Students with Developmental Disabilities and the use of Personal Devices

Topic

Examining the use of personal devices in the classroom for students with developmental disabilities

Theme and argument

  1. Argument or thesis

Students with developmental disabilities, who use personal devices in the classroom, benefit from greater access to visuals, experience more individualized learning and grow in self-autonomy.

  1. Background

Students with developmental disabilities face unique challenges in the classroom.  In addition to the challenges these students face academically, many have difficulties with social, emotional, communication and behavioural development (Katz and Mirenda, 2002).  In many school settings, creating an inclusive environment can be difficult.  Students are often placed in segregated classrooms and expected to meet modified learning objectives.  In some situations, classroom teachers lack support and can struggle to meet the needs of these students while still managing to effectively teach their class.  One of the major challenges faced by students with developmental disabilities is being able to effectively communicate with their peers and teachers.  Students with developmental disabilities may be non-verbal or have limited verbal communication skills (National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, 2012).  This can pose a large barrier to successfully integrating those students into the classroom.  However, when students are able to be successfully integrated into the classroom, the benefits can reach beyond just improvements for that student, but for all members of the class (Katz et al, 2002).

Personal devices, such as iPads or other tablets and smart phones, are becoming more accessible and user friendly.  Devices offer features such as voice control, easy to use calendar and reminder tools, location-based services and a wide range of apps.  Use of these devices in an educational setting has also begun to increase with a number of schools piloting iPad or 1:1 digital immersion programs.  Today’s high school students are digital natives and many enter the school system with at a minimum a basic understanding of how to use tablets and smartphones.  The wide range of services offered on these devices, as well as their ability to combine visual and auditory senses, opens up plenty of opportunities and potential within the educational world.

Primary & Secondary sources for insight into the topic

  1. Issues to be addressed
  • Students with developmental disabilities benefit from visual adaptations
  • Use of personal devices in conjunction with learning management systems or adapted/modified material allows students with developmental disabilities to progress at their own pace
  • Using personal devices can result in increased self-esteem and increased independence for students with developmental disabilities.
  1. Literature to be consulted

Please refer to references on final page

Provisional conclusions drawn from the argument & issues or data

  1. Use of personal devices has shown to cause an increase in task completion and long-term performance of the aforementioned tasks (Mechling, Gast & Seid, 2010; Hart & Whalon, 2012)
  2. When following carefully selected criteria, apps and devices can produce positive learning outcomes for students with developmental disabilities (Dell, 2011)
  3. Students are able to self-pace when using a personal device and this leads to a decrease in sensory overloads and helps to keep students calmer (Mozaffar, 2012)  decrease levels of anxiety and which as a result creates a more confident student.

Structure / sections of the paper

  • Title page
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Many students with developmental disabilities benefit from having visual adaptations
    • Tools such as iPads or tablets provide a visual learning environment. Ease of showing pictures or videos.
    • Apps can be used as a visual tool to support learning.
  • Students have more freedom to progress at their own pace.
    • Use of LMS and adapted digital material can provide students opportunities to work in better environments and progress individually.
    • Apps with reward or “leveling up” systems can keep students engaged and help them see progress.
  • Improvements to self-esteem and feelings of independence due to success from learning new material
    • All students benefit from working in an inclusive environment regardless of whether or not they have a disability.
  • Conclusion

References

Burton, C. E., Anderson, D. H., Prater, M. A., & Dyches, T. T. (2013). Video self-modeling on an iPad to teach functional math skills to adolescents with autism and intellectual disability. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 1088357613478829.

Developmental Disabilities Association. (2016). What is a developmental disability? Retrieved from http://develop.bc.ca/about-us/

Hart, J. E., & Whalon, K. J. (2012). Using video self-modeling via iPads to increase academic responding of an adolescent with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 438-446.

Hourcade, J. P., Williams, S. R., Miller, E. A., Huebner, K. E., & Liang, L. J. (2013, April). Evaluation of tablet apps to encourage social interaction in children with autism spectrum disorders. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3197-3206). ACM.

Kagohara, D. M., van der Meer, L., Ramdoss, S., O’Reilly, M. F., Lancioni, G. E., Davis, T. N., … & Green, V. A. (2013). Using iPods® and iPads® in teaching programs for individuals with developmental disabilities: A systematic review. Research in developmental disabilities, 34(1), 147-156.

Katz, J., & Mirenda, P. (2002). Including students with developmental disabilities in general education classrooms: Educational benefits.International Journal of Special Education, 17(2), 14-24.

McGregor, K. K., Langenfeld, N., Horne, S., Oleson, J., Anson, M., & Jacobson, W. (2016). The University Experiences of Students with Learning Disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 31(2), 90-102.

Mechling, L. C., Gast, D. L., & Seid, N. H. (2010). Evaluation of a personal digital assistant as a self-prompting device for increasing multi-step task completion by students with moderate intellectual disabilities. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 422-439.

Mozaffar, S. S. (2012, May). iPad for Autism: How can the iPad serve as a teaching tool for students on the Autism Spectrum?. In Teachers College Educational Technology Conference (p. 49).

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. (2012). Autism Spectrum Disorder: Communication Problems in Children. Retrieved from https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/autism-spectrum-disorder-communication-problems-children

Newton, D. A., & Dell, A. G. (2011). Mobile devices and students with disabilities: What do best practices tell us?. Journal of Special Education Technology, 26(3), 47.

O’malley, P., Lewis, M. E. B., & Donehower, C. (2013). Using tablet computers as instructional tools to increase task completion by students with autism. Online submission.

Rossing, J. P., Miller, W. M., Cecil, A. K., & Stamper, S. E. (2012). iLearning: The Future of Higher Education? Student Perceptions on Learning with Mobile Tablets. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,12(2), 1-26.

Shane, H. C., Laubscher, E. H., Schlosser, R. W., Flynn, S., Sorce, J. F., & Abramson, J. (2012). Applying technology to visually support language and communication in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 42(6), 1228-1235.