Students with disabilities are increasingly spending most or all of their school day in general education classes. Accessible educational materials and technologies are essential to the independence, participation, and progress of these general education students who function in highly varied ways — physical, sensory, and learning (AEM Center).
There are different types of conditions that impact cognitive functions, which include abilities related to learning, memory, problem-solving, attention, and general intellectual functioning. These disabilities can affect a child’s ability to process information, acquire new knowledge, and perform various cognitive tasks, especially in early childhood, which is why it’s important that interactive materials and technologies used for learning are accessible to all children with disabilities.
The idea would be to create content, such as printed or digital book or an interactive platform that is inclusive for children with cognitive disabilities, in a way that encourages engagement through tasks and exercises. While being accessible to those children with cognitive impairments, it should also be alluring to other children and encourage them to interact with the content. The task would be to try and find the middle ground, where the content is exciting enough to keep children interested while also having their possible disabilities in mind.
Ensuring that children with disabilities can participate in a range of activities in early childhood is very important if these children are to benefit from learning environments.
Examples / existing solutions
- Multisensory learning tools
Multisensory learning involves the use of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways to enhance memory and learning of written language, which can be very helpful for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), dyslexia, or learning difficulties: https://mein-kleines-baby.de/products/sensory-book-board-erforschen-und-lernen-durch-fuhlen-filzbuch?variant=46486197797202&gclid=CjwKCAiA6byqBhAWEiwAnGCA4PAO3BxCz9ok_h2uLY0IwbjNJTHUfQjN2VnaYXrNJFGHMTfqt2o9IhoCwXUQAvD_BwE
- AAC devices
For children with communication difficulties, AAC devices, including communication boards and speech-generating devices, can facilitate expression and interaction:
- Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)
Immersive experiences can make learning more engaging and help children understand abstract concepts in a concrete way:
Personal motivation
As someone who has struggled with dyslexia my whole life, I am really passionate about this topic, because I was never treated any differently than my peers in school, even though they didn’t face the same difficulties as me. This obviously affected my learning ability and I was forced to find means of dealing with these issues on my own, which was not an easy task. Thankfully, this didn’t affect my ambitions to continue my education, since my disability was not that severe, but that is not the case for everyone. Young children often struggle a lot to find a way to first understand their disability and then learn how to cope with it.
By creating content that is inclusive for all children, we avoid singling out people with disabilities, while providing them with helpful ways of achieving everything they want and more!
Relevance of design fields
Design fields play a crucial role in creating a positive and effective learning environment. The design of educational spaces encompasses a variety of elements, including architecture, interior design, graphic design, and instructional design.
There is an educational framework called Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The goal of UDL is to remove barriers to learning and provide multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression to meet the varying needs and preferences of students. UDL is based on the premise that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and that instructional design should be adaptable and accessible to a wide range of learners.
Expected challenges
The term „cognitive disabilities“ is extensive. The research of cognitive disabilities is a multidisciplinary endeavor that involves contributions from various fields, such as psychology, neuroscience, special education, genetics, educational psychology, etc. This might be really challenging and input from a lot of experts as well as people who have experience on the topic will be extremely necessary.
Approach / upcoming research
My next step would be focusing on specific disabilities I would like to address and doing more research on what they represent and how they are traditionally approached in the educational field.
I would also like to learn more about the existing solutions, their pros and cons, and also choose which media channel would be the best to address the problems.
References and relevant links:
https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl
https://aem.cast.org/create/creating-accessible-websites
https://uxdesign.cc/universal-design-for-learning-for-students-with-autism-a7d12c0d35f7
https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/teach-your-child-to-use-an-aac-device/
