After twenty-five years as a practitioner, I’m excited to contribute my experience toward research of assistive technology practice in schools. Assistive technology is a field without a large base of research literature. Research on assistive technology practice in schools is almost non-existent.
What I’m most interested in investigating is the black box of AT decision-making in schools, particularly in the US where AT consideration is a legal obligation within special education. Across the US, the SETT Framework is invoked as an explanation, yet the framework is simply a loose description of four system elements (student, environment, tasks, and tools) that are used to generate team discussion. What actually happens in a “SETT” meeting? Would another process be more efficient? Is the process necessarily tied to the medical model of disability, or is there room for a social model perspective? Why does this question even matter?
The most significant barrier to increased AT services in schools, which includes the decision-making process but also AT implementation, is a lack of capacity. General educators receive almost no training in using technology to provide access for students with disabilities. Special educators receive very little training. And in-service training is limited to the professional development time that can be squeezed into the school calendar (if there is someone to provide it) or graduate courses such as those I teach at UIC. Is there a way to build capacity for AT decision-making without a significant investment in additional training? How do we share AT expertise without relying on professionalization? Can AT decision-making be systematized and exteriorized so that more students with disabilities benefit?
This last question is what’s currently driving the direction of my research exploration. It may be crazy to begin a PhD program at this point in my career, but what drives me is an intense desire to improve my field of practice. I won’t have a traditional career in academia and AT practice in schools is very unlikely to be ever be funded. But I’d like to make a small difference.
Recontextualizing the Student: Analysis of the SETT Framework for Assistive Technology in Education
I used discourse analysis to examine how students with disabilities were portrayed in Joy Zabala’s description of the SETT Framework.
MS in Disability and Human Development thesis available at UIC.