AI is a game changer for students with disabilities. Schools are still learning to harness it

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For Mackenzie Gilkeson, spelling is such a struggle that a word like unicorn might come across as “rineanswsaurs” or as sarcastic as “srkastik.”

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The 14-year-old from suburban Indianapolis can say words, but her dyslexia makes the process so stressful that she often has trouble understanding. “I assumed I was stupid,” she recalls of her elementary school years.

But AI-powered assistive technology helped her keep up with her classmates. Last year, McKenzie was named to the National Junior Honor Society. She credits a custom AI-powered chatbot, word prediction software and other tools that can read to her.

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“I probably would have given up if I didn’t have it,” she said.

Artificial intelligence holds the promise of helping countless other students with a range of visual, speech, language, and hearing disabilities to perform tasks that are easier for others. Schools everywhere have been grappling with how and where to integrate AI, but many are fast-tracking applications for students with disabilities.

Getting the latest technology into the hands of students with disabilities is a priority for the U.S. Department of Education, which has told schools they should consider whether students need tools like text-to-speech and alternative communication devices. The new rules issued by the Department of Justice will also require schools and other government agencies to make applications and online content available to people with disabilities.

There is concern about how to ensure that students who use it – including people with disabilities – still learn.

Students can use AI to summarize jumbled ideas into an outline, summarize complex passages, or even translate Shakespeare into common English. Computer-generated voices that can read passages for visually impaired and dyslexic students are becoming less robotic and more natural.

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“I see a lot of students exploring on their own, and it almost feels like they’ve found a cheat code in a video game,” said Alexis Reed, an educational therapist in the Boston area who works with students with learning disabilities. Learning difficulties. But from her point of view, it is far from cheating: “We meet students where they are.”

Ben Snyder, a 14-year-old freshman from Larchmont, New York, who was recently diagnosed with a learning disability, is increasingly using artificial intelligence to help with homework.

“Sometimes, in mathematics, my teachers will explain a problem to me, but it makes no sense at all,” he said. “So, if I communicate this problem to an AI, it will give me a few different ways to explain how to do it.”

He likes a program called Question AI. Earlier in the day, he asked the software to help him write an outline for a book report — a task he completed in 15 minutes that would have otherwise taken him an hour and a half due to his struggles with writing and organization. But he believes using AI to write the entire report is crossing the line.

“That’s just cheating,” Ben said.

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Schools are trying to balance the benefits of technology against the risks that it will do too much. If the special education plan sets reading growth as a goal, the student needs to improve that skill. AI can’t do that for them, said Mary Lawson, general counsel at the Council of Greater City Schools.

But technology can help level the playing field for students with disabilities, said Paul Sanft, director of a center in Minnesota where families can try out different assistive technology tools and borrow devices.

“There are definitely going to be people who use some of these tools in nefarious ways. That’s always going to happen,” Sanft said. “But I don’t think that’s the biggest concern for people with disabilities, who are just trying to do something they couldn’t do before.”

Another risk is that AI will track students into less rigorous courses. Because it is so good at identifying patterns, AI may be able to detect that a student has a disability. Detection by AI rather than by the student or their family could create ethical dilemmas, said Luis Perez, disability and digital inclusion lead at the Center for Accessible Technology.

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Schools use technology to help students who are struggling academically, even if they do not qualify for special education services. In Iowa, a new law requires students who are considered proficient — about a quarter of them — to get an individualized reading plan. As part of that effort, the state Department of Education spent $3 million on a personalized learning program based on artificial intelligence. When students struggle, a digital avatar steps in.

More AI tools are coming soon.

The US National Science Foundation funds artificial intelligence research and development. A company is developing tools to help children with speech and language difficulties. It’s called the National Institute on Artificial Intelligence for Exceptional Education and is headquartered at the University at Buffalo, which has done pioneering work in handwriting recognition, which has helped the US Postal Service save hundreds of millions of dollars by automating processing.

“We are able to solve postal order with very high accuracy. When it comes to children’s handwriting, we are failing badly,” said Venu Govindaraju, director of the institute. He sees it as an area that needs more work, along with speech-to-text technology, which Not good at understanding children’s voices, especially if there is a speech disability.

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Sorting through the sheer number of software developed by edtech companies can be a time-consuming challenge for schools. The nonprofit launched an effort this fall to make it easier for districts to vet what they buy and make sure it’s accessible, said Richard Kolata, CEO of the International Association for Technology in Education.

McKenzie wishes some of the tools were easier to use. Sometimes, a feature will be inexplicably turned off, and you’ll be without it for a week while the tech team investigates. The challenges can be so stressful that some students resist technology altogether.

But Mackenzie’s mother, Nadine Gilkeson, who works as a technology integration supervisor at the Franklin Township Community School Corporation in Indiana, said she sees more promise than downsides.

In September, her district launched chatbots to help high school special education students. Teachers, who sometimes struggled to get students the help they needed, became emotional when they heard about the program, she said. Until now, the students have been relying on someone to help them, unable to move forward on their own.

“Now we don’t need to wait anymore,” she said.

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