In the fight for equality and equitable education for special educational needs and disabled (SEND) learners there are already great success stories. Governments, institutions and groups from all over the world have used EdTech to support SEND learners in trials and real world situations.

Below, we’ve summarised some of the best examples referenced in our research papers1234.

1. Vision impairment in the UK

In 2019, the Welsh government worked with the University of Birmingham to measure effective interventions for visually impaired children and young people. 

Interventions included braille and Moon, augmented communication, and recorded materials as well as changes to the learning environment. Read the full report

2. Blindness in Lesotho

A School to School International report in collaboration with USAID found that Jot-A-Dot, a portable braille device, improved the reading of blind primary school children in Lesotho. 

‘Nearly all students in the Lesotho Literacy for Young Visually Impaired Persons project—90.5 percent—agreed or strongly agreed that the Jot-a-Dot technology improved their reading; the same proportion said they wanted to continue using the technology to learn to read.’ Read the full report

3. Learning disabilities in USA

Piloted at Harvard University, Strategic Reader helps those with cognitive disabilities by adding interactive exercises that simplify and enhance reading material. This improves learner focus, reading comprehension, and memory. 

‘73% of students said they were more aware of their reading habits. 72% said that they would apply the approaches they learned from Strategic Reader to their coursework.’ Learn more

4. Blind and low vision learners in the Philippines 

Reading Beyond Sight was a research project by USAID, World Vision and the Australian government that aimed to improve literacy for blind and low vision learners.

Using a combination of large-print, braille, and applications like Zoomtext, Duxbury Braille Translator and DAISY audio player, a control group of students were tested against a comparison group on letter sound identification, oral reading fluency and reading and listening comprehension.

‘Students in the intervention group had significantly larger gains than their peers in the comparison group on all subtasks on both the Filipino and English EGRAs… intervention group students read an average of 97.1 additional words within three minutes at endline compared with 50.7 additional words within three minutes among students in the comparison group.’ Read the full report

5. Deaf and hard of hearing students in Morocco 

The Institute for Disabilities Research and Training worked with the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Rabat to implement the Moroccan Sign Language Assistive Technology for Reading Improvement of Children who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing project.

It aimed to improve reading skills amongst deaf students by providing teachers with Moroccan Sign Language software that let them publish and print customised multimedia materials with MSL translations of written text.

‘Grade 1 students had statistically higher scores on the endline than on the baseline on the letter name identification and syllable identification subtasks. Specifically, letter name identification fluency increased from an average of 56.7 to 69.3 correct letter names signed per two minutes’ Read the full report