‘She became this liaison’. Perspectives of a preschool community on coaches as brokers of assistive technology access, communication and support for teachers and caregivers of children with disabilities

ABSTRACT

While AT has been well-documented as a valuable support for disabled and nondisabled children across developmental domains and settings, several barriers to access and implementation persist. Studies have described heightened barriers for community-based preschools, whose access to AT professional development, AT resources, and practitioners with AT experience may be limited. Researchers in this qualitative inquiry engaged twenty-seven participants (teachers, teacher assistants, caregivers and administrators) to learn about their experiences of an AT intervention programme over a 2-year period. Using Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology, we analysed data from focus groups and semi-structured interviews, generating five themes. Members of the school community valued the programme’s AT coaches, whose presence, affective style and actions promoted their confidence using AT. While the COVID-19 pandemic impacted both programme delivery and participants’ experiences, the programme and its coaches helped bolster technology and communication access in unanticipated ways. Insights from this inquiry emphasise the important, yet often understated role of building relationships with all participants when delivering community-based preschool interventions, invaluable in meeting the holistic needs of children, as well as the practitioners and families who support them. Notably, AT coaches were perceived as liaisons, building rapport, providing technical assistance, and sustaining connections within a school learning community.

KEYWORDS:

• Communities
• coaches
• assistive technology
• COVID-19
• qualitative methodology

Introduction

Acknowledging how opportunities for assistive technology (AT) professional development (PD), implementation and resources in community-based early childhood schools are often missed, we present our research findings from a qualitative inquiry to illuminate multiple perspectives on how an AT intervention addressed the needs of school personnel, caregivers and children with disabilities across school and home learning contexts. While a strong foundation in early literacy has been a hallmark for future academic success in young children, studies have also highlighted the need for exposure to high-quality teaching and resources in order to bolster emergent literacy skills, especially for children with disabilities (Browder et al. 2012; Okolo and Diedrich 2014; Walker et al. 2020). In addition to the literacy foundations, research in early childhood development has also supported the need to address all aspects of child development in the early childhood environment, including social emotional learning, communication and independence (Bruder et al. 2021).

Research and policy have long recognised AT as a support to help children with disabilities across a range of learning and developmental outcomes. There is promising evidence, for example, that AT that improves emergent literacy for children with disabilities, while supporting other aspects of early learning and development as behaviour, transitions and play (Burne et al. 2011; Dunst, Trivette, and Hamby 2012; Jones et al. 2021; Natale et al. 2020). Secondly, the policy provisions through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) mandate that practitioners and school teams consider AT to support children with disabilities. While interventions have been designed in order to promote the uptake and implementation of AT, a number of studies have also noted the divide between research, policy and implementation in early childhood settings (Dunst, Trivette, and Hamby 2012; Quinn et al. 2009; RESNA 2021).

Several researchers have highlighted the gaps in access to PD opportunities for early childhood educators to support young children with AT (Burne et al. 2011; Karlsson, Johnston, and Barker 2018 Okolo and Diedrich 2014). Implications from several research studies have underscored the need for a range of expertise and skills to address learning and developmental outcomes in the early childhood environments, which make providing effective PD for AT that much more critical (Chazin et al. 2018). One striking phenomenon, however, is that fewer opportunities for PD for AT have been found in early childhood settings in communities with fewer economic investments, despite the fact that these schools often support a range of students with disabilities, serve culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students and their families, and are taught by CLD educators and teacher assistants (TAs) (Mason-Williams 2015; Ocasio-Stoutenburg et al. 2023; Tyler et al. 2004). Scholars have also described a clear connection between fewer PD opportunities and AT underuse in schools, which compromise the support that children with disabilities are entitled to receive under IDEA (Dunst, Trivette, and Hamby 2012; Quinn et al. 2009; Schladant et al. 2023). Moreover, although a considerable number of studies in special education and AT literature have emphasised the need for culturally relevant and sustaining practices, many interventions continue to be decontextualised, contributing to AT underuse and abandonment (Binger et al. 2008; Mertala 2019; Ripat and Woodgate 2011).

Collaborative learning and practice for AT

Considering the aforementioned challenges, there is promising evidence that investing in PD for AT has had a positive impact on AT implementation in inclusive settings, as it builds the capacity of emergent AT practitioners (Bruder, Lutz, and Ferreira 2021; Soukakou et al. 2014). Researchers have reported how AT coaches have played an integral role in delivering AT PD, by providing continuous, hands-on guidance and feedback to school personnel (Casey and McWilliam 2011; Chazin et al. 2018; Snyder et al. 2018). Studies have also underscored coaches’ contributions towards building a culturally and linguistically diverse Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) workforce with AT expertise (Schladant et al. 2023). The value of cultural and linguistic congruence between practitioners, students and communities has been demonstrated throughout decades of scholarship, as they bring innumerable strengths and assets to the classroom, while also brokering the learning contexts (Clewell and Villegas 1998; Ocasio-Stoutenburg et al. 2023; Sakash and Chou 2007; Souto-Manning 2019).

Furthering support for building a strong educator workforce to support AT uptake and implementation, research has also noted the vital role of teaching assistants (TAs) in early childhood learning environments. While TAs typically do not receive PD through the same pathways that teachers do, studies have highlighted the effectiveness of designing interventions that include TAs in training and practice. Bingham, Spooner, and Browder (2007), for example, emphasised that TAs be included in training alongside teachers, as they provide hands-on support to children with disabilities throughout the school day.

Finally, garnering perspectives from key individuals has been a valuable tool for designing interventions and developing future iterations. Families, for example, are essential collaborators in AT decision-making. Studies across two decades have evidenced the importance of gathering input on AT from families prior to AT device selection and implementation in order to assess the relevance to the family and community (Kulkarni and Parmar 2017; Parette, Huer, and Hourcade 2003). Community and family-centred approaches such as this not only support buy-in for AT, but also inform the appropriateness of the device, promote sustainability in implementation, and foster a positive relationship between practitioners and families (Dunst 2002; Judge 2002).

The Step Up AT intervention

For over six years, The Step Up AT for Early Literacy Intervention has served preschool children and their personnel across two of the largest districts in the United States. Developing community partnerships and building rapport with local preschool administrators informed the two-year, iteratively developed pilot phase, followed by a two-year randomised control trial (RCT) phase (Natale et al. 2020). This paper focuses on the findings from qualitative data collected among the implementation schools of the RCT phase years, which will be referred to as Year 1 and Year 2. The findings from the quantitative analyses for these years are reported in other publications (Ocasio-Stoutenburg et al. 2023; Schladant et al. 2023).

Step Up AT integrates high-leverage AT early childhood teaching practices (DEC 2014) with an online toolkit in order to provide classroom practitioners (teachers and TAs) with the needed support and resources to become effective implementers of AT for preschool children with disabilities, for both inclusive and specialised settings. Three key features comprise the core of the program: (a) continuous coaching support of practitioners’ AT use through observation, debriefing, feedback and reflection, (b) alignment of AT plans with teachers goals, as well as guided, individual assessments of the student needs; and (c) access to AT resources through the state’s AT programme lending library, as well as multimedia resources for the educators, students and their caregivers. During the coaching sessions, practitioners are introduced to new AT strategies, while being given opportunities to practice skills in the classroom with coaching guidance and feedback. Other features of the programme include self-paced learning modules to allow for anytime access and hybrid-based, virtual coaching so that participants can engage and upload videos at convenient times. Finally, the modules and materials were redeveloped for Years 1 and 2 for cultural responsiveness, using the Ecological Validity Framework developed by Bernal, Bonilla, and Bellido (1995). Further discussion on the development of this programme’s cultural responsiveness for personnel, materials and delivery are described in a separate publication (Ocasio-Stoutenburg et al. 2023).

COVID-19: the shift for Year 2

The SARS-2-Cov pandemic, also known as COVID-19, introduced several complex issues across life domains, including health, the workforce and education (Aishworiya and Kang 2021; Bruder et al. 2021; Hughes and Anderson 2020). During Year 2, the shelter-in-place orders and shift to remote learning also forced changes in programme delivery. One such result was the advent of fully virtual coaching for teachers at the intervention level, mirroring the virtual learning at the instructional level for children. Finally, while caregivers had the opportunity to enter the classroom and observe their children using AT in Year 1, the COVID-19 restrictions prevented this engagement in Year 2. All caregiver workshops were held through the Zoom™ platform.

Research questions

In order to improve the programme for subsequent years, it was important to garner the perspectives of multiple persons invested in the AT intervention to support children in the classroom. We frame these individuals as members of a learning community, which includes instructional staff (teachers and TAs), administrators and caregivers who comprise the school community. Our goal was to explore the perceived impact of the programme, while also understanding their experiences, as they engaged with the programme from multiple standpoints. We asked the following research questions:

RQ1: How did teachers, TA’s, administrators, and caregivers perceive the impact of the Step Up AT program on their own AT knowledge and implementation? What were their experiences?

RQ2: How did teachers, TA’s, administrators, and caregivers perceive the impact of the Step Up AT program on children’s use of AT? What were their impressions of the children’s use of AT across contexts?

Materials and methods

This inquiry is part of a more extensive study examining the impact of the Step Up AT programme on the participating schools. This study focuses on the qualitative investigation of the intervention schools across a two-year period. In the following section, we will describe the paradigms, framework, contributors, procedures and modes of data collection.

Paradigmatic influences, positionalities and framework

One of the hallmarks of qualitative methodology is the researcher’s foregrounding of their own assumptions and paradigms that inform the selection of methodological approaches and interpretive frameworks. We emphasise that the authors on this paper represent different fields and orientations to supporting young children with assistive technology, including special education, psychology, public health, education evaluation and speech language pathology. Additionally, we note that qualitative methods are not value-free, in that the researchers’ differing paradigms, identities and positionalities all influence the queries, tools and interpretations (Brantlinger et al. 2005). The qualitative researchers on the team hold worldviews that posit reality as a confluence of multiple social realities and member contributions (Lincoln, Lynham, and Guba 2011). Ontologically, these researchers placed a high value on the insights gained from multiple constructed understandings, social contexts and experiences of the programme participants (Charmaz 2014). To that end, we applied the framework of Responsive Evaluation (Stake 2010) to garner both formative and summative information about the intervention as perceived by the participants. Responsive evaluation was purposely selected for how it assesses the quality of programmes and practices, to prioritise meaning, context, culture, as well as the concerns and experiences of participants (Stake 1983).

Undoubtedly, this framework helped to meet an evaluative purpose by using the feedback of the participants to inform future iterations of the intervention while also shedding light on the overarching social inequities that manifest in differences in power, access and lived experiences (Patton 2014). We would be remiss, however, if we were not explicit on how this was influenced by the researcher identities, positionalities, and positionings in the academy. Thus, we go beyond making a flat, disconnected positionality statement, towards also examining the impact of our identities and academic positionings on the work that we do (Harry 1996). As noted by Boveda and Annamma (2023), the demand for positionality statements in qualitative studies needs ‘robust conceptions of their function beyond rhetorical moves that center researchers’ (312). For example, the first author, a Black Latina special education scholar draws from a Black feminist epistemological stance and lens of intersectionality, which centres the voices of people who are racially, ethnically and socioeconomically minoritised as essential contributors of knowledge (Collins 1990). As another example, the second author, a white woman and public health researcher contributed to overarching and systemic inequities that are often overlooked in intervention research. Because this study included caregivers who identified as Black, Indigenous and Latina mothers of children with disabilities or developmental delays with varying support needs, as well as Latina teachers and teacher aides at community schools we were particularly emphatic about their voices being centred in this manuscript. Quite often, individuals who are experiencing multiple marginalisations are extracted from by researchers and interventionists rather than valued for their critical insights (Klingner and Edwards 2006; Ripat and Woodgate 2011).

Participants and setting

A total of four preschools were included in this study across the two-year period. These schools were specialised, community-based preschools, located in two adjacent counties in the southeastern region of the United States. The community-based preschools in this study were distinguished from the district’s public preschools by their source of funding, which ultimately impacted the funding streams for AT. Whereas district schools having direct access to an AT specialist, services, materials and/or a team, by contrast, the community-based preschools who served as the participants in this study received their AT support indirectly through our intervention and its resources. Children’s eligibility for participating in the programme was guided by the following criteria: (a) 3–5 years of age, (b) enrolled in the preschools enrolled in our study, (c) having a documented disability or developmental delay and (d) qualifying for services under IDEA Part B, with or without an Individualised Educational Plan (IEP). See Table 1 for a further description of programme participants.

Table 1. Study participation, Years 1 and 2 intervention schools.

Participants	Year 1	Year 2
Teachers and Teacher Assistants	15	28
Children	50	29
Centres	2	2

*Centres are community-based specialised preschools.

AT coaches who delivered the intervention at the school level had graduate level degrees in education as well as specialised AT training. In addition, the three coaches were Latina women, bicultural and bilingual speakers of Spanish and English languages. This was a purposeful and essential qualification of the programme in responding to and sustaining the culture of the school community members and practitioners (Ocasio-Stoutenburg et al. 2023). Consent documentation was developed by the research team and approved through the university’s institutional review board (IRB). All participants submitted their consents to participate in the programme prior to the implementation for both years, with caregivers providing consents on behalf of their children.

Procedures

AT assessment

AT considerations for the children enrolled in the programme was based on the Student Environment Task Tool Framework (SETT) (Zabala 1995), in which both the teacher and coach determined the student (need), environmental supports, task to be supported and the appropriate tool. The SETT framework has been utilised as a guidepost for AT practitioners, incorporating student-centred learning and developmental skills inside and outside of the classroom.

Programme implementation

The first step of the PD model included dyads of teachers and TAs receiving the intervention simultaneously, through the Step Up AT (a) coaches, (b) programme materials and (c) online modules. After enhancing their knowledge about AT, the teachers and coaches selected the appropriate tools for the classroom as well as the children participating in the programme. Finally, with AT coaches scaffolding support using practice-based coaching strategies, the teachers and TAs implemented AT in the classroom with the children. In the first half of Year 2, AT coaches used direct instruction and continuous feedback to support teachers, TAs, and families in person, shifting completely to virtual delivery in the latter part of the school year.

Engaging caregivers

Caregivers is a broad term used in this study to include both parents and primary guardians of the children enrolled in the study. Caregiver engagement was a priority expressed by both the participating school personnel and the research team during the planning of the intervention and prior to delivery. As such, in Year 1, caregivers were invited to the school to participate in AT in-person workshops led by the AT coaches. Coaches were able to provide AT information, while also demonstrating the AT tools and strategies families could work on at home. Simultaneously, caregivers had the opportunity to observe their children using AT in the classroom. A second method for promoting caregiver engagement was the use of the Home-School Connection, a document outlining the AT tools, goals and progress specific to each child. The Home-School Connection also served as a two-way communication between caregivers and school personnel.

Lending library access

Upon enrolment in the programme and selection of appropriate tools, the preschool team and caregivers were granted access to an AT lending library. The lending library was a key feature of the programme connected with the statewide AT centres, which provided access to AT resources for the wider community. This feature of the programme enabled participants to access AT resources beyond the selected classroom tools.

Data collection

Qualitative data were collected in order to examine how participants perceived and experienced the programme, as well as their impressions of the children’s progress. A study protocol and corresponding and consenting documentation was developed by the research team and then approved by the university institutional review board (IRB). These outlined expectations for engagement, data collected, procedures, risks and assurances of anonymity. A total of six focus groups and two individualised interview sessions were conducted at the conclusion of the programmes in both years, where teachers, TAs, administrators and caregivers of children enrolled in the programme provided their reflections. See Table 2 for the participants in interviews and focus groups. Given the scheduling challenges at the close of the school year, participants who were not able to attend the focus group sessions offered their participation in individual interviews. All sessions followed the same semi-structured interview format using an interview guide with open-ended, non-dichotomous questions (Patton 2014). Focus groups and interviews were conducted virtually at the close of both years via the Zoom™ platform. Participants were asked about their experiences of the programme, existing barriers or challenges to implementation, and recommendations for improvement. The interview guide featured six main questions with probing questions for further elaboration. In questions about barriers experienced by participants, for example, the facilitator would probe further, asking, ‘How then, did you overcome those barriers, if at all?’ The same protocol was utilised for all participants (teachers and TAs, caregivers) with slight modifications to the items according to their role. See Appendix 1 for the interview guide.

Table 2. Participants across Years 1 and 2.

Data source	Focus group	Interview	Centre	Year	Year 2	N	Time (minutes)
1	x		A	Teacher, Teacher Assistants, Centre Director		3	65
2	x		B	Teachers		2	53
3	x		B	Teacher Assistants		3	13
4	x		B	Parents/Caregivers		5	43
5		x	B	Parent/Caregiver		1	20
6	x		C		Teachers	3	52
7	x		D		Teachers	6	50
8	x		D		Parents/Caregivers	4	52
Total Participants						27

Note: Centres are community-based specialised preschools. N denotes number of participants per focus group or interview.

Data analysis

Focus group sessions and interviews were recorded and transcribed using an online service, quality checked independently by two team members. Data analysis followed the model of Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology (CGTM) developed by Kathy Charmaz (2014). Building upon classical grounded theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss 1967), CGTM seeks to develop theory through the lens of the participants, their interpretation of events, experiences, and interactions, rather than a deductive, prescribed set of codes. Employing CGTM involved a systematic, inductive process of moving open codes sequentially into focused codes, families, conceptual categories and ultimately into the development of themes (Charmaz 2014). To develop a consensus around coding, members of the research team engaged in an initial round of collaborative open coding of a few transcripts using. Sticking close to the data from the focus groups and interviews, researchers then engaged in iterative inductive processes towards the emergence and construction of representative categories, consistent with CGTM (Charmaz 2014). We triangulated these nascent thematic categories with the researchers’ analytical memos in an iterative process consistent with a constant comparison methodology (Strauss and Corbin 1997). Triangulating across a variety of sources of qualitative data, as well as the representative voices of the participants helped to substantiate our own interpretations within the participants’ experiences (Patton 2014). Themes were developed and refined during frequent debriefing meetings among members of the qualitative team using a method of constant comparison, until theoretical saturation was reached. This supported investigator and theoretical triangulation, supporting the credibility of the study (Brantlinger et al. 2005).

Results

We constructed several thematic statements that captured the essential concepts from the researchers’ analysis, grounded within the qualitative data sources. The five themes and subthemes are listed and are described in the paragraphs below: 1) Shifting Practitioner Perspectives (2) Responding to Diverse Support Needs, (3) Developing AT Leadership, (4) Brokering Access to Resources, Context, and Communication and (5) Perceiving COVID-19 as a Magnifier and a Bridge.

Shifting practitioner perspectives

This theme described practitioner and caregiver perceptions about AT, which seemed to follow a progression from apprehension into greater comfort, and then into confidence. These shifts are reflected in the sub themes below, as well as their views on the instrumental role of the coaches during these processes.

Stepping beyond the ‘discomfort zone’

While teachers, TAs, and caregivers reported some degree of exposure to AT, they also expressed initial fear and apprehension about its use. Concerns ranged from having limited or adverse past experiences with AT, feeling overwhelmed by the number of existing AT tools, to questioning the appropriateness for the classroom. One teacher expressed some initial concerns specific to the students in her classroom, sharing, ‘At the beginning, when I had the most difficult and challenging behaviours, I really refused to have a very expensive device in the classroom because it was going to fly away like just like anything else’. (Teacher 6, Centre D).

What seemed to then shift the participants’ perspectives, however, was how AT coaches were able to streamline the wide array of AT resources into something useful for their children, while also providing demonstrations on their specific purpose. Participants recalled how coaches collaborated with teachers to select AT options specific to the context and needs of the child. Several teachers in Year 1 referred to the coaches as AT experts, as one teacher explained how they ‘brought something else to the table’, (Teacher 1, Centre A), valuing how useful and practical the recommendations were. One teacher in Year 2 described how the coach’s flexibility actually supported her growing interest in AT, ‘She was very flexible and like I said, for somebody who was not motivated to do this at the beginning’ (Teacher 1, Centre C). A teacher in Year 2 expressed, ‘Sometimes when you’re like searching and searching … there’s so many out there … the ones that [the coach] had suggested was really helpful’ (Teacher 4, Centre D).

Caregivers echoed teachers’ appreciation of the AT expertise the coaches shared, as well as the responsiveness to their needs. Caregivers emphasised how important this was to help bypass the process of searching through a multitude of AT resources, given their time and employment demands. One caregiver interviewed in Year 1 expressed how particularly helpful streamlining AT resources for parents of children with disabilities was, noting, ‘When you're in the special needs community, it's very hard to find … resources like that … you have a child that has special needs, they need additional help, and you don't know where to go or what way’ (Caregiver 1, Centre A).

Increasing AT comfort level

Participants described the transition from going beyond mere AT knowledge acquisition towards feeling great comfort with implementation. This phenomenon was reported across a range of children’s needs, in both classroom and home contexts. For teachers and teacher assistants, witnessing how coaches integrated AT throughout classroom activities also helped to boost their AT comfort levels. One teacher in Year 2 described how her perspective of AT changed as she moved from the role of TA to teacher, by better understanding its purpose:

Some tools that I didn't know, seeing them from the TA side, now I'm looking at them a different way. Now I know how to use them for this purpose, rather than that purpose. And one thing that really sticks out at me was the ability to [use it for] everything (Teacher 2, Centre D).

Caregivers also shared these reflections, as the coach-led workshops provided them with practical uses for AT in the home. One caregiver from Year 1 expressed how watching the videos of coaches working with children helped her to relate AT to the home context:

It was like she was working with other kids … so you saw it in actual practice. It wasn’t just someone telling you, “Oh, you should do this, you should do that.” No, it was actually seeing them with a child in a classroom … doing stuff … I think that made it more relatable (Caregiver 1, Centre A).

Similarly, a caregiver in Year 2 expressed appreciation for being empowered to create something themselves instead of merely watching AT demonstrations:

I think it was [coach’s name]– she gave us a bunch of different little books that we can like take Velcro and be able to paste different pictures with the writing and stuff like that. That's definitely been a huge help with him because now he can tell what item it is that goes with the wheels on the bus … now he points to certain things when I read to him so it's been a huge positive (Caregiver 1, Centre D).

Reaching AT confidence

As a final subtheme in the Shifting Perceptions theme, participants expressed their improved confidence using AT, advocating for AT, and making recommendations. Reflecting on their professional practices, teachers shared how the exposure to coaching and hands-on experience boosted their confidence supporting children with disabilities with AT. A teacher in Year 1 shared how the coach helped her to overcome her fears and build confidence by matching IEP goals with AT goal setting across activities:

I think that now we are more comfortable, integrating that part of the IEP … at the beginning … we were looking [at] … what the child needs and based on that we propose, our goals … through the year. But now, [coach name] … she was reading the [IEP] goals and she said, “Okay, look at this goal … it doesn't have to be just in literacy time” … I think that was really helpful for us (Teacher 1, Centre A).

Participants also made a connection between AT implementation and being able to advocate for AT in various ways. One teacher in Year 1 shared how several parents had begun to advocate for AT for their children, noting, ‘We definitely had a lot of parents requesting more changes, like more communication devices, on their IEP. Like they wanted it on their IEP’ (Teacher 1, Centre A). While teachers and TAs were learning how to implement AT, caregivers were seeking AT devices from the lending library to match what their children were successfully using in the classroom. Another Year 1 teacher explained how this was the result of the overall increased communication and transparency among coaches, school personnel and caregivers, ‘[Coach name] was there, showing them the … communication device that they were using and the toys that they were using … they illustrate[d] to their parents what happened in a session' (Teacher, Centre B).

One phenomenon expressed as a result of the intervention was how advocacy extended beyond the tools, towards students’ strengths. One salient example of this was expressed by a Year 1 teacher, who explained to us how the caregivers often gravitated towards high-tech devices immediately, assuming they were better. Instead of discouraging families, she shared how she would explain how AT was used to support children’s progress, highlighting children’s emerging skills:

They have to feel comfortable asking you and you have to know how to respond to them … every child is different … eventually he's gonna do it, but he has to transition from different things. So that's the purpose of assistive technology. Okay, he's not writing his name using a pencil or paper, but he's writing his name, with a finger or with shaving cream … no, he is not reading. But he is writing now, the letters in a book, or he is pointing to the picture. And that's part of the process (Teacher, Centre B).

Responding to diverse support needs

This theme reflected the participants’ views on how the programme responded to the needs of the school context, while also meeting the needs of the children, teachers, TAs and families. While many of the provisions were features of the programme, this theme also underscored the critical roles of coaches as facilitators of that responsiveness, across a range of needs.

Responding to culture and language

As aforementioned, many of the students, families and practitioners were emergent bilingual speakers of Spanish language. Participants shared how valuable it was to have bilingual and bicultural AT coaches on the team, for communication with members of the school community as well as the linguistically responsiveness in providing AT materials in Spanish. Not only were the coaches’ bicultural and bilingual fluencies promoting the accessibility to AT, but their engagement also strengthened communication and rapport between the school personnel and the caregivers, as explained by the centre director Year 1:

We had parents that if there was an issue, they started calling [coach name], and going to her … the Spanish speaking … it's a big deal and [they] at least felt comfortable with someone that speaks their language that they can communicate well with (Centre Director, Centre A).

Teachers also added how linguistic support could be a point for expansion to reach Creole-speaking caregivers, who expressed their interest in AT after observing the AT use among other children in the classroom, particularly for caregivers of children who didn’t use expressive language:

One of my Creole parents was like really into the AT and she wanted more stuff in Creole … since that's our population at our school … if you could provide information in Creole, that would be great … the parents know that their kids are to a degree, nonverbal, they [need] as much as possible to translate that information to them in their language (Teacher 4, Centre A).

Responding to children’s support needs

Participants also discussed the coaches’ responsiveness to children’s multiple and/or varying needs for support. While the programme targeted early literacy activities, participants described the provision of AT support for behaviour support, communication through AAC, and classroom transitions throughout the school day. One teacher in Year 2 explained just how the tools helped support student behaviours:

My class is a behavior intensive classroom. So for some of them … making her schedule a visual schedule on the iPad was very successful because they love technology and they love the iPad. But then I was able to pair that you know with something else to positively reinforce on the behaviors that I wanted (Teacher 2, Centre C).

Teachers also spoke extensively about how coaches helped them to integrate AT to transition from large group to small group activities. Teachers and TAs cited the AT coaches’ modelling of AT differentiation as supportive of their own implementation, which had positive impacts on children inside and outside of the classroom. One teacher in Year 1 shared a very touching testimony about changes she observed in the children after using AT resources to support their play:

The [lending] library, that has been amazing because we don't have any switch toys here … being able to borrow those … seeing the kids engage with them and actually like participate, even if it's just touching it … I'm getting like goosebumps. It was huge for me, … some of these kids … you get nothing out of them for like the longest time and then you see them actually like smile for something (Teacher 1, Centre A).

Developing AT leadership

TAs were a critical part of the learning cohort in Year 1, coached directly alongside their classroom teachers. Teachers reflected upon the challenges of traditional professional development without TA training, as the newly acquired strategies and information would be ‘stuck’ at the teacher level without extending to the TAs who could support implementation. Additionally, due to time constraints, the teachers could also not pass along what they had learned, as a teacher commented, ‘[there is] no time for us to train our TA’ (Teacher 6, Centre D). A TA in Year 1 echoed this problem of having to receive training indirectly, ‘Maybe this teacher teach you [and you] have some knowledge– but young assistants, no’ (Teacher Assistant 1, Centre A).

With the introduction to the intervention, however, TAs valued having both asynchronous and live access to coaching, including videos where coaches ‘modeled’ AT activities with the children. Direct coaching support was also highly valued, as one TA in Year 1 shared, ‘I like it. The instruction and really, we love [AT Coach] … teaching us how … doing all the activities … she [takes] her time to explain to us’. (Teacher Assistant 2, Centre A). Although some TAs were just being introduced to AT for the first time, they were highly engaged in learning more about it, finding the materials and concepts ‘easy’ to learn. TAs also discussed how because coaches provided them with module access codes, this allowed for AT learning outside of classroom time. The director of preschool Centre A in Year 1 took particular notice of this phenomenon, how ‘without prompting’, the TAs were taking the initiative to learn more about AT.

Participants were also explicit about how TAs receiving direct coaching in AT led to the creation of multiple AT workstations, where TAs could be ‘hands-on’ with the children and lead centres supported by the AT tools and devices. TAs commented on the children’s increased engagement with AT supports, which in turn had an impact on their interest in literacy activities. In Year 1, for example, a TA from Centre B described the impact of using a mid-tech device outside of the designated reading activity, noting, ‘[iTalk 2] made them more engaged … they would go to it during planning time, and they would want to play with it … take it to the book area’. Similar to the teachers’ reflections, TAs also described their own increased confidence using AT to meet children’s specific needs, as reflected in a commentary by a TA in Year 1, ‘I think it was positive … the practice, [to] work with kids and see what he has, see how to use the AT’ (Teacher Assistant 2, Centre A).

Receiving AT training from coaches was not only appreciated by the TAs but also by the teachers, who felt they were no longer engaged in a ‘battle’ in the classroom, trying to provide support alone to children’s varying and complex support needs. Teachers were confident in TAs skills, whom some described as often ‘knowing the children better than we do’.

Brokering access to resources, context, and communication

An inventory of the classroom resources, followed by a discussion of school-level challenges was taken at the onset of the programme. Teachers identified several school and classroom level barriers as they planned for the AT intervention with the coaches. This theme described how coaches buffered some of those challenges.

Brokering access to resources

As noted, after using the SETT framework to identify child-specific needs, coaches brought kits with specific AT tools to stock the classrooms. Consistently described across focus groups in both years, school personnel at all roles provided specific examples which illustrated the stark differences between their community-based school’s AT resources as compared with district schools. Acknowledging these challenges, teachers and TAs expressed how helpful it was for the coaches to bring or create AT resources for them, such as adaptive books, as one teacher in year 2 expressed ‘anytime, she would make resources for us’ (Teacher 4, Centre D). Similarly, two other Year 2 teachers elaborated on how the coaches provided materials they did not have access to, in order to support the children:

My problem was how to get access to these or print something that should be nice and color, how to print it out in black and white … which is not the same, especially for visuals for the kids with visual impairment. I [sent] it to [coach] and she will print it when she come … we don't have access to a color printer. (Teacher 1, Centre C).

Because of school, we can’t print in color. So she would make sure that we were able to get those prints in color. (Teacher 2, Centre C).

Additionally, while AT tools benefited children with disabilities, practitioners also found them to be useful throughout the classroom. One teacher in Year 1 described the difference between AT availability before and after the programme:

We didn't have the technology … we had like some of them more low-tech stuff, like the one cells … we had a couple of the two-cells, but we have to share them throughout the whole school … having it for your classroom and own only your classroom and you could use it every single day for every single activity really helped a lot (Teacher 1, Centre A).

Brokering the context

Staffing turnover and departures created gaps in support and ongoing disruptions during the school day, as described by all school personnel. The director of Centre A in Year 1 highlighted this issue as a barrier to staff fully engaging in the intervention, adding ‘I like the modules and so forth. But you know, due to our staff population and it's not a public school … that was the only issue’. Addressing time and staffing constraints, however, participants valued the coaches’ flexibility and understanding of their schedules. One TA in Year 2 shared how difficult it was to complete the homework, but how supportive the coach was to her,

She was very flexible … and she knew the time … constraints that we were going through and she's like, ‘Okay, you don't have it. But let's sit down. Let's do it. Let's do the video recording and then she would always find a way to provide an additional, an extra time for us (Teacher Assistant 6, Centre D).

Another Year 2 teacher shared some specific details about the would-be challenges to facilitating AT learning and implementation, which were offset by the support of the coaches, collaborating with teachers and TAs:

Our staff situation, that was the negative thing about it … the good thing about it was [coach name] was there to help us out with any questions or anything that we needed … sometimes I had IEP meetings, I had staff meetings … I indirectly told them, [coach name], we're going to get this done today … she was able to adapt with us (Teacher 4, Centre A).

Brokering communication

Participants emphasised the role of coaches in enhancing communications (1) among children, (2) with caregivers and (3) with teachers and TAs. Teachers and TAs shared how they received direct instruction from the coaches on using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) supports to respond to children’s communication needs. Not only did this result in an increase in children’s use of AAC, but the teachers and TA’s described increases in expressive language. One TA in Year 2 shared how even though high-tech devices were not a good match for the children in her classroom, coaches’ support with appropriate AAC selection led to concrete outcomes:

I really love it when I learn with AT that GoTalk™, that's really helped me because my kids … they are very low. And that [other assistive] technology … is not easy for them. But Go Talk™ was easy because they press with the fingers, more easy for them (Teacher Assistant 3, Centre D).

Parents also reported how the frequency and quality of their children’s communication increased in the home setting, as their children were able to recognise the meaning and contexts of words using low-tech AAC options. One caregiver in Year 2 described the changes in her child after creating her own communication board, a strategy she learned from one of the AT coaches during a parent workshop:

Some of the things that I learned there I was able to implement at home, and he's been a lot better with communication … just by putting like different words to things … not [just] being able to say the words but connecting them to something else. So now if he tells me I'm hungry, I'll say, “Okay go on the cabinet and go get your food,” and he just goes right over to it. He knows where everything is, so that's really helped out a lot with that (Caregiver, Centre D).

Communication also increased by the interactions, affect, and presence of the AT coaches. Instructional staff described how coaches’ continuous feedback made them feel empowered, as one teacher expressed ‘[We] felt we were doing a great job and that we really knew how to work with the children … it’s nice to hear those things from outsiders’. The director of Centre A in Year 1 placed high value on the encouragement coaches provided to both teachers and TAs to become AT practitioners, adding, ‘A lot of patience and grace I think came with her coaching … I appreciate it’. As a central point, the administrator was explicit about how the coach played an integral role as a liaison in supporting communication, which helped to strengthen the relationship with families:

She had these relationships and [said] “Oh, okay, that's okay … let's go and talk to them … figure it out. You know … she became this liaison between a couple of our families in here … for us, that was super helpful (Centre Director, Centre A).

Perceiving COVID-19 as a magnifier and a bridge

Participants described the significant disruptions to their lives imposed by COVID-19, personally and professionally. While the pandemic introduced new challenges and magnified others, there were also some unexpected ‘silver linings’ shared by these contributors.

Among the challenges to AT professional development expressed by teachers and TAs was having to truncate their own learning and practice, pivoting to virtual instruction. This re-introduced and magnified some of the existing barriers that had been buffered by the coaches, such as staffing challenges, as well as the inability to create many of the no-tech or low-tech options for AT, or even provide AT tools for the children and families. A teacher in Year 2, elaborated on the challenges of implementing AT alone across multiple activities, with children both in person and virtual settings, noting

[This] is not a one-man job, everybody needs to be involved because I cannot be doing circle time and teaching my child how to use it over chat or trying to keep these two entertained while everybody's pushing the buttons (Teacher 3, Centre D).

Drawing a parallel to their own classroom experiences, teachers also acknowledged how families often did not have access to needed resources at home, such as printers or AT tools and devices. Complicating matters more was the reliance on technology platforms for engagement, which teachers, TAs, and caregivers were expected to navigate throughout the day. Teachers expressed a general unpreparedness to teach remotely, and to meet the level of expertise and creativity it demanded. One teacher in year 2 provided a vivid description, ‘All of a sudden, we hit March and I was expected to go into [Zoom]. I was terrified and I struggled’ (Teacher 3, Centre C).

As an unexpected bridge to accessibility, teachers shared how the programme’s virtual coaching sessions prepared them for the unexpected increase in demand for AT. Collaborating with coaches through Zoom™ had given them practice for the new type of engagement with students that they would not have been exposed to otherwise. The teacher who expressed how she had felt ‘terrified’ explained how relieved she was to have the coach’s support to prepare and assist them for instructing children remotely:

She came to a lot of my Zoom™ meetings initially in March and April. And I don't know if she wasn't there, I think I would have just kind of given up. I really felt so awful about Zoom™ like I kept saying to [coach] I'm doing it wrong. She was there, like every day. I swear … when I got better at it, I still sent her the meeting ID and sometimes she would show up and that made me feel good that she came. And we kept in touch. (Teacher 3, Centre C).

Teachers also described how they were prepared with an arsenal of AT tools. One teacher shared how she continued to use a letter tracing application, adding, ‘Some of these I'm actually still using with them now virtually, so they recognise it, and we trace it in our Zoom™ sessions’ (Teacher 4, Centre D). While the unprecedented demand for technology was serendipitous, teachers valued the extended and ongoing support they received from the coaches during a time of great uncertainty

Caregivers expressed their disappointment in having their own engagement as well as the children’s in-person learning coming to a halt because of the pandemic. One caregiver in year 2 described how the support that both she and her child received from the coach stopped during the shelter-in-place orders, which she felt had an impact on her child and her ability to deliver the AT support on her own:

[The coach] gave me some ideas which was working with him … when they were really going to start hitting it hard with him, everything got shut down. [We] pretty much left where I just have to kind of figure it out and do it my own figure out what to do to help him in a sense, just to be able to keep moving forward with him and to show him what to do, how to do it (Caregiver 1, Centre D).

Caregivers went on to share how they were also overwhelmed by work and therapy appointments, while also engaging in multiple activities. One mother detailed being the sole executor of a number of responsibilities that had only increased since the pandemic:

A lot of this stuff that goes on is on me. So that also includes any school stuff, any doctor stuff. Any extracurricular stuff. And especially with everything that was going on was constant therapies and zoom sessions and a full-time job and so it was definitely a struggle to find time (Caregiver 2, Centre D).

In spite of these challenges, however, the caregivers expressed some positive aspects about virtual AT delivery. The Zoom™ platform allowed caregivers to participate in the programme workshops, opportunities some did not have before due to schedules. Parents were also simultaneously being familiarised with virtual therapy sessions, which may have further enhanced their level of comfort with online delivery. Finally, they expressed a desire to have more frequent check ins and continue learning about AT, now made possible because of virtual access as one caregiver shared:

I know I couldn't have done that, even if it was available last year, just because there wasn't really a virtual platform before. Now people can call in with Zoom™ and just have a short conversation and see how things are, which didn't really exist before (Caregiver 3, Centre D).

As a final note, one teacher in Year 2 described how a parent in the school would not permit her child to participate in the programme because of her initial fear of AT. Although he had missed the opportunity to participate in the programme, the teacher described how she and the coach talked with the caregiver together, empowering them to advocate for the child’s AT device. Reflecting on the positive outcomes, her commentary describes the collective win with AT support, facilitated by the coach:

I spoke with her. [Coach name] we did it together. And she did it by herself too and she went to the [lending] library … she got the iPad™ for [child’s name]. And she sees how much–amazingly he's doing … I spoke the other day to him, and he was verbally having more language and he was speaking more clear, which for me was amazing (Teacher 1, Centre C).

Discussion

Members of this school community provided valuable sources of information to understand the many factors and complex processes that impacted their experiences of an intervention, while illustrating how they made meaning of those experiences. Using the responsive evaluation framework, we identified several contextual challenges, examined what features of the programme or personnel were responsive to them and to whom, and garnered insights to guide the programme’s future directions.

Priming for AT: identification of contextual challenges

Aligned with insights from the synthesis of the literature, not all preschool communities have equitable access to AT tools and resources despite the mandate for AT considerations for children with disabilities under IDEA. School personnel described many of the unique and persisting resource and staffing barriers which underscored the stark differences between their preschools and district preschools. Although studies have supported the inclusion of TAs in accessing AT professional development alongside teachers (e.g. Bingham, Spooner, and Browder 2007) the teachers and TAs described how this ideal does not typically occur in practice, describing how these gaps impact their own knowledge and capacity for implementing AT. Participants in our study connected these resource gaps to the initial apprehension towards introducing AT tools in the classroom, and whether or not it would be a success, understanding students who may have greater support needs.

In a similar way, caregivers described some of the challenges they were experiencing, such as time constraints, limited options for them to participate pre-pandemic, and the limited transparency in communications with the school about their children’s progress. Several caregivers spoke to the experiences known to many parents of children with disabilities or developmental delays, such as having to navigate an overwhelming web of resources, a phenomenon that has been described in other studies (Schladant et al. 2023). Also consistent with other research studies, unprecedented circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic heightened preexisting challenges in the early childhood learning environment experienced by caregivers and school personnel (Bruder et al. 2021; Neece, McIntyre, and Fenning 2020). Among these challenges included the demand for virtual accessibility, highlighting both a digital and resource ‘divide’ that may be disproportionately experienced by the caregivers and school personnel within community settings.

Introducing AT: responding to community preschool needs

Consistent with the tenets of responsive evaluation (Stake 2010), both formal and informal needs assessments were helpful in identifying needed modifications. The SETT framework was one such example of how formal assessments were utilised, as coaches worked with teachers and TAs to help identify child-centred needs, leading to the appropriate tools. These also helped to identify and respond to resource needs, for example, while there were some AT products and devices, there were not enough for each classroom. Garnering teacher and TA feedback was used as an informal assessment, providing further rationale for TAs to receive AT training alongside teachers, facilitated by the AT coaches. Caregiver feedback was also an important step in developing best AT practices as highlighted in the literature (Parette, Huer, and Hourcade 2003). Caregivers expressed the desire to have more opportunities for engagement, while also sharing the scheduling difficulties of attending workshops at the school in Year l. Therefore, the opportunities for virtual workshops were highly valued by caregivers in Year 2.

Beyond AT: coaches as the liaisons

One salient finding in this study was the essential role of coaches. Considering (1) the number of resource barriers at the school level, (2) the expressed concerns of school personnel, (3) the individualised and unique needs of students and (4) the desire of caregivers to be involved in the process, coaches served as a bridge, or liaison between the families and school, as well as the school personnel and the programme. While coaches’ integral role was evident in Year 1, (e.g. helping teachers and TAs to integrate the IEP goals with AT) this was also highlighted in Year 2, as demand for ‘technology before the assistive technology’ was also buffered by the hands-on technical assistance support of coaches, who helped to navigate emergent AT practitioners in the abrupt shift to remote instruction. In a similar way, while families no longer had the benefit of seeing what was happening with AT in the classroom in Year 2 in person, they were able to replicate strategies introduced by coaches during the virtual delivery. Additionally, the coaches assisted caregivers in seeking out AT devices though the lending library. As a result, children’s interest in literacy, peer-supports, engagements and overall communication were enhanced, reported by school personnel as well as the caregivers. Caregivers described the increases in their children’s communication and understanding of words at home, suggesting how this may have supported context and transferability of AT.

At a personal level, both caregivers and school personnel caregivers valued coaches’ child-centred, family inclusive, culturally and linguistically sustaining approaches, which reinforced the communication and rapport they had all hoped to attain. Such connections have been highlighted as a critical but often missing element in AT research studies (Mertala 2019; Ocasio-Stoutenburg et al. 2023; Ripat and Woodgate 2011).

Study strengths

Overall, the Step Up AT coaches’ brokering, responsiveness and attention to the needs of practitioners, families and children, were central to the success of the programme for both years of the intervention. Few studies on AT interventions have included contextual considerations, or included the perspectives of school community members in a single inquiry (Mertala 2019). Furthermore, our lens acknowledged the systemic and structural inequities in AT and the elements that impact implementation experienced by individuals who have been historically marginalised. This contributes to the literature on how to design AT interventions to centre the needs of the preschool community, rather than to solely focus on the goals of the programme.

Trustworthiness and credibility

Building rapport with the participants of the school community was essential prior to data collection. Although this was outlined in the study protocol and consenting, the relationships established by fostering relationships with school personnel, children and caregivers helped to build trust, lending to the trustworthiness of the study. Triangulation also took place across multiple sources of data and participants, which contributed to and confirmed the developing themes. In addition, the aforementioned multidisciplinary and multipositioned team members also supported the credibility of the study, as we underwent rounds of investigator and theoretical triangulation through our debriefing sessions. In data collection, iterative questioning and probing supported the authenticity of participant responses (Shenton 2004). Finally, analysis was conducted collaboratively through debriefing sessions, with members who have qualitative methods experience, engage in systems-level analysis, and who are practitioners with expertise working with disabled children and their families across culturally and linguistically diverse contexts.

Limitations

Our study was bounded by the focus on the four intervention schools in two years. While this can certainly be transferable to other similarly situated contexts, a number of unexpected structural changes impacted implementation, delivery and data collection. In Year 1, for example, the number of participants in the intervention changed abruptly due to teacher turnover and a student transferring schools. In Year 2, COVID-19 imposed a number of structural changes, which included a completely virtual engagement for coaching as well as interview and focus groups. Although the use of virtual platforms such as Zoom™ have been used widely for a number of purposes, such as teaching, meetings, programme service delivery and research, it certainly does not match the quality of the in-person engagement and observation. Additionally, we noted how difficult it was to schedule interviews and focus groups at the close of the school year, especially during Year 2. Furthermore, we note the possibility of social desirability bias and power dynamics within the Year 1 data collected. Future measures should be taken to engage teachers, TAs, and administrators in separate but homogeneous groups, as their collective participation could have impacted their testimonies given their different roles and positioning. Still, we attempted to address this possibility through regular debriefing sessions (Shenton 2004).

Future directions: envisioning an AT learning community

Summarising the insights from this study, we propose a theoretical learning community as an alternative to traditional professional development, where all members of the child’s team could collaborate to learn about AT and collectively customise the AT supports to meet the needs of the child across settings. In addition, collaboration, transparency, shared knowledge, progress and modifications could certainly boost implementation, while also responding to the contextual needs of the school community. There is emerging research on different models for bolstering community integration. Layton et al. (2023), for example, described a peer-support community for AT as a potential avenue for improving delivery of AT supports. Furthermore, flexible scheduling, more frequent collaborations and a meaningful role for families, such as a family advisory council, could also enhance future AT implementation, as suggested through other studies (Parette and Petch-Hogan 2000).

Conclusion

Early childhood education classrooms have differing structural, contextual and resource needs for assistive technology (AT) which need to be considered by AT researchers and interventionists. Underlying systemic and structural inequities further impact AT accessibility for young children with disabilities, as well as the practitioners and caregivers who support them. While AT interventions delivered through university-affiliated programmes may help bridge the gap in AT supports and services, they are often time and funding dependent, while also subject to disruption by events, such as the public health emergency COVID-19. Creating communities for shared learning and practice with AT may offer an opportunity to go beyond mere introduction and short-term implementation of AT towards creating sustainable structural changes that help meet children’s holistic needs, as their practitioners and families. Furthermore, having a hands-on AT coach, whose presence, affective style, knowledge of the context, expertise and purposeful actions centre their needs can help all members of a learning community feel empowered to be implementers of AT for the children in their care. This supports the call for university-affiliated programmes to empower AT community-based coach liaisons, who can foster critical connections with all members of the school community. Coaches serve as a valuable conduit between schools and families, use asset-based, culturally and linguistically sustaining approaches to support diverse learners, and nurture the AT skills of emergent practitioners. Moreover, coaches’ roles as liaisons can minimise resource and power differentials among institutions, schools and communities, fostered through interpersonal connections among members of the learning community. It is therefore critical to invest in competent, responsive, multilingual and multicultural coaches, who are the vitality of an AT intervention. These actions support the creation of learning communities, as Loveand colleagues note, ‘being in community means being connected’ (2009, 3). This role is essential for supporting young children with disabilities, while building the capacity of the entire school community.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Education (H327S160017). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the U.S. Department of Education.

Notes on contributors

Lydia Ocasio-Stoutenburg

Dr. Lydia Ocasio-Stoutenburg is an Assistant Professor of Special Education at The Pennsylvania State University. Her scholarship, teaching, and service focus on equity, responding to the unceasing need to advocate for systems to better support people with multiple marginalized identities, as well as their families. As a qualitative inquirer, Lydia's research focuses on amplifying the voices of communities who have been historically marginalized in research and practice. Some of her research includes caregiver advocacy, experiences of intersectionality among Black and Brown families of children and adults labeled with IDD and EBD, family disability counternarratives, holistic and asset-based student supports, and community empowerment. She is also the co-author of two books on caregiver advocacy across cultures, languages, disabilities, and other social identities.

Christina Nunez

Christina Nunez is a Ph.D. student in the Center for Psychological Studies at Nova Southeastern University. She has over five years of experience as a research assistant, working on various studies at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine including a joint study between the Department of Neurology and Department of Physical Therapy. She has a passion for understanding how learning and cognition change across the lifespan. She is particularly interested in the developmental phase when individuals are gaining skills and the decline phase when individuals are losing skills. Her current projects at NSU's campus investigate these changes and assist in interventions to optimize mental fitness and overall well-being, with over fifteen publications.

Christina Sudduth

Christina Sudduth has over a decade of experience in the nonprofit and higher education space. She earned her master's in public health degree at the University of South Florida. She has served in many coalitions and leadership roles throughout the Miami-Dade community over the years and has worked on initiatives related to federal child nutrition programs, early literacy, community partnerships and civic engagement.

Ana Nevares

Ana Nevares, M.A., is a state-certified special education teacher. She is a native Spanish speaker and has coordinated the South Florida Regional FAAST program for the past 10 years. She has extensive experience providing training on assistive technology, educating individuals and professionals on how these devices can support education, employment, and/or daily life. As a leader in curriculum development, she assists in the creation and dissemination of resources to promote AT use and collaborates in the translation of materials. Additionally, she serves as a Mentor Coach in the supervision of educational specialists who are training to work one-on-one with teachers in support of AT in the classroom.

Nancy Cruz

Nancy Cruz, MA is an Education and AT Specialist and Education Coach. Her mission is to increase awareness of educational services in the community. A former Kindergarten and first grade teacher in Miami Dade County Public Schools, Nancy has developed advanced expertise in teaching educators implement evidence -based assistive technology (AT) to increase early literacy skills. Using her evaluative skills, she spent a number of years providing education recommendations as part of the Interdisciplinary Evaluation Services (IDES) team to support families navigating through their child's complex health and education needs. She has also collaborated with education coordinators and curriculum specialists in Head Start Preschools using the Train-the-Trainer Model to improve early literacy skills in students with special needs using Assistive Technology (AT) on a U.S. Department of Education grant, “Step Up AT”.

Austin Garilli

Dr. Austin Garilli is a devoted educator and researcher dedicated to fostering inclusive educational environments. With a Ph.D. in Education and Leadership from Barry University, Dr. Garilli brings over two decades of experience in both classroom instruction and higher education. Currently serving as the Director of Education and Leadership at the Mailman Center for Child Development, University of Miami, Dr. Garilli leads initiatives to enhance training programs supporting children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. Previously, Dr. Garilli taught gifted students and contributed to evaluation efforts at the University of Miami School of Education. Dr. Garilli's expertise spans assistive technology, early childhood education, and program evaluation. Recognized for her commitment to educational excellence, Dr. Garilli received the 2005 Outstanding Program Evaluation Study Award from the American Educational Research Association. Through her role as program manager for a national assistive technology professional development program, Dr. Garilli advocates for inclusive practices, empowering educators to create supportive learning environments.

Karla Armendariz

Karla Armendariz, a Mexican cisgender female, is a doctoral candidate and bilingual speech-language pathologist. Her expertise lies in augmentative and alternative communication research, particularly for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities, with a specific focus on culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Karla's deep commitment to her work is reflected in her hands-on experience within the community, having served as a paraprofessional, worked with a theater company for exceptional students, and served as a program director for a nonprofit dedicated to supporting autistic adults.

Ruby Natale

Dr. Ruby Natale, Ph.D., PsyD is a Professor in Psychology at the Professor of Clinical, UMMG Department of Pediatrics, Miller School of Medicine, Medical Campus, University of Miami. Her expertise is in early intervention and prevention with children ages 3-5, behavioral health issues, as well as infant mental health. Dr. Natale has years of experience working in community-engaged projects and university-community partnerships, with large grant funded supports. Some of her research focuses on measures used to identify risk and resiliency in an at-risk preschool population, as well as the prevention of child abuse by enhancing maternal responsiveness.

Michelle Schladant

Dr. Michelle Schladant is an Associate Professor at the University of Miami Department of Pediatrics Mailman Center for Child Development. She has over 28 years of experience as a qualitative researcher, educator, and clinician focused on assistive technology (AT) early childhood special education. She is currently the principal investigator on two federal grants and two state contracts totaling nearly $5 million in funding. During her tenure as faculty, she has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and actively disseminates her research both nationally and internationally. Her extensive research on implementing AT and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions to promote language and literacy development employs a community based participatory research approach to engage teachers, caregivers, and community members in the design, implementation, and analysis of her research. Findings have informed culturally-responsive professional development models and equitable policies to improve AT and AAC access from local to national levels.