JSET ejournal
Page 2 -- Improved Learning Opportunities
Barriers to Access and Learning
Anyone who visits schools on a regular basis will easily
discover barriers to access, understanding, skill development,
strategy development, and performance. In many schools, the role
of the special educator is to develop and help implement various
accommodations and modifications to the curriculum to reduce
its barriers so that it will better fit the needs of individual
students. This is not to say that these barriers impede learning
and progress for the majority of students. Nor is it implied
that the barriers were erected with the purpose of doing harm
to children and adolescence.
Other barriers are relatively new. Most new technologies that
have been introduced to schools within the past 25 years lack
the features that would make them usable by all students, especially
those with sensory, cognitive, and physical disabilities. For
example, the content of the World Wide Web is used more and more
each day by educators and students, and it contains significant
barriers even though most current browsers have been designed
to be reasonably accessible. For the World Wide Web to be truly
usable by all, the physical computer, the operating system, the
browser, and the content that the browser renders must be designed
to be accessible to all, right from the start.
Additional barriers exist outside of the school itself. Present
policies and procedures for developing and obtaining materials
appropriate for use by all students are archaic and inefficient.
For example, publishers are just beginning to consider the manufacture
and distribution of accessible digital versions directly to students
in much the same way they do their print versions. At the present
time they must depend upon independent third parties to render
the printed books accessible. The current process ensures that
there are no financial incentives to the publisher for facilitating
the process of getting materials to students who need them, or
for improving the quality of their original materials for students
with disabilities.
Schools cannot get accessible versions of their curricular
materials from the same sources as they obtain their regular
materials. Instead, they must turn to other agencies and organizations
that specialize in re-publishing accessible versions, or they
must create them themselves. This process imposes a delay that
results in materials arriving late, if at all, in classrooms.
Even when available, educators struggle to use accessible digital
versions due to complexities in formats and technologies. One
approach for educators is to determine a format that is appropriate
for the student(s) and compatible with the existing classroom
technology and then find a vendor that can supply it. Or, educators
can accept the format provided to them, adapt their classroom
technologies to that format, and then find training in how to
use it effectively within their classrooms. Either of these is
unnecessarily complicated, adds to the delay in delivery, and
diminishes the quality of the content.
Some barriers have existed for so long, that most educators no
longer even see them. Further, some educators have grown accustomed
to viewing many barriers as obstacles to be overcome by those
who are willing to try just a little harder. Unfortunately, many
educators fail to see the difference between the types of learning
challenges that improve learning opportunities for most learners
while serving as significant barriers to learning and performance
for so many others.
Defining the Problem
In addition to problems with educational materials, current
thought about the purpose of special education may need to change.
Traditional special education was designed to provide specialized
educational services to achieve what too often was a set of goals
that differed from those of general education. Today, special
education services align the skills and abilities of students
whom are perceived to be different than most learners within
the existing general education curriculum. The student is at
the center of defining the problem, although it is becoming apparent
that the barriers that exist within the general education curriculum
itself are what need to be examined and minimized (Hitchcock,
Meyer, Rose & Jackson, 2002). To achieve this goal, materials,
methods, and assessments must be designed from the start to be
flexible and supportive of diverse styles and abilities.
