Frankly, from my experience, these three misconceptions are the most popular and prevalent to acknowledge challenges, hesitancy, or concerns about assistive technology (AT) before working around those limitations to including AT into any classroom seamlessly.
1. AT gives students an unfair advantage to be successful
AT provides student with disabilities an opportunity to participate in the learning process to the best of their ability by removing "barriers or road blocks" that limit their ability to do so whether it is physically, mentally, emotionally etc. The more options that AT provides a student the more beneficial it is for that students growth and opportunity for learning, employment etc into the years ahead. The students who do not "need" it or choose not to use it, are either unidentified with a learning disability, and should have the opportunity/ encouraged to use AT as well, or are able to complete a task without additional assistance/ support.
2. AT is the solution to a students learning barriers/ impairments
AT is not a solution to being an A student or understanding all the information without asking questions- the answer to a question or completion of an assignment is not done by AT alone (their is thought and effort needed to make AT work). AT cannot write or pass a test, make a timeline, draw a picture etc without direction/ original thought from the student first.
3. Students born in this digital age can teach themselves how to use their AT
Yes, 21st century learners are more comfortable and "savvy" to navigate technology than me per say. With that said, students can learn faster when taught but they cannot explore all functions of the AT without training first. Training a student on their new equipment cannot happen without trained teachers or EAs on that equipment. To encourage using the ATs tools in the classroom, students are required to know the steps to make a function (i.e. speech to text) happen. When a student is comfortable using there AT, they will often be able to share with teachers what they learned using it as they are exploring that platform/ learning aid regularly then their teacher. Skills, such as creating or using a graphic organizer digitally, is not intuitive to students just because they are born in the digital age.
As Jamie Martin in "7 Myths About Assistive Technology Explained" professes- AT cannot replace good teaching. AT is not needed for every component of any given task for all students.
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