People generally have the impression that the use of electronic devices, such as tablets, television, and/or cell phones, is detrimental towards children. For example, adults in particular try to authorize limits on the amount of time their child is allowed to spend on an electronic device, as they choose to only focus on the negative effects that these devices could produce rather than any of the potential benefits. Throughout this research paper, I will be examining how different learning applications programmed on electronic devices and other forms of technology affect the learning outcomes of children. Moreover, I will be answering the following question: How has the addition of learning applications on devices and other forms of technology benefited children with disabilities in the classroom? I will be focusing on children at the elementary school level, including children with a variety of disabilities, as well as forms of technology. Ultimately, I believe that the addition of learning applications and other forms of technology have been able to increase the learning performance of children with learning disabilities, and have overall enhanced the classroom environment.

The addition of technological devices which utilize learning applications and used as other forms of learning assistance within the classroom have helped encourage the growth of learning outcomes of children with disabilities. An article written by Leila Meyer, called “4 Ways Teachers Are Learning to Use Technology to Benefit Students with Special Needs”, reveals the benefits of certain technologies within the classroom, and different ways teachers are learning how to make use of electronic devices to assist children with disabilities. This article addresses a few examples of how forms of technology have benefited children with disabilities: “Nonverbal students can communicate using augmentative and alternative communication (ACC) technology; students with physical disabilities can take advantage of special keyboards and monitors; and the accessibility features of Apple iPads and Google Apps for Education can help students with learning disabilities or other challenges.” (Meyer, pg. 20.). Over all, this article establishes a few ways technology has been used to assist children with disabilities, and also improve their learning performance.

This article analyzes how teachers are learning to utilize technological devices within their classrooms. State initiatives are one example, and have been used to provide teachers with assistive technology for their students. For example, this article showcases the PATINS Project: “…a state-wide initiative that helps K-12 schools in the State of Indiana increase accessibility of curriculum for all students. They loan assistive technology and accessible materials and provide universal design for learning (UDL) and professional development services to districts at no charge.” (Meyer, pg. 20.). This project assists teachers with new technology by providing professional development services which are available to support and demonstrate how to use each device within the classroom. Teachers are also provided with feedback by these professionals on how they could implement and improve in working with these devices, and individual  and/or group training events held by these professionals to further develop the teachers’ technology skills are also  available. This article also showcases other resources that are available for teachers who need support and/or training with new forms of technology such as social media, conferences, online training, and informal or peer training.

Technological devices and/or learning applications have also been specifically designed to cater towards a particular learning disability. For example, an academic journal written by Rabbia Tariq and Latif Seemab called “A Mobile Application to Improve Learning Performance of Dyslexic Children with Writing Difficulties,” focuses on a learning application created to help improve the learning outcomes of children with dyslexia. The statistics from this paper were derived from twenty recipients, ages five or under, and were chosen from dyslexic institutions in Pakistan. The main objective and process of this study was “to improve introductory writing skills of dyslexic children along with consistent evaluation of learning performance to highlight the weak areas of learning process.” (Tariq/Seemab, pg. 151.). This learning application would be utilized to help achieve this objective, and gather information regarding the learning performance of these children.

A “Writers Learning Algorithm (WLA) based on computational model of learning” (Tariq/Seemab, pg. 151.), was designed  to allow the learning application to perform the functions needed in order to improve the preliminary writing skills of  children with this disability. The authors express: “This component is aimed at improving a dyslexic child’s comprehension and recognition skills by implementing the re-learning mechanism which intends to repeat the same character set until it is learnt properly.” (Tariq/Seemab, pg. 159.). Thus, this learning application is then able to help achieve the main objective of this study. Overall, the paper is able to conclude that “… the impact of the developed application on children with writing differences highlighted that the usage of devised WLA served its purpose within the research scope by improving learning performance of dyslexic children, motivating them to enhance the learning growth over period of practice and eliminating   the need of any writing assistance to a large extent.” (Tariq/Seemab, pg. 165.). Ultimately it proved how the use of this learning application was able to encourage the growth and learning performance of children with this particular learning disability by creating an engaging and supportive learning environment.

Another example of a form of technology which can be used to assist children with a particular learning disability is video-based intervention. An academic journal written by Gulnoza Yakubova called “Learning with Technology: Video Modeling with Concrete-Representational-Abstract Sequencing for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” reveals how the incorporation of this video modelling technology and abstract sequencing has increased the learning performance of students with Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) within classroom environments. This paper exhibits a study that includes five elementary-level students who met the diagnostic requirements of ASD, and were selected from private education centres which cater towards students with this particular disorder. The main objective of this paper was to observe how the use of this technology was able to increase the learning performance of children with ASD in mathematics.

Ultimately the author expresses that “Students with ASD benefit from the use of technology in enhancing social, academic, employment, and independent life skills from elementary grades to adulthood in school, home, and community settings,” (Yakubova) and that the use of particular types of technology was able to help these students become more engaged with their own learning. This study uses VBI and expresses that, “…video-based intervention (VBI), has a strong impact on skill acquisition of students with ASD. VBI which includes video modeling, point-of-view video modeling, video self-modeling, and video prompting has strong evidence base of effectiveness in teaching numerous skills such as social, communication, play, adaptive, academic, and job-related skills.” (Yakubova). This study was performed over a twenty- three-day period, and practised three times a week, and data was collected from each student to then reveal if their learning performance had increased with the use of VBI technology that was programmed on iPad devices. Overall, this analysis was able to reveal that, “VBI’s that have strong evidence-base in teaching numerous skills to students with ASD, hold potential to improve students’ skill acquisition and individualize and enrich learning when combined with other teaching strategies.” (Yakubova), thus proving that different forms of learning applications and technology are able to help increase the learning performance and outcomes of children with learning disabilities.

In conclusion, throughout my research, I have been able to display how electronic learning applications and other forms of technology are beneficial towards the learning performance of children with special needs. This paper is able to showcase the benefits that forms of technology have towards the learning outcomes of students at the elementary school level and who suffer from learning disabilities. Overall it is apparent that young children can abuse their usage of electronic devices but, if used efficiently, these devices can help improve learning in students, especially those who suffer from disabilities, and also create a more enhanced learning environment.