The Benefits of Assistive Technology

Using assistive technology is not cheating as some view it, it is simply levelling the playing field. We would not deny a slope for a person in a wheel chair or a hearing aid or someone with partial hearing. Providing students with range of learning differences with the tools to perform tasks at school successfully should be provided as a matter of course.

Students with learning differences often have uneven profiles which confuses many teachers. Sometimes students have strong verbal skills and general knowledge but can not translate this to completing tasks set by the teacher, particularly written tasks. This can be for a number of reasons, there could be genuine literacy difficulties, like Dyslexia that make writing and spelling a very demanding task. There may also be weaknesses in Executive functions which make it hard to start a task or know how to organise their thoughts on a page. Working memory weaknesses which affect many students, can also have a huge impact on understanding a task and the instructions and how to work through a task step by step.

Teachers often assume a student could do an activity if they simply tried harder. The challenges that weak executive functions bring are hard for others to understand. Working memory difficulties in particular are often misunderstood. 'Why didn’t you listen?' exasperated teachers say again and again.  But then do nothing to make the outcome different next time.  They rarely think – what if the child CAN’T listen.  What if the words are like balloons floating out of reach….disappearing one by one before the child can make sense of them. If the teacher does not make it acceptable to ask for instructions to be repeated then the child is left with no choice but to sit helpless or copy others. Many teachers comment, ‘But they weren’t even trying to listen….’

The best way I can try to explain it is this: imagine that you have conversational skills in another language and that you are expected to spend an hour, a day, a week or more in a professional/academic environment.  It’s not that you don’t understand anything but the effort to process and fill in the gaps of the vocabulary that you don’t know can be exhausting. How long would you listen intently for – particularly when you know you might misunderstand or miss something.  In reality no matter how hard you try, you will reach a point where your brain simply says ‘enough’ and you can listen no more. I think the effort required for some students to follow any typical lesson is vastly underestimated.  If too many pieces of information are given the working memory is overloaded and everything is lost.

This is where assistive technology can make such a big difference in helping students to access lessons and complete activities in line with their intellectual abilities. Students should have access to a laptop or a tablet whenever possible. To start with pre teaching and information can be shared prior to the lesson, depending on the age and aptitude of the student they can access the materials independently or with adult support. Video clips can be really helpful in giving meaning to new material and allowing a student to tune better when the lesson is taught by the teacher. This can make a huge difference to a student's ability to access a lesson and complete work that is set.

Giving reading materials prior to a lesson can also be very helpful, if a student finds reading challenging. It is easy to access text readers on most applications through accessibility functions. By listening to the text while they read, their comprehension is likely to be improved. It also worth bearing in mind that while some students seem to be able to read quite well, they may not necessarily able comprehend well, particularly on their first read. Being able to read something at home with no time pressure can make a big difference to how much a student takes in. Students can also be taught highlight key ideas or words they are unsure of in different colours, so they can them look up these words or ask an adult to explain them.

During an introduction to a lesson a teaching assistant can type notes linked to what the teacher says or asks. Students can then refer back to these notes as they work through any task set. Using Google classroom can allow scaffolds, wordlists and sentence starters to be posted to specific students. Links can be created to give photos or definitions for new or unfamiliar words. This can allow many students to receive discrete support and work independently without having an adult sat next to them. Google classroom also makes giving teacher feedback discretely during the lesson much easier. Many older students find it hard to receive feedback in front of their peers and are easily embarrassed by negative comments which are intended to help improve their work. Sections can be highlighted which need more work, along with comments. Students can then work on these areas straight away allowing them to experience success within the lesson and produce work of the expected standard.

The use of graphic organisers can help many students to organise their thoughts for an essay or assignment. Students with learning differences often understand the content of the lesson but when faced with a written task do not know which idea to use first. Students with ADHD maybe bombarded with so many ideas that they simply do not know where to start. Making mind map is a way of quickly recording all your ideas so that you can then start to work out which ideas link together and which ideas go first. Doing this electronically has advantages in that ideas can be easily moved around without needing to rewrite them. There are many applications available including Inspiration https://www.inspiration-at.com/  Inspiration can be particularly helpful in that it has a function that turns a mind map into a written outline with the headings needed to structure their writing. This allows students to successfully move from their initial ideas to writing in more depth.

Applications like Seesaw can allow students to create presentations in a way that plays to their strengths. A teacher can set up a blank template where the students have the option to write, draw, download pictures or diagrams, record their voice or make a video. Equally teachers can provide scaffolding through questions, sentences starters or worklists which students can edit and add to. This sort of tool allows all students to demonstrate their learning successfully.  See https://web.seesaw.me/ for more information.

Once you begin using Assistive Technology with students, the benefits quickly become clear. Understood.org has some helpful information about Assistive Technology including a video Myths about Assistive Technology Sharing this with parents and teachers can help open their eyes to the positive use of assistive technology.

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Reading with your child at home

Many parents read to their young children at bedtime and this is often a special time of great pleasure. However, when it comes to your child learning to read and reading to you at home, it can be a different story.

Some children learn to read without trying and just pick it up, but this is rare. Most children need structured instruction that suits their stage of development. Parents are often taken by surprise when their child is reluctant to read at home or struggles to remember words from one page to the next. What should be a pleasurable time of sharing a book then becomes a source of stress and anxiety for both parent and child.

Here are a few tips to help make reading at home fun! Firstly, it is fine to read the story to your child first and then let them take their turn reading afterwards. This models good reading and gives them an idea of what the story is about before they start. Taking turns reading a page each can also take the pressure off. You can always read the book twice if you want your child to try every page! 

If your child is stuck on a word, tell them what it is to keep the flow going. Make a note of it and practise it at another time, using magnetic letters or flashcards. Alternatively, you can look through the book first and pick out words which are new or tricky to practice before you read. If the word can be sounded out like ‘sheep’, you can say the sounds ‘sh-ee-p’ and then let the child copy you. If the word can’t be sounded out then talk about the letters and what is tricky about it, like the word ‘what’ is ‘w-hat’ - this makes me think of Willy Wonka’s hat!

Any reading at home should be relaxed and stress free. Avoid reading when your child is tired, this can be hard as your child may often be tired after a long day at school. Struggling through a book is counter-productive and will damage your child’s confidence. Many children worry about making mistakes in front of their parents and equally many parents have unrealistic expectations as they have forgotten the processing of learning to read themselves. Let your child know that reading can be hard and it is okay to make mistakes. Like taking physical exercise, reading can be tiring as we are exercising our brain and sometimes it feels uncomfortable. Some children can have the wrong idea about reading as they see their classmates read words with ease, not realising that they have practised a lot at home. Practising phonics particularly exercises the parts of the brain which will lead to efficient and automatic reading over time.

If your child is finding learning to read difficult, don’t panic! It is important to realise that your child’s ability to read is not a reflection of their intelligence.  Many highly intelligent people struggle to learn to read and excel in other areas, like remembering facts and verbal communication. It could be a sign of a learning difference like Dyslexia which means your child needs a difference approach. If taught correctly and at the child's pace all children can learn to read. Sometimes gaps in underlying skills need to be addressed before progress can be made, these include visual discrimination, auditory discrimination, memory and general language skills. These skills are best strengthened through a game based approach separate from reading activities. For more information on pre-reading skills and reading difficulties please refer to my other blog articles.