Article Five: Involving Family

"What Should We Expect of Assistive Technology? Being Sensitive to Family Goals" by Phil Parette & Gale A. McMahan, published in Teaching Exceptional Children.

I found that this article provided a much needed perspective considering the family's point of view in evaluating the appropriateness of assistive technology for their student. Too often, schools exclude families from the picture when they are determining what's "best" for the child, even when family and community values are very different from what the professional educators value. I liked that this article gave specific questions that the IEP team should ask when evaluating whether a certain assistive technology would suit a student's academic, personal, familial, and community needs. I'm going to take the time to list them so that you don't have to read the whole article:

"Will you use AT in community settings outside the home? What skills or commitment will be required of others in the community for your child to be able to successfully use the AT device? Are there reasons to not use the AT device outside the home? Will AT make you or your child self conscious or cause undue attention if used in public settings? How will people around you and your child feel if AT is used outside the home? What do you think the AT device will do for your child? How will you and your child use the device? What benefits can you expect? Do you expect benefits to be immediate? What training will be needed? How will you pay for the device? How often will your child use the device? Will your child need assistance? Who will provide assistance? Will you be able to attend training to learn how to use the device? How will attendance at trainings affect your family's routines? How do you think it will affect your child with a disability? How do you think it will affect your home environment? How do you think it will affect your other children? your spouse? other family members?"

I think these are all really important questions to consider because if a school is going to write AT into a child's IEP, then it should be something that is not going to clash with family values and beliefs, and something that a child will actually use outside of school in order to get the maximum benefits. Some parents don't want a device that will call attention to their children and stigmatize as "different." Other parents don't have the time to attend training workshops. Others don't ever expect their child to move out, and so don't really want AT that is geared towards independent living. Some AT disrupts family routines (like transportation in a small car while trying to fit a folded up wheelchair in the trunk), or doesn't meet family expectations (immediate visible progress), and so the family abandons use of the AT altogether, therefore rendering it pointless for the child to have. Overall, I think this article is great because it encourages family involvement, which is already good teaching practice, and then gives lots of practical ways to start these conversations with the students' families.

Link to Article

http://www.knpd.org/mittsfita/dokumenti%5Cassistivetechnology.pdf