandmother would sit next to her grandson and do math with us. At first, I applauded her effort in helping her grandson learn. One day she asked a question about how to regroup numbers. As I was explaining it, I realized she was doing math with us because this was an important chance for her to learn math.

Overall, the teachers settled into routines around conferencing that were disrupted only when the internet was not working.

The teachers also grew comfortable entering the home spaces online and even saw some value in it. Ms. Gamma explained.

A colleague of mine said something about how the kids contradicted her more in the video conference and suggested the children needed more behavioral support. It got me thinking. I wondered if it was harder to tell children 'The world is this way...' while children are sitting in their own homes with different values and under different realities.

The remote setting provided many such opportunities for the teachers to reflect on ethical practice regarding the use technologies but also the purposes of special education.

Instructional Support Using Personal Mobile Phones

The teachers learned to use mobile phones as second screens and as a document camera to show learners items that had not been scanned. Mr. Beta also used his phone to take pictures of local plant life for a unit about plants.

I was tired of showing the kids all these plants in a textbook that looked nothing like the plants we have in the desert. So, I went over to my neighbor's house and asked if I could take pictures of her plants and she enthusiastically gave me a tour. It gave me more context for helping the children understand key concepts.

After the lesson, Mr. Beta invited students to bring their own photos to class and he showed them how to upload them into the LMS so everyone could see them. He considered this his strongest example of how he provided access to curriculum during the most settled period of remote learning.

Experimenting with New Applications

Mr. Epsilon learned to use digital whiteboards and interactive lesson software for asynchronous and synchronous lessons with learners. Mr. Epsilon felt this was important for accessing the general education curriculum. He even started planning units with a science teacher. They made visual organizers of key concepts and choose videos with strong subject matter presentation, were engaging, and had accessibility features like captions.

Ms. Gamma realized that some of her caseload students were not receiving graphic organizers to help them write in other classes, even though their service plans mandated it. The general education teachers explained to Ms. Gamma that the students were welcome to make graphic organizers if they wished. Ms. Gamma advocated.

I said, 'No, you will make the graphic organizer because the service plan says that you will make it. And you will make it every time you give a writing assignment.'

After these conversations, Ms. Gamma found several online programs for making graphic organizers.

I sent a cheery note and these links to counteract the heavy line I had just taken. Teachers started to use the graphic organizers and the kids did better on the writing assessments. And then they were like 'oh I'm so happy with the teaching I did this year!' I let them have the credit; I just want them to do right by kids.

All teachers reported an increased interest in finding and sharing online tools, especially writeable items like graphic organizers, but this event was particularly tied to meeting goals in their disability service plans.

Surveillance Technologies

Ms. Gamma's major concern during this time was that the district purchased surveillance software that she had to learn to use. She had mixed feelings about it.

At first, I was like, 'this is going to be so great keeping the kids on task' but then I have this student with autism, and he went on a site to play a game. Using the program, I went in and kicked him out. When I did that, he grabbed his laptop screen and pulled it really close to his face so he could see me through our screens. He said, 'Ma'am, I hate it when you do that. Please never do that again,' and the intensity of his voice and the fact that I had just done this thing without warning or consent really bothered me.

All the teachers expressed hesitancies about the surveillance. Ms. Alpha thought it was problematic for kindergarteners to become accustomed to surveillance. Mr. Epsilon wondered what data was being collected about his students he was not being told about. Mr. Beta reported that even though the district told him the purpose was to keep learners from entering unsavory sites, that teachers were using it for any site they did not want children to enter for any reason. "If we are actually using this stuff just to shut down dialogue, that is really wrong," he said.

Concurrent Learning (Spring 2021)

The teachers reported the highest levels of stress during the concurrent learning period in April 2021, with most technology used designed to keep two groups of students (remote and in-person) busy rather than meeting their needs. The teachers did not enjoy teaching in masks and communicating through video conference with students attending remotely was more difficult with masks. The return to in-person learning also brought more political turmoil regarding what topics could be taught and pressure for them to surveil students increased. As a result, the teachers largely reduced their palette of technologies.

Continued Video Conferencing

Mr. Beta reported that he "did his worst teaching" during concurrent learning.

I opened the video conferencing and greeted the students and then I often forgot about them. Every day, I would make this vow to try to ask them more questions and sometimes I put the educational assistant in a place where she could monitor them, but overall, I was a disappointment. Plus, I felt the sting of hypocrisy for expecting their attention when I wasn't paying attention to them.

The other teachers also reported much little success with meeting student needs at this time. Since Ms. Alpha was a special education co-teacher, the content teacher determined it would be best for Ms. Alpha to attend to the remote students while she worked with students in person, even though many of the students with disabilities were attending in person. Mr. Epsilon expressed an overall sense of defeat. "I am worried that I will flip out and quit and then kids can't receive their services because it will take forever to find another special education teacher."

Continued Use of LMS

The LMS remained useful during concurrent learning. The teachers used it to make sure that remote and in-person students had the same or similar assignments. This was largely possible since students in the in-person setting were mostly using laptops or tablets to do their lessons at school.

Continued Surveillance

The surveillance software also continued in its use. However, the teachers also had to monitor students in person. Ms. Gamma reported feeling angry about having to spend so much energy monitoring students. Her son had a disability that affected his capacity to pay attention. He was also the frequent target of discipline around his device.

I keep getting these notifications that my child is on this site or that site and they want to take away his device, but I'm like 'all the other kids are using the laptop, so my son gets a laptop' but then sometimes I want to take that laptop, and really, every laptop, and smash them in the street.

The teachers were frustrated. They had to monitor two different groups of students in two different places and then try to decide what was humane, legal, and educative. These responsibilities were more than the teachers could process at that time.

'Return to Normal': In-person Learning with Pandemic Mitigation (Fall 2021)

In Fall 2021, all the teachers in this study returned to in-person learning and so did their students. In this chronotope, the teachers generally stopped using the technologies they had used during previous ones.

What the Teachers Jettisoned

The teachers stopped using communications applications and returned to using email as the primary means of communication. Teachers also stopped using video conferencing for classes when remote attendance was canceled as an option for students. They even stopped using the LMS that they had used since Spring 2020. "I don't even know if we still have it," Mr. Beta said. The teachers that were using digital whiteboards and interactive lesson software stopped doing that, too. "I went right back to my slide decks," Mr. Epsilon said. In addition, Mr. Epsilon also stopped collaborating with the science teacher to make interactive lessons for Fall 2020.

What They Retained

Teachers retained some uses of technologies. For example, they continued to use educational videos. Ms. Alpha and Mr. Beta wanted to use video to tell stories in multimodal ways that made them accessible to children. However, they noted that many of the pre-pandemic materials they were using were no longer available. Mr. Beta explained:

Stories that I liked to use were revamped during the pandemic, but they are no longer accessible. The text moves too fast now, and the kids can't follow along. Many added elements are distracting for my students. We went through this horrible pandemic and these horrible periods of changing instructional modalities and this large transfer of wealth to tech companies and the digital materials came out less accessible.

Mr. Beta planned to do some more searching to find some of the original videos. He had also considered making some of his own, but he did not know when he would find time. Even so, Mr. Beta and Ms. Alpha continued to try to use some videos.

What They Hoped They Could Reclaim

Mr. Beta inquired about the LMS. He decided he could use to post assignments for students who were increasingly absent as the semester wore on. Parents were also asking Mr. Beta for extra activities they could do with children at home, and he thought that an LMS could help him curate these. Even so, Mr. Beta was daunted at the prospect of finding and evaluating the materials for accessibility and educational goals.

Mr. Epsilon also said he saw the value of some of the digital tools, but he needed more time to think about how to use them for this current circumstances. He explained:

I loved that sandbox video game time we had during remote learning. I slipped in all kinds of things about civilization building and cooperating, but I need more time to plan. I am still this close to quitting, so I decided to just wait on it. I also really liked the interactive whiteboard and lesson software. Maybe next year.

Indeed, all the teachers reported a sense of tentativeness about continuing to teach, but so far all are still teaching.

Discussion

The teachers in this study had deliberate intentions to serve students with disabilities under IDEA ( 2004) during all four chronotopes. They were also keen to retain key aspects of IDEA ( 2004). These commitments took form as instructional delivery adjustments, attention to student groupings, and parent communication strategies (Crouse et al., 2018; Frazier, 2020; Hirsch et al., 2021). These findings suggest that learning online, even in troubling circumstances, can include attention to IDEA ( 2004), but preparation and ongoing support for teachers seems crucial (Smith et al., 2016). This is especially the case for transitioning between modalities.

Teachers Capacity for Instructing in Various Chronotopes

The teachers described periods of adjustment in thinking through how the modality enabled various technologies to be used. During these times, students may not have had optimal access to the curriculum. Even so, these teachers did not suppose or suggest service plans had too many services or accommodations for students, which has been a concern in pre-pandemic fully online learning (Bernstein, 2012; Ortiz et al., 2021). Instead, the teachers drew on their commitments to inclusion and advocated for students. Such was the case when Ms. Gamma told her colleagues that they were obligated to provide a graphic organizer and then she sent them links to digital resources. While Ms. Gamma may have advocated regardless of the modality used, the remote learning situation may have inspired Ms. Gamma to share digital resources rather than hard copies of organizers.

During some chronotopes, such as the more settled period of remote learning, teachers incorporated new programs and applications, such as digital whiteboards, sandbox video games, and the expanded use of photo capabilities on the mobile phones. There was also a flourishing in understanding about how to use video conference features using trial and error, and by attending to ethical concerns (e.g., uses of surveillance technologies and video conference features like chat).

If these teachers had access to professional learning opportunities that leveraged their interests and experiences, it is likely they could have taken their ideas further in linking their use of technologies to instruction that meets the needs of their students with disabilities. What teachers were unable to do well, was support meaningful interaction with peers with and without disabilities. Mr. Epsilon's sandbox game may have been the strongest attempt. Ms. Gamma also mentioned trying to use the chat to promote some interaction. During hybrid learning, the in-person learners and the online learners did not communicate in any of these teachers' classes. Since access to peers is so crucial to IDEA ( 2004), strong professional learning focused on peer interaction online seems to need more attention.

Teachers Challenges in Teaching Ancillary to Technology Use

The frustrations and feeling of inefficacy teachers faced emerged in their narratives (An et al., 2021; Cardullo et al., 2021; Parmigiani et al., 2020). The teachers disliked having to intervene when others did not share their inclusion mission or when they were left out of decision-making processes. By contrast, finding online resources that the children liked that helped them deliver instruction in line with IDEA ( 2004) seemed to be emotionally rewarding. This has also been true in previous studies (Stevens & Rice, 2016; Crouse et al., 2018, Stevens and Rice, 2016).

Tension emerged as teachers enjoyed some aspects of having the autonomy to choose and modify materials, even as they found this overwhelming because of time constraints and the sheer number of digital resources available on the internet. As a result of this tension, teachers expressed anxiety and even anger; they were not given a choice about some policies and procedures (e.g., use of surveillance software) and they did not have enough support to use the autonomy they did have in alignment with their goals, values, and identities.

Implications of this Study

The findings of this study contribute to conversations about how technologies, particularly devices, applications, and programs enter schools and what professional learning support is needed to recruit their use. After all, a primary goal should be to ensure that teachers like Mr. Epsilon remain teaching. He noted that he was on the verge of becoming an attrition statistic, but he liked the sandbox video game and some other programs and applications that he had been able to try out. A retention-minded administrator might seize this opportunity to sustain Mr. Epsilon through interest-driven professional learning.

Future research studies should examine how teachers find, use, and retain access to technologies that they enjoy, and think are useful. This research might be well-informed by frameworks that take into their agencies, identities, and contextual circumstances and not merely their beliefs about whether technologies are useful. Helpful frameworks might include personal practical knowledge (Clandinin et al., 2018). Studies that take chronotopic approaches to understand context might also be useful. These might be especially appropriate for students with disabilities and other populations that have been historically underserved.

The findings of this study suggest that policy guidance for supporting students with disabilities came later than was optimal for teachers to process and use quickly. Local and national leaders might now see the utility in providing plans that anticipate large-scale online learning, new forms of blended/hybrid learning, and the need to support special education and general education teachers in making sense of these plans as they implement IDEA ( 2004) (Rice & Zancanella, 2021). While some educators, and even some researchers, may adopt the position that online learning is over and traditional in person learning has returned, it might be better to be cautious. There have been pandemics before, it is likely that there will be again, and the most recent projection for the current pandemic to become endemic is 2024 (Miao, 2021).

A final caution is that students with and without disabilities were already moving back and forth between fully online and in person settings, without notice or support before the pandemic (Rice & Carter, 2015; Rice, et al., 2019). Perhaps school leaders can learn something from the en masse transitions of the pandemic that will support individual students in transitioning between modalities. These learnings include the need for rapid increases in varied types of communication with families, the importance of maintaining services or even adding them instead of removing them, attention to the fact that teachers and students need support to move back to in-person learning and not just to move out of it, and the need to empower teachers as decision-makers about digital resources and tools while providing on-going professional learning about choosing and using them.

Conclusion

In this study, special education teachers described efforts to use technologies to support students with disabilities. In general, the teachers' work centered on adhering to laws, abiding a mission of inclusion, and maintaining relationships. Overall, teachers lacked support to maintain the uses of digital technologies and online resources they liked. Future practice and research should help teachers make connections between what students with disabilities need to learn in various modalities and their understandings of their goals and obligations.

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University of New Mexico, 222 Hokona Hall, MSC05 3040, Albuquerque, 87131, USA

Mary F. Rice

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Correspondence to Mary F. Rice.

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Rice, M.F. Special Education Teachers' Use of Technologies During the COVID-19 Era (Spring 2020-Fall 2021). TechTrends 66, 310-326 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-022-00700-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-022-00700-5

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Keywords

Concurrent learning

Hybrid learning

K-12 remote instruction

Pandemic learning for students with disabilities

Special education during COVID-19

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Special Education Teachers' Use of Technologies During the COVID-19 Era (Spring 2020-Fall 2021) - TechTrends

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When school buildings closed in Spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many teachers began instructing with online technologies. Schools in the United States remained obligated to provide all students access to learning under federal laws in these challenging circumstances.

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Topic: Learning style for students with low incidence disabilities in school. 

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Topic: Learning style for students with low incidence disabilities in school. 

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Connor Whittington, Shreyata Ranabhat

Source: The Persistence of Highly
Restrictive Special Education Placements for Stud...: EBSCOhost

This is an educational source.

We chose this source because it closely examines how students with low incidence disabilities are taught in school. It is also a good resource that talks about the continued restrictive placements of these students. Students with significant support needs benefit from having more oppurtunities to make meaning and connections, which translates to them doing better in a general education setting rather than being placed in a segregated setting. This article goes in depth to discuss and provide evidence for all these points, and would overall be a great source to examine the learning style of students with low incidence disabilities.

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The Persistence of Highly Restrictive Special Education Placements for Stud...

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Topic: Intersectionality between minorities and disabilities 

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Topic: Intersectionality between minorities and disabilities 

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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4133990/

Madi, Catherine

This is an educational source that looks at how socio-demographic characteristics affect disadvantaged groups in the education system. It answers the question of how being a minority impacts the rate at which people are treated and diagnosed. The study relies on multivariate models to investigate and identify the reasons for the disparity in the identification of learning disabilities.

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Topic: Accessibility and social life of students with CP

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Topic: Accessibility and social life of students with CP

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Liam Worsley, A. Puente
Source: https://trinity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=43547039&site=ehost-live

Type: medical/educational

This article covers a study conducted in a high school setting studying the effects of a disabilities visibility (CP vs SLD) on integration experience and other classmates’ view of disability overall.  We chose this article because it adds a separate category and goes as far as comparing the difference in environment that might be experienced based on disability visibility.

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Keywords: cerebral palsy; children's views; outcome research; school; assistive devices

Cerebral palsy (CP) has recently been defined as 'a group of disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, that are attributed to non‐progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing foetal or infant brain. The motor disorders of CP are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, cognition, communication, perception, and/or behaviour, and/or by a seizure disorder' ([ 1], p. 572). It is one of the frequent causes of severe disabling conditions in childhood with a prevalence rate at around 1.5-2.5 per 1000 live births ([22]; [18]). Although motor disorders are usually the primary prerequisite for the diagnosis, their effect usually extends beyond such physical problems. Children with CP are likely to face various challenges in their day‐to‐day life, such as inferior attainment of independence, restricted participation opportunities, social relationships problems, etc. ([ 2]; [19]; [29]).

Assistive devices are widely regarded as holding potential for the children to overcome physical limitations and circumvent environmental barriers ([25]). Therefore, the provision of these devices has long been viewed as a beneficial intervention and tends to be encouraged even in the early stages of the children's development ([30]; [ 9]). In many countries, the social welfare policy has recognized the need to provide financial support to help disabled children to obtain the devices needed (e.g. [24]; [11]). In Taiwan, for example, the procurement of assistive devices is regulated by the Physically and Mentally Disabled Citizens Protection Law [[17]]. As long as the children meet the criteria set out for the given year, they can obtain subsidies from local government for device purchase.

In spite of the benefits assistive devices can offer and increasing availability with the help of government subsidies, it does not ensure that such appliances are accepted or liked by device users ([23]; [31]). Studies into psychological aspects of the device use have indicated that the device acceptance can be a sensitive and complicated issue for users, because devices are often directly attached to the users' body, and strongly influence their appearance and essential personal functions, such as mobility or communication ([ 5]). As a result, the users are likely to see their devices as an extension of their body, not just a mechanical aid. The adoption of devices requires not only developing new skills but also modifying the users' self‐concept. [ 8]) points out that the way users perceive their devices is related to the feelings they have about their disabilities. People may view their devices as a useful tool designed to improve their physical limitations or a tangible reminder representing their difference from other non‐disabled individuals, depending on their personal judgement. In a series interviews with people with CP and spinal cord injury, [25]) supports this view and finds that people with congenital disabilities tend to judge assistive devices more positively because of the experience of performing tasks that they are not otherwise able to do, whereas people with acquired disabilities are more pessimistic and seem to view assistive devices as a reminder of what they have lost.

In addition, device use will be part of the communication of social acceptance particularly in public. According to [ 5]), because assistive devices are often visible to others, they can have the function of clarifying the users' disabilities and make the users' private conditions become public. For example, it is generally assumed that people who use assistive devices have authentic disabling conditions. Moreover, the application of assistive devices can trigger a shared understanding of disability and convey some information relevant to the users' impairments, such as sunglasses for blindness and crutches for ambulation problems. In such a situation, users' attitudes towards device use are likely to be influenced by the way others react to them. [13]) indicates that device users tend to be aware of and concerned about the adverse social status they may encounter. Therefore, they may utilize devices differently in various settings because both others' responses and their own self‐image may vary according to the social context of the environments ([ 5]). Data from a survey of 15 experienced device users show that an unsupported environmental atmosphere where users feel that they cannot get the support needed or they are treated differently may negatively affect their willingness to use their devices ([14]).

These studies outline individuals' psychological and social concerns about device use and provide valuable information about the person-device interface. They also point out the influence of environmental factors and stress the need to gain an insight into person-environment interaction. It has also been observed, however, that the views of young users themselves seem to be overlooked in this field as most studies only include adult users as their participants. Although there is a paucity of studies focusing on device usability for children (e.g. [28]; [10]), when such studies are conducted, they tend to be based on data derived from the children's parents or teachers, rather than directly engaging them in the research. The children's opinions thus remain neglected.

In order to begin to address this gap, this study sought the participation of children with CP along with their mothers and teachers. Its purpose was to explore the children's use of assistive devices in their daily school life and to identify factors related to device use at school mainly from the children's viewpoints. In addition, this study was conceived from an ecological perspective ([ 4]). It paid attention to the interaction between the children and their environments and considered how the characteristics of school environments influence the children's usage of their devices.

Participants were recruited from The Parents' Association for Children with Cerebral Palsy. Such an association was big, well‐organized, with branches in many Taiwanese cities or counties. Information about the study was passed on to the parents by a social worker in the association. Additionally, criteria sampling was adopted in order to find child participants who had the basic communicative abilities to be interviewed and the experience of using assistive devices. The selection criteria included the following notions:

A total of 44 participants were involved, including 15 Taiwanese children with CP, 15 mothers1 and 14 teachers.2 Of the 15 children, six were boys and nine girls. Their ages ranged from 8 to 15 years old. Ten were primary school pupils and five junior high students. In terms of school setting, 12 attended mainstream schools, two special classes and one studied in a special school. Most children employed more than one device at school. In total there were 41 devices reported, including mobility devices (e.g. different kinds of walkers, canes, crutches, wheelchairs, power wheelchairs and special tricycles), computer aids, standers and ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs). With the help of their devices, three children were totally independent and another three carried out daily routines by themselves but sometimes required mild help. The other nine, however, still needed others' assistance in most daily activities. Brief descriptions of the participating children are presented in Table 1.

1 Profiles of the child participants

1 GMFCS, The Gross Motor Function Classification System; CP, cerebral palsy; AFO, ankle-foot orthosis.

2 * For a detailed description of each level of gross motor function for children with CP aged 6-12 years and youth with CP aged 12-18 years please see [21], [20]).

Of the 15 mothers, six were housewives, two had part‐time jobs and seven had full‐time jobs. Considering the fact that most mainstream schools in Taiwan did not provide teacher assistants or care assistants because of a lack of policy and financial support, three mothers accompanied their children to school and two found nannies to assist them.

2 Profiles of the mother and teacher participants

3 SENCO, special educational needs coordinator.

Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews. Three similar pre‐determined sets of questions were prepared as the interview guides for the children, mothers and teachers. Each interview guide comprised four main sections, namely, feelings about assistive devices, the situation of the children's device use at school as well as support and difficulties in relation to device usage within the school context. The face‐to‐face conversational manner of the interview gave the participants opportunities to bring up other issues if they considered them important. It also allowed the researchers to have flexibility in conducting the research process so as to elicit detailed and in‐depth information from the participants' perspectives ([ 6]).

The children, mothers and teachers were interviewed separately so that each of them was available to finish the whole interview at the time and place convenient for them. Interviews with the mothers were conducted earlier than their children's - the idea being to ease their worry about their children's involvement and thus improve access to their children. Each interview took about 1-2 h. With the permission of all the participants, the interviews were wholly disc‐recorded using a digital mini‐disc recorder for subsequent verbatim transcription.

All the audio‐recorded interviews were first transcribed in Mandarin, the language of the interview, and then carefully translated into English. Further analysis work was based on the English version of the transcripts and mainly comprised two stages. The initial coding aimed to break down the whole interview data into small segments and then classify. Based on the nature of the data, we developed several types of codes, including situation, attitudes, support, etc. For example, the datum from teacher 8 who said, ' I view devices as a kind of necessity for [child 8]' was assigned a 'teachers' attitudes' code.

The codes were not designed as mutually exclusive. The strategy called 'open coding' was applied throughout the analysis. A data segment that included multiple types of information could have more than one code applied to it. For instance, the data from child 10 who said, ' I like my power wheelchair the most, but I don't use it every day. I only use it in my physical education lessons' were given two codes, including a 'children's attitudes' code and a 'situation' code. This work was followed by the advanced level coding where the data segments of the same code were reorganized and those with similar meanings were grouped into a new category list ([16]). The details of the themes identified will be discussed in the following section.

This study found a high frequency of device use in the school settings. Of the 41 devices reported, 36 were used every day or a couple of times a week. One wheelchair was employed merely for off‐ school trips and four were abandoned or temporarily disused. A wide variety of information emerges from the interview data, representative of the factors which the participants perceived to have impacted on the children's device usage at school and this led to the high ‐use frequency identified. This can be discussed from the following five perspectives: children's willingness, teachers' attitudes, mothers' support, physical environmental factors and device‐related features.

First of all, it stemmed from their desire to overcome the physical limitations of having disabilities. Several children said that, with the help of their devices, their functional performance and level of independence had been improved. Also, with better functioning and abilities, they were better able to explore the environment, learn new experiences and exercise control over their campus life. All of this led to their positive comments on their devices and their readiness to use them. For example, this was how child 14 explained this view, ' My legs become straight and their function is better by using the stander. I hope that, someday, I can go out with my friends'[14‐year‐old boy with Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) level II]

Second, the children's identity as students had a positive effect on their acceptance of device use in the school setting. The children generally portrayed the school as a formally organized educational setting. Being students, it is their responsibility to perform in a manner appropriate for their schooling and socially acceptable. Their motivation for device use then increased because they felt that they could fulfil their student roles better with the help of their devices. As child 9 said, ' If I don't sit in the wheelchair, but lie on the floor or am held by my parents instead, I will be laughed at by others. [Besides,] if I don't sit in the wheelchair, I cannot attend classes' (14‐year‐old boy with GMFCS level IV). In addition, through their experience of school life, some children learned how to behave at school from their observation of how their peers do. Accordingly, they expected themselves to act just like their peers, even though they had to achieve this by using their devices. This is exemplified by the following account provided by child 5, ' I don't especially think why I am this, or why I am that. I can walk when using the devices and it makes me look much more like the other classmates. I am happy with this' (7‐year‐old girl with GMFCS level IV).

Third, the children's willingness to use devices was inspired by their enthusiasm for socializing and school participation. Many children explained that they had higher motivation to use their devices at school than at home because of being able to play with their peers, join them in shared activities or participate in various school activities with them when they practised operating their devices at school. Through such interaction and involvement, they had fun in their device practice, developed a sense of belonging and appreciated the benefits of the utility of their devices to a greater degree. For instance, child 5 said this, ' Amongst all the devices I have,my favourites are the bicycle and the walker. I like my walker most, because I can play with others when using it. . . . Although walking with the walker is very tiring for me, I still enjoy it, because I like to play with the other children' (7‐year‐old girl with GMFCS level IV).

Fourth, the high frequency of device use might also be associated with the children's perceptions of others' acceptance of their devices. The children generally recognized that their assistive devices were accepted by most of their peers and teachers. Their reasons for such a perception were based on the positive experiences they had gained in their everyday life. For example, their classmates also showed an interest in playing with their devices and were willing to help them or accompanied them when they were practising with their devices. Moreover, their teachers frequently encouraged them to use their devices, provided them with practical assistance, tried to resolve the problems that inhibited their device use, and so on. Accordingly, the children tended to feel psychological comfort in bringing their devices to school and using them there. Their self‐confidence was also enhanced as a result of the supportive atmosphere they perceived. For example, child 1 said this, '[My classmates] often encourage me to use my walker so that they can play with me. . . . I think, they all like me whether I have to use my walker or not' (11‐year‐old girl with GMFCS level III).

In spite of generally positive attitudes towards their device use at school, there were also some negative comments. For example, as a result of the visibility of assistive devices and their functional limitations because of having CP, the children felt that they too easily became the focus of attention and thus faced such situations as being stared at or being asked about their disability. On occasion they might also experience unpleasant scenarios, such as being laughed at or suffering verbal abuse from their peers. For example, this was how child 3 talked about his experience, ' My gait looks different from others, even with the help of devices. Because my classmates don't know what happened to my feet, they once said to me, "Your feet look so funny", or "Why do your feet grow in this way" Or, they laugh at me. Some of my classmates cannot help but laugh loudly once they see me. They must feel that I am odd' (11‐year‐old boy with GMFCS level II). Some children associated their feelings of having disabilities with their need to employ assistive devices. They then perceived a discrepancy between themselves and non‐disabled children and viewed their device use as unattractive. The following account from teacher 4 exemplified this view, '[Child 4] always sits in her wheelchair rather than a chair in the classroom. In some classes, she accepts it. But in other classes, she doesn't want to sit in the wheelchair. So, she may argue with her mother. This is because sitting in a regular chair gives her the feeling that she is close to other classmates or she is the same as others' (teacher of 12‐year‐old girl with GMFCS level IV). Such experiences and views might negatively affect the children's appraisal of assistive devices and explain their low enthusiasm to use their devices in such a situation.

All 14 participating teacher expressed their acceptance of the children's devices and viewed them as beneficial for the children's development. As they were aware that the children's disabilities could cause various difficulties in their schooling, they generally highlighted the importance of their provision of support for the children. There were a variety of strategies the teachers adopted in order to facilitate the integration of assistive devices into the children's daily school life. Of these strategies, some were more directly related to their device usage, such as encouraging or creating opportunities for the children's practice with their devices, protecting their safety when they were employing them, instructing their peers about the right way to use them and the safe way to assist the children, etc., with the aim of increasing the children's use rate and helping them to operate their devices safely on campus. Other strategies were more related to the children's participation and relationships. For example, they modified the lessons so as to ensure the children's participation in more school activities, helped them to maintain good peer relationships, influenced other classmates' positive attitudes towards them, and so on. The teachers expected that such a pleasant experience as the sense of achievement, joy, pleasure and friendship, which the children gained in the process of participation and interaction, could lead to their positively valuing their devices and further improving their self‐esteem. The following account from teacher 1 provided an example of this view, ' In the annual sports day, because [child 1] was unable to compete in the 100‐metre sprint with others, we let her run the 100 metres alone with her walker. Although she was by herself, she still ran very hard. All the spectators gave her a big applause when they saw her completing the race on her own. I think they were also deeply moved by her spirit. From my point of view, the walker improves her physical abilities and increases her independence. She is able and willing to participate in more activities. Also, she becomes more confident. These are all very important for her' (teacher of 11‐year‐old girl with GMFCS level III).

From their experiences, most teachers regarded school as an appropriate setting for the children to learn device use - not necessarily an easy task for them. For mainstream teachers, in particular, the children's device usage might present a wide range of challenges in their class management. This was because, first, the mainstream teachers were generally unfamiliar with assistive devices and had limited knowledge about them. Many teachers said that they lacked previous experience of managing a device. For such devices as AFOs or standers, they had never even seen them before taking charge of the children. Although they gradually knew how to operate the devices as a result of their daily interaction with the children, they could not fully understand the devices and were sometimes confused by their functions.

Second, several teachers confessed to not having adequate knowledge in the area of special education as they were originally trained as mainstream teachers. In particular, those who had longer working experiences said that, although inclusive education was the trend in current Taiwanese education policy, it had not been highlighted at the time they received teacher training. During the period of transition to inclusive education as well as before and after they were in charge of the children, they did not receive proper in‐service training. As a result, their understanding of the children's assistive devices and disabilities seemed to be limited. In addition, because of working in mainstream schools, the teachers were generally less exposed to disabled pupils. Of the 10 participating mainstream teachers, eight reported that it was their first time to have responsibility for disabled children and the other two said that it was their second. Their lack of experience thus increased the difficulty of this task.

Third, the teachers' challenge might also come from a lack of interdisciplinary collaboration. Many teachers commented on their inadequate opportunities to work with other professionals because of the nature of mainstream schools. Although some schools might take the form of cooperation with peripatetic therapists or social workers, they usually visited the school once or twice a month, or even less. In such a situation, it was difficult for the teachers to develop a stable working relationship with other professionals or win support from them when having problems. Moreover, as a result of big class size (i.e. there were around 30 pupils in a primary mainstream class and 40 in a junior high school class), the absence of teacher assistants or care assistants for support as well as the unified curriculum that they worked, the mainstream teachers might view the children's academic achievement as the main responsibility, thus seeming to neglect their other needs.

By comparison, four special needs teachers in the study seemed to display greater competence and better support because of the adequate pre‐service and regular in‐service training in the area of special education they had received. Moreover, because they worked with comparatively small classes (i.e. there were usually less than ten pupils a special class) and enjoyed opportunities to cooperate with teacher assistants and different other professionals, these teachers were likely to have more flexibility and time, and pay more attention to individual pupils in their class. Accordingly, they exhibited higher confidence and willingness to deal with the issues related to the children's device usage in class than the mainstream teachers.

All 15 mothers attached a positive value to the devices, describing them as indispensable for their children's schooling. Because of their children's great enthusiasm, the mothers tended to view such features of school as learning environment, regular time arrangement, group life and peer interaction as valuable facilitators, which encouraged their children's eagerness to improve themselves and to keep up with their peers. As a result, they paid considerable attention to their children's situation (e.g. by attending school with them or by showing up when it was necessary to accompany their practice), providing them with the support needed (e.g. purchasing or actively contacting with device centres to help their children obtain the devices when they were not available from school), and even showing a strong tendency to intervene (e.g. by setting rules that clearly outlined how often and how long their children had to practise with the devices) with the aim of increasing the frequency of devices on campus. As the mothers, influenced by the school atmosphere, observed that their children seemed to be highly motivated to use the devices and had a favourable attitude towards them, they were confident that their own strong views would not negatively affect their relationships with their children or lead to their acquiring a negative impression of their devices. Instead, they could serve as a useful strategy, which helped their children to have regular practice within the school context.

In addition, the importance of initiating communication with the teachers and establishing harmonious teacher-parent relationships was highly emphasized by the mothers. Many of them had experience of maintaining regular contact with the teachers so as to explain their children's condition, reflect their children's needs, share their expectations concerning their children's growth and discover better ways in which they could work with their children. As the mothers generally perceived themselves as having a more thorough understanding of their children's needs as a result of devoting their attention exclusively to them and a fuller knowledge about assistive devices because of their children's long‐term usage, they showed confidence and a greater willingness to collaborate with the teachers with the aim of dealing with the limitations of the support given to their children by the teachers and of further increasing their children's quality of schooling.

In spite of the environmental barriers, the participants tended to conclude that it was comparatively safe and suitable for the children to use devices in school because the available space was much larger than home and its environmental design had considered the disabled children's needs more fully than the outside community. Additionally, as school was a more natural setting than hospital or a rehabilitation centre, the participants were likely to stress the value for the children to develop experience of learning the use of the device in this setting.

Within the school context, the aspects of device performance important to the children were how well their needs for schooling and socializing could be met. With the high frequency of device use at school, the participants generally made positive comments on the children's devices and viewed them as helpful in enhancing their functional performance, independence, social interaction and school participation. The following account from mother 2, who described how a CP walker improved her child's engagement in her physical education lessons, exemplifies this view, ' Later, the school helps her to apply for a CP walker, which is specifically designed for children with CP. So, it's very safe for her to walk with that kind of walker. Previously, she could only stay in the classroom because her teacher was worried about her safety [due to the fact that] many children play ball games in the playground. But after she has the CP walker, she can go to the playground with her classmates, play with them, share some activities together or see what the others are doing there. All of this, I think, benefits her a lot. She also feels better in that she can attend lessons in this way' (mother of 10‐year‐old girl with GMFCS level IV).

However, two other device‐related barriers were identified. First, some device design was unsuitable for use in the classroom. Several teachers said that some devices, such as standers, wheelchairs, or CP walkers, were big but the space inside their classroom was not. Thus, it was not always easy to arrange a proper space for the children to employ or store their devices in the classroom. In addition, the small size of the tray or the absence of it was likely to inhibit the children's usage of the stander in the lesson because they did not have a work space to put the materials necessary for their learning, such as books or stationery.

Second, the devices provided by the schools did not always meet the children's needs. This problem might be associated with the schools' limited financial resources. Therefore, they could not provide the children with the appliances customized according to their needs and so let them use those that were originally bought for the other children or for common use. Additionally, this barrier might be caused by the lack of collaboration with multidisciplinary professions and the teachers' insufficient information about assistive devices. As a result, the schools had difficulties in purchasing the device appropriate for the children's development, even though they had the required finances.

[25]) indicated that, because of the experience of performing tasks that they are otherwise unable to do, people with congenital disabilities tend to value their assistive devices positively and describe them as opening a new world for them. In line with Scherer's view, most children in the study accepted their devices and regarded them as helpful. Although they were also aware that the employment of devices connoted disability and noticed that their presence easily attracted unwanted attention, they generally considered that device use was a worthwhile compromise, which enabled them to achieve better performance - something they preferred.

The educational function and social climate of the school clearly had a positive effect on the children's attitudes towards devices within the school context. In order to participate in school activities, interact with their peers and fulfil their student roles, the children were willing to practise using their devices regularly when attending school and showed a stronger desire to improve themselves in terms of physical functioning and independence. Furthermore, the children's optimistic attitudes were also related to their perception of the supportive school atmosphere. As the children generally recognized that their assistive devices were accepted by their teachers and peers, and did not negatively affect their relationships with them, they felt psychological comfort and had the confidence to use their devices in school. This finding concurs with many studies which indicate that the level of device usage and the degree of users' satisfaction with their devices likely to be influenced by how others respond to them (e.g. [ 5]; [13]).

The support from the teachers and mothers was an influential factor. As with the children's reactions, most teachers and mothers considered assistive devices as beneficial for the children's education and regarded school as an advantageous environment because it could develop the children's intrinsic motivation for device use through the learning and socializing process. Therefore, they generally paid considerable attention and provided various kinds of assistance to facilitate the integration of devices into the children's school life. However, as many studies have pointed out, teachers generally do not receive adequate training and support, although their role in helping pupils with the day‐to‐day application of assistive devices has always been emphasized (e.g. [10]; [ 7]). The results showed a difference in the provision of teacher support between special needs teachers and mainstream teachers because of their different training opportunities and support. With fuller pre‐ and in‐service training and better human resources in terms of teacher assistants and different professionals, special needs teachers appeared to have more confidence in their skills and play a more active role in the children's device use. Mainstream teachers, however, faced more challenges because of less training, insufficient support from their schools and few experiences of dealing with the issues related to disabled children. They developed their skills mainly through their interaction with the children and their parents, and viewed the mothers' support as important resource for them to get information and gain understanding about the children's devices. In this regard, the results suggest that the significance of regular training programmes for teachers and inter‐agency cooperation cannot be neglected in order to meet the children's different needs and advance the quality of inclusive education.

Because of the large space available and several environmental modifications based on the children's needs, the participants generally considered the physical aspect of the schools to be appropriate for device use. However, physical environmental barriers were also frequently mentioned, including steep ramps, the lack of elevators, unsatisfactory toilet design, and limited barrier‐free areas on campus. As several studies have indicated (e.g. [15]; [26]), these environmental barriers were likely to prevent the children from using their devices or to endanger their safety. As the schools were restricted by financial resources, they sometimes had difficulty in effectively improving their environmental conditions.

The findings showed that the participants were generally satisfied with the function of the children's devices and viewed them as having a positive effect on the children's school participation. This result supports previous studies (e.g. [ 3]; [30]) which found that assistive devices can provide a means for disabled children to interact with their environment in an active manner, rather than being quiet onlookers restricted by their physical conditions.

A high frequency of device use at school was identified in the study owing to children's willingness, teachers' attitudes, mothers' support, physical environmental factors and device‐related features.

Children's attitudes towards device usage and evaluation of device function are affected by their perceptions of the contextual features of the settings.

The results demonstrate the importance of child-environment interaction and highlight the need to explore device usage from device users' perspectives and in an ecological manner.

The value of children's active participation cannot be neglected. More endeavours are needed to facilitate a better understanding of assistive devices on children's development.

We are grateful to all the participants for their enthusiastic involvement in the study.
References Bax, M., Goldstein, M., Rosenbaum, P., Leviton, A. & Paneth, N. (2005) Proposed definition and classification of cerebral palsy, April 2005. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 47, 571 - 576. Beckung, E. & Hagberg, G. (2002) Neuroimpairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions in children with cerebral palsy. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 44, 309 - 316. Derer, K., Polsgrove, L. & Rieth, H. (1996) A survey of assistive technology applications in schools and recommendations for practice. Journal of Special Education Technology, 13, 62 - 80. Dijcks, B. P. J., De Witte, L. P., Gelderblom, G. J., Wessels, R. D. & Soede, M. (2006) Non‐use of assistive technology in The Netherlands: a non‐issue? Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 1, 97 - 102. Huang, I‐C., Sugden, D. & Beveridge, S. (2009) Assistive devices and cerebral palsy: factors influencing the use of assistive devices at home by children with cerebral palsy. Child: care, health and development, 35, 130 - 139. Luborsky, M. R. (1993) Sociocultural factors shaping technology usage: fulfilling the promise. Technology and Disability, 2, 71 - 78. McMillen, A.‐M. & Soderberg, S. (2002) Disabled persons' experience of dependence on assistive devices. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 9, 176 - 183. Mihaylov, S. I., Jarvis, S. N., Clover, A. F. & Beresford, B. (2004) Identification and description of environmental factors that influence participation of children with cerebral palsy. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 46, 299 - 304. Miles, M. B. & Huberman, A. M. (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA; London, UK. Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of China (Taiwan) (2008) The physically and mentally disabled citizens protection laws. Available at: http://www.moi.gov.tw (accessed from 1 December 2008). Odding, E., Roebroeck, M. E. & Stam, H. J. (2006) The epidemiology of cerebral palsy: incidence, impairments and risk factors. Disability and Rehabilitation, 28, 183 - 191. Ostensjo, S., Carlberg, E. B. & Vollestad, N. K. (2003) Everyday functioning in young children with cerebral palsy: functional skills, caregiver assistance, and modifications of the environment. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 45, 603 - 612. Palisano, R., Rosenbaum, P., Walter, S., Russell, D., Wood, E. & Galuppi, B. (1997) Gross Motor Function Classification System for Cerebral Palsy. CanChild, Hamilton. ON, Canada. Available at: http://www.canchild.ca/Portals/0/outcomes/pdf/GMFCS.pdf (accessed 1 December 2008). Palisano, R., Rosenbaum, P., Bartlett, D. & Livingston, M. (2007) Gross Motor Function Classification System: Expanded and Revised. CanChild, Hamilton. ON, Canada. Available at: http://www.canchild.ca/Portals/0/outcomes/pdf/GMFCS&#8208;ER.pdf (accessed from 1 December 2008). Parkes, J., Dolk, H., Hill, N. & Pattenden, S. (2001) Cerebral palsy in Northern Ireland: 1981-3. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, 15, 278 - 286. Riemer‐Reiss, M. L. & Wacker, R. R. (2000) Factors associated with assistive technology discontinuance among individuals with disabilities. Journal of Rehabilitation, 66, 44 - 50. Sapey, B., Stewart, J. & Donaldson, G. (2005) Increases in wheelchair use and perceptions of disablement. Disability and Society, 20, 489 - 505. Scherer, M. J. (2000) Living in the State of Stuck: How Technology Impacts The Lives of People with Disabilities. Brookline Books, Cambridge, MA, USA. Shepherd, A., Stewart, H. & Murchland, S. (2007) Mothers' perceptions of the introduction of a hoist into the family home of children with physical disabilities. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 2, 117 - 125. Tieman, B. L., Palisano, R. J., Gracely, E. J. & Rosenbaum, P. L. (2004) Gross motor capability and performance of mobility in children with cerebral palsy: a comparison across home, school, and outdoors/community settings. Physical Therapy, 84, 419 - 429. Todis, B. & Walker, H. M. (1993) User perspectives on assistive technology in educational settings. Focus on Exceptional Children, 26, 1 - 16. Voorman, J. M., Dallmeijer, A. J., Schuengel, C., Knol, D. L., Lankhorst, G. J. & Becher, J. G. (2006) Activities and participation of 9‐ to 13‐year‐old children with cerebral palsy. Clinical Rehabilitation, 20, 937 - 948. Wiart, L. & Darrah, J. (2002) Changing philosophical perspectives on the management of children with physical disabilities - their effect on the use of powered mobility. Disability and Rehabilitation, 24, 492 - 498. Wielandt, T., Mckenna, K., Tooth, L. & Strong, J. (2006) Factors that predict the post‐discharge use of recommended assistive technology (AT). Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 1, 29 - 40.
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By I‐C. Huang; D. Sugden and S. Beveridge

Reported by Author; Author; Author

Source: Child: Care, Health & Development, Sep2009, Vol. 35 Issue 5, p698, 11p
Item: 43547039

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Assistive devices and cerebral palsy: the use of assistive devices at schoo...: EBSCOhost

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Keywords: cerebral palsy; children's views; outcome research; school; assistive devices Cerebral palsy (CP) has recently been defined as 'a group of disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, that are attributed to non‐progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing foetal or infant brain.

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Topic: What are the effects on a sibling relationship when one has an intellectual disability? 

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Topic: What are the effects on a sibling relationship when one has an intellectual disability? 

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Bailey Judis, Nick Fort

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jir.13006

Hayden, N.K., Hastings, R.P. and Bailey, T. (2023) “Behavioural adjustment of children with intellectual disability and their sibling is associated with their sibling Relationship Quality,” Journal of Intellectual Disability Research [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/jir.13006.

We chose this article because we wanted to examine the effect of a relationship between an individual with an intellectual disability and their siblings and how this effect may change each other’s behavior. This article encapsulates this by providing a large sample size, with many different backgrounds of different families from different socioeconomic statuses, ethnicities, and age gaps. We felt this article would be a good choice because of its recency as it has come out within the last month. We felt these authors were experts in their fields as they are professors at Warwick University, and they both have relationships with organizations for siblings of children with disabilities.

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Disability Inclusion in Higher Education               

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Disability Inclusion in Higher Education               

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Source: Teaching the 'invisible' disabled students in the classroom: disclosure, inclusion and the social model of disability.
https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=f634ba71-05f1-4598-af16-8b032bd37aed%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=40627269&db=eue
Author: Nicole Matthews

Brett, Xavier

This article is an educational source that describes the concerns that teachers have regarding disability inclusion in the classroom. The article also explores the use of the social model of disability and how that can be used to create a more inclusive environment.

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Drawing on the insights of critical disability studies, this article addresses anxieties frequently articulated by academic staff around the implementation of the United Kingdom's Disability Discrimination Act: how to accommodate the needs of students with 'hidden' impairments. Following the social model of disability, it argues that universities should avoid the use of medical labels in identifying the learning needs of disabled students, and should make efforts to institute as part of everyday practice a diversity of inclusive teaching strategies. Finally it discusses an induction activity which sought to encourage students to disclose additional learning needs to university staff while opening up a discussion around difference, diversity with the student cohort as a whole.

Keywords: disability; disabled students; disclosure; induction; inclusion; Disability Discrimination Act

In 2002, Part 4 of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 became law in the UK, with further elements of the law coming into play in 2003 and 2005 (Stanley and Manthorpe [46]). According to this legislation, educational institutions now have a responsibility to make reasonable accommodations to enable disabled people to gain equal access to higher education. Much attention within higher education communities in the UK has been directed towards the physical and informational constraints preventing disabled peoples' access to higher education (e.g. ACE Bulletin[ 1]; Allan [ 2]; Lawrie, Sutherland, and Seale [27]; Parker [38]). It has been compellingly argued, however, that teaching and learning practice can present a key barrier to disabled students' learning once they arrive at university (Fuller, Bradley, and Healey [17], 306; Powell, 2003a; Tinklin, Riddell and Wilson 2004, 652). Rizvi and Lingard have commented, along these lines, that 'while access and equity policies enable individuals to gain entry into mainstream institutions, they often leave the institutions themselves unaltered' (Rizvi and Lingard [41], 21).

This article will address one of the anxieties frequently articulated by academic staff around the implementation of Part 4 of the DDA: how to accommodate the needs in the classroom of students with 'hidden' impairments[ 1]. It has been often noted that lecturers and tutors may not be aware of the presence of disabled students in their classrooms when teaching and assessment take place (e.g. Cottrell [ 7], 126; Jones and Hopkins [24], 126; Ling et al. [28]; Olney and Brockelman [36]; Palfreyman-Kay [37]; Roy [42], 79). A few examples from my own teaching experiences over the last decade suggest the challenges presented by teachers' unawareness of such disabled students. One politically active student with no visible impairments, for example, discussed with me the difficulties she had negotiating the spiral staircase to my office. Another student, then in her third year, disclosed that she had had a hearing impairment throughout her degree programme, though none of her teachers had been aware of it at the time. Yet another came to discuss getting an educational psychologists' report for his dyslexia halfway through his first year, citing the fact that his mother, whose support had enabled him to succeed academically without additional assistance from the university, was moving away. Such students whose 'hidden' needs are ultimately declared to staff may be only a fraction of the number of students whose impairments might never be formally disclosed or accommodated.

I will begin by considering one obvious approach to the 'problem' of adequately supporting students whose particular needs are invisible to teaching staff: how to encourage disabled students to disclose their impairments. It appears to be common sense that university teachers would be better equipped to support disabled students if they were cognisant of each student's particular needs. Following this approach, a key question might be how information about disabled students' impairments might be effectively solicited. A further question with which many institutions have grappled is how information about individual students' particular learning needs can be effectively shared in a way which respects both students' right to privacy and their right to access education equally.

A variety of strategies is employed by departments, schools and institutions across the UK to identify disabled students' learning needs. These strategies have often been developed locally and on an ad hoc basis (Ling et al. [28]), with little sharing of practice through the published literature. One common means by which prospective students are invited to disclose their impairments is via the university and college admission service (UCAS) form. This form includes nine medically defined categories of disability, posing questions such as 'Are you blind?'. Prospective students are invited to identify themselves according to these categories. The information on this UCAS form may be shared within individual institutions in a range of ways. It may be passed on directly to course or module leaders as well as disability welfare services. Targeting such information at particular teaching staff may be viewed by some administrators as an inadequate strategy for information sharing where flexible modular arrangements mean that students are taught by a large number of staff across the university. Here information drawn from UCAS forms may be used as the starting point of lists of disabled students held by academics or administrative staff, and shared with teaching staff across departments or schools in a range of ways.

Such lists or files may be supplemented by subsequent information declared by students to individual teachers or support staff, and include information such as educational psychologists' assessments on students diagnosed with dyslexia. New students are often encouraged to disclose their impairments or learning needs on enrolment forms, which are frequently modelled in the language they use to elicit information about students' impairments on the UCAS form. Induction, both for new and continuing students, is often used as a further opportunity to explain to the whole student cohort the support available to disabled students and encourage disabled students to approach academic staff directly.

Some of the procedures used within universities to identify disabled students to members of staff are controversial with equal opportunities practitioners and some disabled people. The first area of contention concerns the tensions between confidentiality and effective sharing of information about 'special needs' (e.g. interview 2004; Stanley and Manthorpe [46], 29). Sharing information beyond the teaching staff immediately working with individual disabled students, or sharing information without explicit permission from the student concerned would be regarded by many disabled people and workers in the area as breaching confidentiality.

Others in the sector would have a more sympathetic view of these procedures. Stanley and Manthorpe acknowledge the need to share information where relevant within academic team and departments. Farish and her colleagues, too, have underlined the importance of taking responsibility for instituting equal opportunities policies rather than remaining bogged down in an endless consultation process, despite the 'enormous difficulty' of institutions getting this balance right (1995, 183-4). Farish et al.'s comments suggest that action, however flawed, may be preferable to inaction. While the 'problem' of appropriate sharing of information about disabled students within higher education has been approached by some as a technical or legal one, I would like to suggest here that formulating institutional policy and practice in this way has significant limitations. Part of the solution to the intractable difficulties of appropriate sharing of such information may lie, however, in the outcomes of a second critical debate in the literature, between those drawing on a medical and those drawing on a social model of disability.

The current UCAS form with its diagnosis-focussed 'tick box' questions, asking students to identify themselves with a particular impairment, clearly draws upon a medical model of disability. This focus on particular impairments frequently sets the tone for other institutional documents, such as enrolment forms. This kind of medical model sees disability as an 'individualised problem' (Armstrong and Barton [ 3], 212), the solution to which may involve therapies or 'special' help. In contrast, the social model, proposed by disability activists, views ' disability ... not a personal tragedy, an abnormality or a disease needing cure. It is a form of discrimination and oppression' (Barton [ 4], 79). From this perspective, an alternative to focussing on individual impairments is an effort to restructure educational environments such that all kinds of students can flourish within them, rather than being disabled by them.

The medical model with its focus on diagnostic labels presents a number of educational and political problems. From a practical point of view, it falsely implies that students with the same impairment have the same learning needs (Nes and Stromstad [34]; Roy [42]; interview with Shaffi 2004). Some disabled people suggest that highlighting impairments pathologises them (Olney and Brockelman [36], 45). Disability activists have also pointed out that a focus on individual impairments diverts attention from the need for collective political solutions that change disabling social and physical environments (e.g. Armstrong and Barton 1999, 223; Oliver [35]).

Again, this critique of the use of diagnostic labels is not without controversy. Powell, for example, forcefully maps out the advantages of developing impairment-focussed 'special' pedagogical techniques, for example, for hearing impaired students (2003a). Along similar lines, many Deaf people reject the social model of disability, preferring to view themselves as a linguistic minority with shared cultural concerns (Corker [ 6], 6; Ladd [26], 14). As such, identifying the particular needs of Deaf people in education would be viewed positively by such researchers and activists. Other writers, such as Colin Low ([30]), James Palfreyman-Kay ([37]) and Julie Allan ([ 2]) view some diagnostic labels as educationally helpful, while even some who are critical of a categorisation system which 'presupposes pathology' acknowledge that such diagnostic labels are widely used because of the resources they release (Nes and Stromstad [34], 118).

Many teachers and writers use the language of 'needs' - in some sense a halfway house, borrowing the emphasis on the 'special' individual from the medical model (Barton [ 4]) while highlighting the fact that disability is created by particular ways of structuring environments. Those adopting this language of 'needs' as well as those preferring the more radical language of rights, would propose diminishing the emphasis on diagnostic labels in the enrolment forms and disability registers. For example, individual learning plans may be seen as a way of focussing attention on the environment which can promote students' learning, rather than the diagnostic label attached to that student (interview with Shaffi 2004).

Such an emphasis on particular students' needs still requires students to disclose those needs to their teachers. As I have argued, despite existing procedures encouraging students to make clear their particular learning needs, many choose not to do so. Stella Cottrell provides a vignette of Selima, a student who decided not to declare her diagnosis of dyslexia on enrolment at university, doing so only when prompted by failure in her first round of university exams:

At that point she mentioned that she had been diagnosed as a dyslexic; her lecturers were extremely exasperated. They felt that she had deceived them unnecessarily as they had spoken positively about the dyslexic assistance at induction; they could have offered her help. (Cottrell [ 7], 126)

Selima's teachers in this vignette have a view of student non-disclosure as an irrational barrier to effective learning - a view that many well-meaning academic staff may share. However, the perspectives of Olney and Brockelman suggest reasons for distancing ourselves from such views. These writers emphasise that people surviving in a disabling society make strategic decisions about disclosure based on their previous experiences (Jones and Hopkins [24], 102-3; Olney and Brockelman [36]). Given prevailing attitudes towards people with impairments that often present them as pitiable or unable to help themselves, refusing to identify one's self as disabled can be a rational choice:

People with disabilities and other socially stigmatised roles such as homosexuality employ a range of strategies to manage information about themselves such as sharing information on a 'need to know' basis, demonstrating their competence, or waiting until it feels safe to tell others about their difference. (Olney and Brockelman [36], 36)

Writings on disability and pedagogy suggest that even academic staff, structurally empowered by their position as teachers, may find it difficult to disclose a disability in the classroom (Brueggemann, Garland-Thompson, and Kleege [ 5], 18). Terri Hibbs and Dianne Pothier note that the processes of ranking and measurement that are a key part of higher education make disclosure more problematic for students:

it is understandable that some students are reluctant to self-identify as disabled, especially given the paradox that the bio-medical or psychological evidence required for accommodation points to and emphasises the individual's particular physical, emotional, sensory or cognitive limitations or deficits - in other words, what one cannot do - in an university environment that thrives on and rewards stamina, ability, independence and mental fitness - what one can do. (Hibbs and Pothier [22], 217)

These explanations of why students might not choose to disclose suggest some of the radical implications of taking disabled peoples' experiences seriously. Hibbs and Pothier's account underlines a point made by many critical disability scholars - those conceptions of disability are fundamental to everyday practices that help to construct notions of 'the normal' and 'ability' (e.g. Davis [10]; Tremain [49]). These considerations of non-disclosure also point to the instability of disability as a category (Davis [11]). What counts as 'disabled' is not only variably defined by social, architectural and economic practices. A number of researchers have pointed out that individuals understand and position themselves variably in relation to the label 'disabled' across their lifetimes and across a variety of social spaces (e.g. Davis and Watson [ 9]; Dyck [13]; Priestley [40]). In fact, it has been suggested that the mutability of disability as a category, makes the disabled people a more appropriate paradigm of contemporary experience than existing fantasies of autonomous, perfect 'able bodies' (Davis [11]; Mitchell and Snyder [32]).

What, then, are the implications of these arguments in the classroom? Firstly, in a disabling society it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to encourage all students with additional learning needs to disclose. Consequently it is important that, as much as possible, a diversity of flexible and supportive teaching strategies is made routine and that students are routinely made aware of their availability. For example, Anne Simpson suggests that departments might decide that any lecture may be recorded by students and publicise this decision such that it is no longer necessary for individual students to ask for permission (2002, 2). Specialist welfare and learner support services are increasingly available to support students with a range of needs. However, it has been argued that learning environments which are available to all students, including those that have undeclared learning needs - routine personal tuition or teaching, for instance - are crucial (Grant [20], 84-5; Stanley and Manthorpe [46], 23; Tinklin, Riddell and Wilson 2004, 649). This is particularly the case for students who may fear or experience stigmatisation as a consequence of, for example, mental health difficulties.

This starting point for supporting the learning needs of disabled students chimes well with the anticipatory duty of the UK's DDA. The Act requires educational institutions not just to respond to the needs of their existing students but also to anticipate the needs of prospective students. In the words of Willder, the anticipatory duty of the DDA Part 4 'places the onus on an institution to anticipate and pre-empt the needs of the potential student even though the institutions may consider that it has no disabled students at present' (Willder [54]). A focus on anticipatory shifts in teaching practice may, in fact, as Tinklin and colleagues point out, 'eradicate some disabled students' "special" needs altogether' (Tinklin, Riddell and Wilson 2004, 649). For example, if Powerpoint slides and lecture handouts are made available via web supported learning environments, students who might otherwise require 'special' provision because of difficulties with attending to a number of visual cues at once during a lecture, may no longer have additional learning needs in that setting. This emphasis on teaching practices which help all students is the starting point for recent good practice guides, such as Carol Doyle and Karen Robson's ([12]) Accessible curricula: Good practice for all.

Attention to the social model pushes us in the direction of modifying teaching environments to be as inclusive as possible. However, this approach is no universal panacea. In a discussion around disability and pedagogy, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Georgina Kleege, three disabled higher education teachers, note wryly that the teaching and learning methods that work best for each of them are, in fact, inaccessible to some of the others. The Powerpoint slides that enhance a hearing-impaired person's comprehension of a group discussion may be useless for someone with visual impairments (for example, Bruggemann, Garland-Thomson, and Kleege 2005). This is not a counsel of despair. It does, however, point out the continuing importance of creating a learning environment in which students with specific needs feel comfortable enough to disclose to their teachers which measures they need to learn effectively. Once again, the social model of disability helps us understand how this might be done in a way that minimises the stigma historically associated with disability.

Olney and Brockelman point out that the social environment of the university, and peer support or lack of it by fellow students, is critical in making educational establishments either enabling or disabling. According to the US Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education, for disabled students 'a supportive psychological environment is as important as an accessible physical environment' (see also Mittler [33], 123; Parker [38]). Students choosing not to declare their additional needs report concerns that fellow students, as well as staff, will perceive them as whining, lazy or not trying, and for those with hidden impairments, even lying (Kleege [25]; Olney and Brockelman [36], 44-5; Treby, Hewitt, and Shah [48], 415). Thus, encouraging students to disclose their particular needs requires a broader effort to promote a positive attitude towards diversity among the whole student body, as well as raising awareness of the kinds of support available to students with particular learning needs. These needs might include not only those of disabled students, but also others including second language users or young people who need further development of their 'life skills' to succeed at university (Gutteridge [21], 12).

A number of writers have pointed to a difficult-to-define ethos of openness and celebration of diversity within institutions and classrooms as critical to inclusive education (Farish et al. [14], 185; Jarvis and Knight [23], 74; Vogt [51], 181). As a consequence, Cottrell has argued that one thing lecturers can do to promote inclusive and effective learning is to 'set up an atmosphere where it feels safe for students to disclose difficulties, discuss different approaches and share strategies' (2003, 125-6). Others have suggested that this might be done, in part, by encouraging all students to reflect on their own learning styles, strengths and motivations (Ware [53], 157). Another strategy is to incorporate discussion of disability as a dimension of difference and power into the higher education curriculum. Disability studies is a vibrant area of intellectual inquiry and its core arguments are very compatible with the existing curricular concerns with equality, marginalisation and representation within a wide range of humanities and social science disciplines (e.g. Davis [10]; Linton [29]; Mitchell and Snyder [32]; Tremain [49]; Wilson and Lewiecki-Wilson [55], 300-1). However, at present, in the UK at least, the perspectives of critical disability studies are less likely to be found on such curricula than post-colonial, anti-racist, feminist, queer or Marxist perspectives on identity and power (e.g. French Gilson and DePoy [16]; Gabel and Danforth [18]; Goggin [19]; Scullion [43]; Treby, Hewitt, and Shah [48]; Ware [52], [53]).

I would like exemplify my arguments above through a small-scale curriculum initiative undertaken in one humanities department in a university in the North West of England. This exercise served the function of an induction activity for first-year students and sought to introduce a perspective on differences between students informed by the social model of disability alongside other frameworks for understanding diversity. The classroom exercise aimed to move from a discussion of the issues and concerns facing many new students to a consideration of additional difficulties which may face non-traditional students, including disabled students, and encourage students to consider how they might seek appropriate support for themselves or support their peers. The teaching session included discussion in small groups of a number of invented case studies of students facing challenges to their learning, including the time constraints from paid work and caring for family, anxieties about particular forms of assessment, difficulties with reading and with hearing group discussions. As well as highlighting the support available for students facing particular crises or obstacles, the aim of the session was, in the words of its author, then Disability Welfare Adviser for the University, Surya Shaffi, 'to open up a discussion around difference, diversity' (interview with Shaffi 2004).

It has been argued that in order to improve the experience of disabled students it is necessary to approach questions of inclusion and difference not as an individual teacher but on a more systematic level (Nes and Stromstad [34], 123; Parker [38]; Seale [44], 83; Simpson [45], 2). Consequently, the session was undertaken with the whole cohort of first-year students (around 150 in number), with groups of around 25 students each facilitated by one of six tutors. A follow-up exercise was devised, asking students to visit and review a cultural site in Liverpool, the city in which the department was situated, in terms of how well it bore out the inclusive slogan of Liverpool's Capital of Culture bid: 'The World in One City'.

The way in which the induction exercise unfolded varied with the views and approach of the tutor coordinating the activity. In some classrooms, a good deal of time was spent discussing student responses to the case studies, and the strategies proposed included enabling suggestions from students. For instance, one group proposed routinely discussing and accommodating particular learning needs when commencing small group assessed tasks. In contrast, other staff chose to avoid a classroom discussion of the case studies because of feeling under-prepared to undertake such 'counselling'. This response may perhaps have indicated a mismatch between particular teachers' 'banking' models of teaching (Friere [15]) and the emphasis on discussion in the induction activity. Such concerns may also signal academic fears about the simultaneous increasing need and increasing difficulty of fulfilling the need for pastoral care of students in a massified higher education system (Davey and Hitchcock [ 8], 30-1).

However, these anxieties about tackling the 'problem' of disability in the classroom have been noted elsewhere (Ling et al. [28]; Marshall, Ralph, and Palmer 2002; Mittler [33], 134; Troyna and Vincent [50]; Ware [52]). Many writers see such concerns as indicative of teachers' under-estimation of their own skills in managing all kinds of learners and learning environments - a consequence of the medical model's flagging of disabled students as 'special' and requiring 'special treatment' or 'expert' help (Marshall, Ralph, and Palmer [31]; Troyna and Vincent [50]; Ware [52]). This is not to suggest that discussing stigmatised and highly politicised identities does not entail a level of challenge and risk for teachers, with or without personal experiences of disablement. However, simply failing to discuss the way structural power differences impact on learning does not make those differences go away. Rather this approach may perpetuate individualist notions of disability as 'the problem' of stigmatised individuals rather than being, at least in part, the consequence of everyday social practices which all students and teachers need to consider and work to change (Brueggemann, Garland-Thomson, and Kleege 2005; Kleege [25]; Wilson and Lewiecki-Wilson [55]).

Student responses to the induction activity under consideration here were gauged by the reviews of cultural sites they subsequently submitted. While this follow-up exercise, with its emphasis on cultural and individual diversity, prompted a range of responses, 23 of the sample of 68 reviews examined explicitly referred to the inclusiveness and accessibility or otherwise of cultural sites in Liverpool. While many of these were merely brief references to the wheelchair accessibility of a particular building, a number of students also mentioned the availability of information in a range of formats such as Braille or British Sign Language. Encouragingly, many of the reviews discussed the accessibility of cultural sites to disabled people alongside such sites' accessibility to non-native speakers of English or younger visitors. This discussion of disability in the context of wider questions of diversity and marginalisation, and the focus in the reviews on the responsibility of cultural sites to accommodate a range of needs suggests that understanding of the social model of disability may have been promoted by the workshop activity. Naturally, consolidating students' understanding of such theoretical frameworks would require further discussion, alongside more mainstream considerations of 'race', gender and sexuality, throughout their degree programme.

Policy and practices to promote inclusiveness in higher education in the UK are currently in a state of flux. Farish and her colleagues conclude that in the area of equal opportunities and education 'the policy process can never be perceived to be complete or finished' (1995, 179). Moreover, as writers like Len Barton have proposed, the challenges of inclusive education are simply a starting point for the wider political push towards inclusion in society more broadly (Barton [ 4]). Some of the measures currently being undertaken in higher-education institutions, such as identifying particular academics with responsibility for department policy and procedures around disability (Tinklin, Riddell, and Wilson [47]), or the use of individual learning plans with disabled students, address many of the issues raised above. The adoption of learning plans, for example, indicate a key shift towards a strategy for supporting a variety of students in a way which minimises reliance of labels and assumptions that particular medical diagnoses tell teachers all they need to know about students' needs.

However, this changing policy scene, while indicating the impact of new laws and disability activism, presents difficulties for staff who are already struggling to maintain their understanding of the current legal framework, institutional policies and proliferating support systems in the context of the broader intensification of academic work (Barton [ 4]; Farish et al. [14], 157). While academic staff may not need as much staff development as they think they do to accommodate demands for a more inclusive education system, there is a need for clear, accessible and comprehensive information about their responsibilities and the resources available for staff undertaking critical front line teaching, support and referral roles. The necessity to adapt higher-education institutions to more fully include disabled students has often been considered defensively as a set of strategies to protect institutions from litigation or as an issue primarily to do with physical access or technology. My argument here is that raising higher-education teachers' and their students' awareness of the key ideas of the disabled peoples' movement, such as the social model of disability, may present new routes towards more inclusive higher education.
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Paper presented at the Higher Education Close Up, July6-8, in University of Central Lancashire, Preston. Powell, S.2003. "Special teaching in higher education". In Special teaching in higher education: Successful strategies for access and inclusion, Edited by: Powell, S.3-16. London: Kogan Page. Priestley, M.2001. Disability and the life course: Global perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roy, A.W.R.2003. "Students with visual impairment". In Special teaching in higher education: Successful strategies for access and inclusion, Edited by: Powell, S.57-95. London: Kogan Page. Scullion, P.2000. Disability as an equal opportunity issue within nurse education in the UK. Nurse Education Today, 20(3): 199-206. Seale, J.2002. Implications for personal and professional practice. InAccess all areas: Disability, technology and learningP.Lawrie, A.Sutherland, and J.Seale, 82-5. ALT, JISC and TechDis. http://www.techdis.ac.uk/resources/files/AAA.pdf Simpson, A.2002. How can you possibly make reasonable adjustments before you know the disabled students who need them. Skill JournalJuly, no. 73: 2-4. Stanley, N. and Manthorpe, J.2002. "Introduction: Constructing the framework". In Students' mental health needs: Problems and responses, Edited by: Stanley, N. and Manthorpe, J.13-33. London: Jessica Kingsley. Tinklin, T., Riddell, S. and Wilson, A.2004. Policy and provision for disabled students in higher education in Scotland and England: The current state of play. Studies in Higher Education, 29(5): 637-57. Treby, E., Hewitt, I. and Shah, A.2006. Embedding 'disability and access' into the geography curriculum. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(4): 413-25. Troyna, B. and Vincent, C.1996. "The ideology of expertism': The framing of special education and racial equality policies in the local state". In Disability and the dilemmas of education and justice, Edited by: Christensen, C. and Rizvi, F.131-44. Buckingham, , UK: Open University Press. Vogt, W.P.1997. Tolerance and education: Learning to live with diversity and difference, London: Sage. Ware, L.2001. Writing, identity, and the other: Dare we do disability studies?. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(2): 107-23. Ware, L.2003. "Understanding disability and transforming schools". In Developing inclusive teacher education, Edited by: Booth, T., Nes, K. and Stromstad, M.146-60. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Willder, B.2002. Disability legislation: Implications for learning technologists in the UK. InAccess all areas: Disability, technology and learningP.Lawrie, A.Sutherland, and J.Seale, 6-9. ALT, JISC and TechDis. http://www.techdis.ac.uk/resources/files/AAA.pdf In memory of Surya Shaffi.
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By Nicole Matthews

Reported by Author

Source: Teaching in Higher Education, Jun2009, Vol. 14 Issue 3, p229, 11p
Item: 40627269

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Teaching the 'invisible' disabled students in the classroom: disclosure, in...: EBSCOhost

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Drawing on the insights of critical disability studies, this article addresses anxieties frequently articulated by academic staff around the implementation of the United Kingdom's Disability Discrimination Act: how to accommodate the needs of students with 'hidden' impairments.

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Topic: What dynamics influence life outcomes for disabled people?

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Topic: What dynamics influence life outcomes for disabled people?

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How does a disabled person's social location influence disabled people's outcomes?

Colt Harris, William Walker

Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2017.1284650
This article is about how critical disability studies, generally lacks a robust examination of how material reality, and economic processes, and the capitalist social relations that proceed them to produce and constrain disabled people, and argues that it in order to generate an accurate account of disability, and chart new ways of resisting ableism, it is necessary to examine how the material world shapes disability.

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Abstract
Critical disability studies has been accused of preoccupation with cultural, lingual and discursive matters, and in doing so failing to adequately engage with the often-harsh material reality of disability. This has contributed to a circumstance in which disability studies has produced a lack of material focused directly upon economic processes. Concurrently, disabled people have encountered a momentous economic recession that has threatened their basic economic and human rights. This article seeks to address what is evidently a gap in the burgeoning critical disability and disability studies literature. That is, a gap largely uninhabited by attempts to apply a critical disability studies perspective to macro-economic processes. The article focuses predominantly on two facets of critical disability studies as identified by Goodley: the self and other, and intersectionality. The article concludes that critical disability studies has much to offer through the production of new understandings of economic processes.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Caroline McGregor and the anonymous reviewers for their kind consideration.

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Engaging with materialism and material reality: critical disability studies and economic recession

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Abstract Critical disability studies has been accused of preoccupation with cultural, lingual and discursive matters, and in doing so failing to adequately engage with the often-harsh material reality of disability. This has contributed to a circumstance in which disability studies has produced a lack of material focused directly upon economic processes.

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https://www.proquest.com/docview/2515599335?accountid=7103

Ethan, Matt, Lauren

Our source is a scientific source that studies different classroom practices, as well as parental preferences/opinions on the effectiveness of each. It also includes parents estimations on inclusive education for children with CP. We thought this source has great information pertaining to our topic.

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Source:Quality Teaching in Inclusive Settings

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Source:Quality Teaching in Inclusive Settings

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https://trinity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=115249798&site=ehost-live

Jacob Mason
This is an educational source, and it helps answer my question about why students find it harder to be included in high school rather than elementary school, and this source answers that because it says that teachers need to be more collaborative, and need to have more one on one time with students as well. It even goes as far as using the UDL model discussed earlier in class.