This story was originally published by the Government Technology’s Center for Digital Education, part of an award-winning family of magazines covering information technology’s role in state and local governments, on February 16, 2021.
Long before K-12 schools moved to online remote learning last year in response to the coronavirus pandemic, education policy advocates were clamoring for ways to improve education for neurodiverse students. Concerns ranged from lack of appropriate state and federal school funding to curriculum design and everything in between.
Much of the recent discourse about ed tech has revolved around accessibility, mainly in terms of device availability and Internet connectivity. But this still leaves another obstacle — making the learning itself more accessible.
One school in Arizona set out to do just that for students with autism.
Arizona Autism Charter Schools, located in Phoenix, Ariz., had been considering how to use digital tools to make learning more accessible years before the pandemic, according to Founder and Director Diana Diaz-Harrison.