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**What do Students Say about the Use of Assistive Technology? ** **By Gabrielle Young, PhD Candidate, The University of Western Ontario, and Dr. Jacqueline Specht, Associate Professor, The University of Western Ontario.**

 Research demonstrates that students with learning disabilities have lower self-concepts than their peers without learning disabilities. These students experience difficulties with the learning process, making them prone to anxiety and frustration, which may result in lowered self-confidence. The literature on the use of assistive technology (AT) indicates that it can increase academic achievement. As students learn to use the technology they may improve their reading and writing abilities in all content areas. While there has been research conducted on the effect of the use of AT on school achievement, researchers have yet to investigate the impact such technology may have on self-esteem. Due to the gap in the research literature, with the support of my research supervisor Dr. Jacqueline Specht, and the help of Mr. John Barry and the staff at the Amethyst School, we set out to study whether the use of AT impacts the way students feel about themselves.

We used both surveys and interviews to collect data. When interviewed, 87% of students commented that the use of the AT had a positive effect on their reading comprehension, and that it benefited various aspect of the writing process. Participants stated that Kurzweil was of great assistance because, “It reads to me. And I can’t really read.” Students remarked that Dragon Naturally Speaking was helpful because, “there’s no way I would be able to write stuff down on paper without using Dragon.” Seventy-percent of the participants mentioned that they preferred using the AT because it made it faster and easier for them to do their school work. One student said the computer programs are “extremely helpful. Without them I would be like last year. Never on top of my homework, it piles up, and I would be doing it for hours and hours and hours.” Through the use of AT, participants believed that they produced school assignments that were more representative of their cognitive abilities, and // all // of the participants agreed that the AT helped improve their school performance. This was demonstrated when one student said, “I’m getting better grades… what I’m handing in is more reasonable for my grade and my age.”

With the use of AT, students began to feel empowered by their accomplishments, and began to feel more confident in their academic capabilities. During the interviews, 83% of the participants noted that their self-confidence improved since using the AT. When asked if they felt that the use of AT increased their self-esteem, 87% of the students noted that their self-esteem increased “quite a bit” and that their self-esteem increased because of “all of the computers”. As a whole, participants provided comments such as: “[Through the use of AT] I have a better view of myself… my self-confidence goes up. My self-esteem goes up… And really I can just [do my school work], be able to ace it, and have fun doing it.”

A survey was administered in order to assess the impact of AT. Survey results indicated that the use of technology had a positive impact on students’ competence, adaptability and self-esteem. A second survey was administered in order to determine if there was a change in self-perceptions of academic achievement and overall self-esteem from when students were first admitted to the Amethyst School, to the completion of their first academic term. Although overall self-esteem did not significantly improve, students felt “smarter” in January than they did in October. The researchers were confused as the self-perception survey data did not show a significant improvement in all academic domains – something that was mentioned in the interviews. The researchers attributed this discrepancy to the short period of time between administering the surveys, and as a result, asked permission to re-administer the surveys the following year. Students who were new to Amethyst completed the surveys in both September and in May. These students noted that they felt smarter, and their reading, writing, spelling, and math competencies had improved.

The Amethyst School tailors its instruction to meet the needs of its individual students, and as a result, improvements in academic self-concept cannot solely be attributed to the use of the technology. However, based on the interview data, one may conclude that when provided with the use of AT as a means to be successful, students with learning disabilities may exhibit more positive academic self-concepts. When educators are trained on how to use the technology, and students are supported in it use, students are able to reach their full potential. This enables students to feel more confident in their abilities, and helps them to maintain a healthy sense of self-worth.

