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​ = Assistive Technology Considerations for Students with Behavioral Issues = The academic and social demands of school and classroom environments place unique demands on students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Assistive technologies provide a resource that largely remains untapped in the management of behaviors. This wiki will provide strategies and tools that teachers, other school personnel and parents may use as they select from an array of assistive technologies designed to address specific learning and behavioral needs of students. In addition, we'll look at hardware and software alternatives that teachers and others who work with students with emotional and behavioral disorders may use.

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders have unique learning needs. The challenges of academic tasks are so great for them that relative to their ability, this group of individuals represents the lowest achieving of all students.

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders cope with a host of distractions and competing events. Many put considerable effort into a particular academic task (e.g., the physical process of writing, reading for comprehension, etc.) while they focus more effort on adjusting for their disability. When additional tasks are ‘piled on,’ a student’s ability to cope effectively is then compromised; frustrations and such behavior problems as off-task behavior, withdrawal, and aggression often follow. For many students with emotional and behavioral disorders, assistive technology (AT) holds the promise of reducing the effects of their disabilities (i.e., it is compensatory) and thereby allowing students to focus their ability on the specific demands of academic tasks of importance and successfully demonstrate acceptable behaviors that they could not otherwise do without the AT.

Purposes of Technology in Relation to Behavior
When considering how the teacher or the student can use AT to manage social and academic behavior in the classroom, Parette, Crowley and Wojcik recommend four primary areas for consideration. They are:
 * 1) Antecedent behaviors
 * 2) Tracking and measuring behavior
 * 3) Using self-monitoring, and
 * 4) Promoting social behavior

We will look more deeply into all 4 of these areas in this wiki. Our primary focus will be using supports **PRIOR** to a behavior to set the stage for positive behaviors and academic outcomes.

Resources used for this wiki include:

TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus, 5(1) Article 3. Retrieved 02/27/10 from []
 * Cahill, S. M. (2008). Teaching organizational skills through self-regulated learning strategies.

Elias, Maurice, Friedlander, Brian S., Tobias, Steven E. //Engaging the Resistant Child Through Computers//. Port Chester, NY: Dude Publishing, 2001**


 * Male, M. //Technology for Inclusion, 4th Edition//. Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon, 2004**


 * Parette, Jr, H.P., Crowley, E.P., Wojcik, B.W. (2007). Reducing overload in students with learning and behavioral disorders: The role of assistive technology. TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus, 4(1) Article 4. Retrieved 01/20/09 from** [|**http://escholarship.bc.edu/education/tecplus/vol4/iss1/art4**]


 * Zabala, J. (Rev 2005) //The SETT Framework//.**