Online learning is a practical and workable alternative for diverse learners, including students with various kinds of disabilities. Disabled students, usually shy, can find solace, convenience and much-needed privacy in attending online classes. Additionally, different assistive devices and applications can help students absorb information in an easily understandable way.
However, before a student pursues an online degree, he must consider the following pros and cons:
Pros
- Avoid Travelling
One of the unique benefits of online learning is to improve their skills from the comfort of their home.
Students with mobility challenges can’t move freely or have to negotiate in the confines of a campus classroom, especially if they study with physically fit students or those who don’t suffer from these problems. The crammed classroom setting makes it impossible to move around with wheelchairs or walking aids without hurting themselves or others.
Online learning, on the other hand, helps these students to develop their own study space and move freely in the area of their home or any place of their choice
- Voice Texts
Many cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy or Lou Gehrig’s disease patients want to acquire or increase their academic knowledge.
Unfortunately, the academic system of on-site schooling becomes a roadblock. It does not have any design or format that could assist these potential learners to control their hands and feet.
However, with online learning, students can command over the text or email using voice-activated programs like programs that promote speech recognition like Dragon Naturally Speaking. Moreover, Tobii is another helpful device that connects with the iris of the learner to issue a command to a computer system and speak on behalf of the user.
- Freedom Of Class Schedules
It is another perk of online classes. Students with physical, psychiatric, or psychological disabilities have reduced attention. Their attention span is much less than that of an ordinary human being. Even those who have post-traumatic stress disorder or cyclical mood disorders encounter a similar problem.
In the fixed schedule of institution classes, these pupils can’t focus in the 45 minutes to one-hour classes and thus understand everything taught in the class. Whereas online courses give them the flexibility to chart out their time for study as per their receptivity fluctuations
- Avoid Social Interactions
People who suffer from Asperger’s syndrome and other autism spectrum disorders, struggle to be a part of society, or feel socially awkward can avoid the large classroom setting and work in known comfortable settings just like their home and you should know How To Make Your Home Environmentally Friendly
Additionally, the facility to communicate via forums and social media reduces the stress of interacting with other students who don’t feel comfortable speaking in front of a crowd of strangers or need time to collect their thoughts.
- Free From Time Pressure
Students with ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia; visual processing disorder; or dysgraphia have learning disabilities. As a result, they can’t handle the pressure that arises from time, stress and aural or visual over stimulus and distractions of the traditional classroom.
As these students study from home, they can go at their own pace, rehash the information the number of times they want, and control the digital text to process information. Moreover, the subtitled information in lectures, communication through digital texts and forums open paths for a student with hearing disabilities.
- Help Blind Students To Attend Lectures
Traditional classrooms use the blackboard, screen and other similar devices to offer lectures. Students with low vision or blindness can’t understand the descriptions,lessons displayed or help with assignment
. Reading what’s written on the board is impossible for them. In contrast, in online classes, these vision challenged people can be a part of the lectures via hand-held digital voice recorders and note-taking apps like AudioNote. Additionally, various screen reader software like the open-source NVDA and JAWS, or Job Access with Speech, provides a text-to-speech output or a Braille display.
Cons
Unfortunately, all is not bright for online classes. Students with difficulties do face some hurdles with online learning
- Accommodation Problems
Some online courses offer to study at home lectures, but students must appear at the desired centre for exams. They must report to the exam authorities beforehand and send a letter stating their condition to make unique accommodation. Unfortunately, many centres don’t bother to answer them, or if they do, it’s a matter of a long wait.
- Content Navigation
The online programs based on digital platforms often presume that students can navigate the content independently. Unfortunately, these learning management systems pose adversities to pupils with mobility and cognitive disorders or impairments.
- E-Text Inaccessibility
It is a grave concern that most technologies are built for physically and mentally sound people rather than those who slog. That’s why most of the e-texts available in the online courses are not user friendly to the keyboards used by the human with visual, motor or physical or sensory limitations. For example, students who suffer from motor neuron disease but have sharp visuals can suffer when pop-ups and overlays appear while web browsing. Likewise, students with photosensitive epilepsy may have seizures with flashing lights or images.
- Challenges For Colour-Blind Students
You may never categorise colour blind people with disabilities, but these people also suffer from online learning. Low vision or colour blind people can’t detect the colours, fonts and format of texts, especially if they appear red, blue or green. In powerful e-learning content that enhances e-texts like videos and graphics, students often have to click on different parts. It can be challenging for those with visual challenges, and in extreme cases, these students do surrender, unable to continue with it.
- Can’t Detect Non Verbalized Actions
In video-based information, disabled students may not recognize every non verbalize action, and captions displayed can’t tell the whole story. Imagine, for example, that people talk at a speed of 150 words per minute. So even if every caption is 99 per cent correct, it means that three words are inaccurate every two minutes, or 15 wrong words per 10-minute video.
unavailability of high bandwidth audio tools.
Visual equipment like screen readers and audio transcribers may require higher bandwidth than students may not have at home. Punctuations usually are inconsistent from one screen reader to another, and not all marks translate. And keeping pace with improvements means regularly updating software, which can be costly with specialist screen readers.
Parting Thoughts
Creating a personalised learning experience is essential in making education easier for anyone who has a disability. Offering face-to-face interaction and online learning environments are vital options. The Disabled Studies Quarterly confirms that multiple trials indicate that blended learning environments and flexible schedules can be conducive for disabled students. It may even help them learn and achieve higher results. Schools and higher education institutions that use these learning platforms in blended environments enhance educational possibilities for people with disabilities.
Author Bio: Rose Haughes is a special education teacher of a reputed school in London. At Myassignmenthelp.com, she is an esteemed advisor helping academic help experts like students seeking for MBA Essay help design the assignments to make them accessible for physically and psychologically impaired students.