Covid-19 has had a disruptive effect on the academic lives of students all across the country. This includes those 7.3 million students with disabilities. The pandemic is ongoing. As such, the data on this subject is ever-changing. There are, however, some existing studies of the 2020-2021 school year that have been able to give some insight as to how students with disabilities are faring.
The bad
Existing findings show that students with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the Pandemic’s disruption of the school system. This is even the case with data analysis, where these students were often measured under a uniform data group of “with disabilities”. This kind of grouping doesn’t account for the various types of disabilities students may experience. Only 33% of students with disabilities have a specific learning disability. Other disability types include hearing impairment, orthopedic impairment and mobility, and autism. Different abilities require different needs. This unvaried categorization is inefficient in reaching any helpful conclusions.
What is clear, however, is that many students that require academic support did not receive the same quality or quantity of specialized treatment as they did before the pandemic started. This was primarily due to the switch to remote learning. In a home environment, students were unable to access the same supports that they would have gotten at school. Many students also found that home environments were distracting and unsuitable for learning. As a result, students with disabilities experienced higher rates of absenteeism, incomplete assignments, and course failures.
Remote learning also led to feelings of isolation among many students with disabilities. This isolation and disruption of routine contributed to significant emotional regressions. Students were more likely to be described as experiencing anxiety due to the disrupted school year. These challenges were, in part, most notable among older students (approximately aged 21) who were missing out on crucial transition-based education. College students with special education needs will often have part of their curriculum based around learning how to live independently. Remote learning was a hindrance to this.
The good
In spite of these drawbacks, there have been reports of positive outcomes from the shift to remote learning. For one thing, students with disabilities were able to take advantage of the use of video technology. In most cases, students were able to watch and rewatch lectures. They were also able to save and reread slides and powerpoints used in lectures and thus had better notes.
Communication between students and professors improved and increased. Meeting with instructors via Zoom or Skype made for a much more efficient and comfortable system. It even increased the incentive for students to reach out to professors on a more regular basis. This was particularly helpful for students with mobility impairments and chronic health issues. Appointments that may have required a challenging trek across campus were able to be conducted online in a convenient manner.
Correspondence with schools’ Disabilities Service Offices also improved. The accommodations process became smoother and more private. Students didn’t have to single themselves out by staying after class and handing accommodations letters to teachers. The migration to online schooling helped to streamline and destigmatize this process.
Outlook
With another school year coming, it is difficult to say which direction education may go. Remote education may become an accommodation, similar to what remote work represents before the pandemic. Given how up and down the year has been, it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
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