1. Moving ‘Assistive’ Technology beyond a deficit model Rob Martin

2. What is Assistive Technology?
British Assistive Technology Association define AT as:
“...any product or service that maintains or improves the ability of individuals with disabilities or impairments to communicate, learn and live independent, fulfilling and productive lives”

3. What is Assistive Technology?
Could take the form of computer software
Text-to-speech (ClaroRead or TextHelp)
Speech-to-text (Dragon)
Visual planning / mindmapping (Inspiration)
Research tools (e.g. ClaroCapture or Mendeley)
Screen reading software
Or hardware/equipment:
Ergonomics
Page-turning devices
Hearing aids

4. What is Assistive Technology?
Could take the form of computer software
Text-to-speech (ClaroRead or TextHelp)
Speech-to-text (Dragon)
Visual planning / mindmapping (Inspiration)
Research tools (e.g. ClaroCapture or Mendeley)
Screen reading software
Or hardware/equipment:
Ergonomics
Page-turning devices
Hearing aids
And: Sonny the Guide Dog

5. The Assistive Tech Challenge!
Can I show you three strategies with three ‘Assistive’
Technology packages in three minutes each?

6. Current models of AT provision
Disabled Students’ Allowances
Great once you get it
Can take up to three months (or six)
Provides needs-assessed software free of charge on a new or existing computer/laptop
‘Specialist’ AT training delivered by vendors or training company, increasingly this is done via remote desktop.
Usually delivered in up to 6 x 2 hour blocks, over up to six weeks at the start of a student’s course / DSA receipt
On-site at HEIs
Free of charge
Training provided through workshops/drop-ins/1:1 tutorials but resource for 1:1 is limited
Offers the flexibility of ‘little and often’ but is often a one-person band

7. What was and what is the problem?
Considering its usefulness, low uptake / high resistance?
Teaching why, not what
Students adding images and other media themselves in my previous workshop
Labelling theory
“This technology is for disabled people”
“I am not ‘disabled,’ I’m just…”
Feeling ?unworthy of additional support
Definition of disability is vague/precise, according to the need of the definer
Fixed versus growth mindset
The outsourcing of vulnerability to ‘the disabled’ rather than acknowledging differences in every individual
Then does it become the responsibility of the disabled person to bear the weight of the vulnerability of the non-disabled?

8. So what do we do to increase engagement with at?
Disability as non-binary
At what point does a non-disabled person become disabled?
At what point does a disabled person become non-disabled?
In what world does a non-disabled person never experience a single difficulty?

9. So what do we do to increase engagement with at?
Embracing shame / removing shame from using technology
Embracing shame/ removing shame from disability
¡Contradiction klaxon!
Perhaps we are too keen to steer away from a deficit model and towards a development model…in doing so are we taking away some power from the voice of people with disabilities?
E.g…. Is it meaningful to say “Don’t worry, you’re not bad at writing essays, you just need to work on your understanding the question, gaining automaticity in breaking down the stages of research and writing, vocabulary, clarity, coherence, referencing, research process…”
Are we at risk of intellectualising and by proxy dispossessing the reality of someone’s difficulty?
By making ‘developmental’ assumptions of ability (“just work on your skills”), are we infantilising students with disabilities / all students?

10. Rebranding ‘Assistive’ Technology
Can you think of any different terms for ‘Assistive’ Technology?

11. Rebranding ‘Assistive’ Technology
Learning technology?
Study tools?
Tool kits?

12. Rebranding Assistive Technology
“Technology that means you can get stuff done quicker, better, and (potentially) in a potentially and marginally less painstaking manner”
“Thinking on paper”  Thinking on screen
Some resistance to this (including my own)

13. So what can ‘non-Assistive Technologists’ do about it?
...on an individual level?
...on an institutional level?
...on a political/social/economic level?

14. Individual level
Role modelling an approach that acknowledges the vulnerability we all experience
E.g. appropriate self-disclosure
Embracing ‘shame’ and therefore ‘de-shaming’
Connecting up with AT provision in your institution
Promoting Digital Accessibility to colleagues

15. Institutional level www.bbk.ac.uk/birkbeck-for-all
Does your institution have an Assistive Technologist?
Are there more creative ways to embed AT provision throughout your institution?
Make use of Birkbeck For All
FREE and Open Source
‘Pick and mix’ advice
Making accessible learning resources
Contact me!

16. Conclusion
Rather than thinking of a dichotomy between a deficit model and a development model… Deficit model Developmental model
Is it possible to create an entirely new perspective that honours and respects the disabling aspects of a person’s disability whilst also honouring the disabling aspects of a person’s environment…
In psychotherapy, we might call this the ‘analytic third’
I.e. not ‘just’ what the client brings (‘transference’),
not ‘just’ how the therapist responds (‘countertransference’)
But rather some entirely new creation in the space in the middle.
It is never just some of column A (individual’s disability) and column B (environment) but the dynamic interaction between the individual’s disability and the environment i.e. Column C

17. Birkbeck For All