Helping persons with disabilities to become literate using assistive technology: Practice and policy suggestions. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities

Face-to-face communication supports for persons with disabilities appear to be more readily available than the assistive technology, educational, and policy-based strategies needed to develop the written communication abilities of this population. Changes in understanding of how one becomes literate, as well as advances in assistive technology development and use, open doors to building needed supports for helping persons with disabilities to become as literate as possible. The current article summarizes and synthesizes the existing research on assisting persons with disabilities to become liter-ate, highlighting the use of assistive technology to help achieve this goal. Policy devel-opment and implementation toward this end is also discussed. The inability to communicate has been a principal factor in the lack of success in inclusive school, work, and social settings for persons with severe disabilities. An understanding of this fact as well as the development of technology to facilitate communication in those persons heretofore unable to communicate has guided public policy toward formalizing supports for com-munication development. A "backward mapping " model of policy development in which the implementation of a process at the client level generates a need for policy (Elmore, 1979/80) has resulted in federal and state legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 (IDEA) and the American