Chapter 8: Technology in the Social Studies for Students with Disabilities

Other chapters in this book have addressed the challenges that students with disabilities face in social studies classrooms. The textbook-based nature of much social studies instruction poses considerable challenges for students who are struggling readers and writers, given the often high and inconsistent readability levels of textbooks, the manner in which they are written, and the assumptions they often make about readers’ background knowledge (Armbruster & Anderson, 1984; Bean, Zigmond, & Hartman, 1994; Beck & McKeown, 1991; Brophy, 1990; Paxton, 1999). Organizing information, note-taking, studying, accessing background knowledge, and connecting ideas may be difficult tasks for some students—but are essential for success in many social studies classrooms. Furthermore, students with learning difficulties and disabilities may not know or use cognitive strategies that can help them succeed in many of these tasks (Deshler & Schu-maker, 2006; Harris, Graham, Mason, & Friedlander, 2008). Add to these the conceptual difficulties that most students encounter as they learn about places, peoples, and ideas far removed from their own experiences (see Lowenthal, 2000; Okolo, Ferretti, & MacArthur, 2002; Wineburg, 2001).