Integrating New Instructional Assistive Technology to Support Academic and Behavioural Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Assistive Technology can be a highly effective tool in supporting students with Learning Disabilities (LD) in addressing foundational academic skill gaps as part of academic and behavioural one-to-one instruction. However, there are barriers to administrators wanting to equip in-service educators to integrate assistive technology into special education contexts, such as in-service educators' technology acceptance and the need for effective in-service training. This article explores a model for supporting in-service educators to integrate assistive technology into an existing academic and behavioural one-to-one instruction program for students with LD through a partnership with a nonprofit educational provider and a university's social robotics laboratory. We applied a co-design approach and followed a human-centred design methodology, incorporating a technology acceptance model to support educators in broadly integrating assistive technology into existing research-based programs for students with LD.