Consulting on Assistive Technology in Education: Me, As My Own First Client

• In Event: Disability Sustaining Pedagogy: Elementary School Literacy Teaching Based on the Insights of Teachers With Disabilities

Abstract

I founded ATHelp.org, a free Assistive Technology (AT) clinic that serves children and adults with learning, communication, sensory, and physical challenges, and ATTrain.org, a free professional training program, after recognizing that true equity in education is only achieved through accessible participation. The field of AT presumes that everyone can find access; if we can inadvertently create learning obstacles, we can intentionally create tools to overcome them.

AT is the endeavor of individuating learning spaces, and it wasn’t until recently in my 36-year career that I realized why this work has always come so naturally to me. I was probably my own first client. The advent of the personal computer changed my ability to attend to the written word, to write and rewrite, to annotate and take notes, and to overcome the academic probation that plagued me most of my life. It’s too late for me to uncover my learning challenges, and according to my AT perspective it doesn’t matter—what matters is that I, along with my students, have found tools that bridge the obstacles placed in our way so we can get to the business of learning.

The interplay between the prevalence of personal computers and the increasing use of UDL by teachers, has promoted a pedagogical path for designing and delivering more accessible content to students. As Edyburn (2010) states,
UDL is about design. Design is fundamentally about problem solving. Instructional design is about the efficacy of learning. Central to all of these constructs is evidence of intentionality and how problems can be resolved through innovative design. Technology is simply the delivery system. (p. 37)
The field of Assistive Technologies further refines this 21st century foundation. AT takes the tools of a UDL classroom and further individuates them to the particular access needs of a single student. This ongoing assessment process ensures that as educational content, learning environments, and particular student needs change, classrooms can adapt and continue to provide access to all. In other words, AT is not merely a thing, it is a way of thinking.

AT provides four major supports: it creates access, reveals learning potential, sustains interest in learning, and helps preserve mental health through equitable participation. Educators should involve all students in the exploration of various assistive technologies so that they can support their classroom community through mastery of such learning tools even before obstacles are encountered by them or their peers. As a dyslexic student of mine once said, “Assistive Technology does not make the ‘playing field equal’, rather it just ensures that I am allowed to play.”

AT thinking asserts that ultimately the student must be in control. At the completion of every educational milestone a student must either have the independent skills to complete such tasks or mastery of the tools that enable them to equally accomplish them. Only assistive technology can make the promise that no student leaves an educational institution without the means to participate in the society around them even if learning interventions have failed them.

Author

• Mark Surabian, Pace University