PERCEPTION OF TEACHERS ON THE AVAILABILITY AND UTILIZATION OF ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR PUPILS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES IN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN IBADAN, OYO STATE
1Orim, Matthew Ashike
2Orim Samuel Orim
3Assam Andy Edim
4Udoh Idorrenyin Paulinus
1&3Institute of Special Education, Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic
2Department of Special Education, University of Calabar
4College of Post Graduates Studies, University of Calabar
1https://orcid.org/0000.0003.1871.5269
2https://orcid.org/0000.0002.7519.9435
Abstract
The use of assistive technologies is expected to provide relief, making learning easier, ensuring equal participation and reducing the level of frustration experienced by children with learning disabilities. However, in Nigeria, not all schools have adequate access to these tools which may be due to insufficient financing training or other associated reasons. This study assessed the perceived availability and utilization of assistive technology for pupils with learning disabilities in private and public schools in Ibadan, Oyo State. Two research questions were raised and answered descriptively. The study adopted descriptive research design of the ex post facto. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample 191 respondents comprising of teachers in public and private primary schools. Inventory of Assistive Technology in the Classroom (IATC) was administered to seven schools and responses were retrieved. This checklist consisted of 12 self-developed items validated with average reliability coefficients ranging from 0.87 to 0.89. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of percentages. The result showed that for the different types of assistive technologies understudied, 54% of the teachers agreed that they had computers in their schools, 27% agreed for ipads while for Mathematics, 19 % of the teachers agreed that they had talking calculators. However, no single teacher in both private and public schools agreed that they had speech synthesizers, abbreviation expanders, inspiration software, Kurzwell 3000, graphic organizers, optical character recognition and Speech-to-text devices. The analysis also revealed that assistive technologies were least utilised for reading and mathematics. Based on the findings, it was recommended that education stakeholders should commit more resources to providing assistive technologies for children with learning disabilities.
Keyword: Assistive technology, Learning Disabilities, Utilization& Availability