1. How to Think about Assistive Technology #2

A lot of ink has been spilled in the battle to decide the appropriate place of assistive technologies in the education of dyslexic students.

On the one side are those who stress its ability to empower students to achieve in ways they simply cannot without assistance.

On the other are those who fear that the learning of dyslexic students will be held back–particularly in the learning of basic skills like reading, spelling, writing, and math facts–and that they will be rendered permanently dependent through an excessive reliance on technology.

In our opinion, proper thinking about whether to use assistive technology for various applications should begin these with two questions:

1) Is the purpose of the exercise in which we are asking the student to engage designed to teach a particular basic skill, or are we asking them to use the basic skill to engage in some other form of learning (e.g., reading to acquire information rather than to gain fluency; or writing to express ideas, rather than to practice sentence formation).

2) Is there still a significant gap between their conceptual level and their skills level, such that limiting their performance to their own unaided use of basic skills will prevent them from taking in or expressing information up to the level of their cognitive ability?

If the answer to the first question is that the student is being asked to work on their reading as reading or their writing or spelling as writing or spelling, then setting aside technology assists is appropriate. But if the answer to the first question is that they are being asked to take in or express information, and the answer to the second question is that there is a significant gap, then they should be allowed to use assistive technology for that task. It is just that simple.

Like other forms of accommodation, assistive technologies when properly used are not excuses to get students out of learning, but aids to get them into more productive forms of learning.

The answer is neither to make a fetish of traditional reading and writing skills; nor to dismiss the value of learning to read and write as well as one can; but to assess each individual according to their own unique situation and apply these principle in a practical and nonjudgmental way.