• Do Students With Disabilities Attend Schools Where Students Have Access to the Internet?
• Are There Barriers to the Use of Advanced Telecommunications by Students With Disabilities?
• Are Barriers to Advanced Telecommunications Use by Students With Disabilities Greater in Some Schools Than in Others?
• Do Policies on Teacher Training in the Use of Advanced Telecommunications at the School Relate to Administrators' Citing Lack of Training of Special Education Teachers as a Barrier?
• Summary
• References

In 1996, a nationally representative survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) queried approximately 1,000 school administrators about the use of advanced telecommunications in their school. For this survey, advanced telecommunications were defined as modes of communication used to transmit information from one place to another, including broadcast and interactive television, networked computers, etc. This survey also included two questions about students with disabilities and their use of advanced telecommunications. The first question asked schools to report the percentage of students that received special education and related services. The survey found that in the fall of 1996, approximately 11 percent of students attending regular public elementary and secondary schools received special education and related services. The second question asked administrators to report the extent to which five barriers hindered the use of advanced telecommunications by students with disabilities. These data provide insights about the access of students with disabilities to advanced telecommunications.

Access to and use of advanced telecommunications in public schools have opened a multitude of new opportunities for American students and their teachers. Through the Internet, students are gaining access to many of the world's largest and best-equipped libraries and communicating with authors and experts around the world-all without leaving their school buildings. Brought about by the presence and application of telecommunications and technologies in classrooms, labs, and libraries, these opportunities are spreading at a rapid rate. Between 1994 and 1998, the proportion of regular public schools with Internet access increased from 35 to 89 percent (Rowand 1999).

In fall 1996, 65 percent of public schools had Internet access (Heaviside, Riggins, and Farris 1997), and 73 percent of these schools indicated that students had access to the Internet, either through e-mail, newsgroups, or the World Wide Web. The proportion of students with disabilities attending regular public schools with Internet access was similar to that for students without disabilities. In fall 1996, 51 percent of students with disabilities and 51 percent of students without disabilities attended regular public schools where students had access to the Internet (table 1).

Public schools were asked about five possible barriers to the use of their advanced telecommunications resources by students with disabilities. The factor schools were most likely to cite as a moderate or major barrier (47 percent) was special education teachers not being sufficiently trained in using advanced telecommunications¹ (table 2). Fewer public schools cited not having enough computers available to students with disabilities (34 percent), not having enough computers with alternative input/output devices for students with disabilities (38 percent), and inadequate evaluation and support services to meet the special technology needs of students with disabilities (39 percent).

Table 1.-Percent of students in regular public schools where students have access to the Internet, by student disability status: Fall 1996

Public schools with higher concentrations of poor students, as measured by the proportion of students in the school eligible for the federally funded free or reduced-price lunch program, were generally more likely to report moderate or major barriers to the use of advanced telecommunications by students with disabilities (table 2). For example, the proportion of regular public schools reporting insufficient training of special education teachers in the use of advanced telecommunications as a moderate or major barrier was 37 percent for schools with the fewest poor students compared to 58 percent for schools with the highest proportion of poor students.²

School size, but not the percentage of students with disabilities (table 2), was related to the likelihood of reporting some of the five factors as moderate or major barriers. Large schools (those with enrollments of 1,000 or more students) were more likely than small schools (enrollments under 300 students) to report lack of alternative input/output devices and insufficient training in advanced telecommunications among special education teachers as moderate or major barriers to the use of the school's advanced telecommunications resources by students with disabilities.

As discussed above, the barrier to providing access to advanced telecommunications for students with disabilities most frequently cited by schools was lack of sufficiently trained special education teachers. One item on the questionnaire asked school administrators to report on the type of advanced telecommunications training available to all teachers at their school. Responses to the two items (types of training available to all teachers, and administrators' perceptions of lack of training of special education teachers) were examined to see if they were related. Public schools in which participation in advanced telecommunications training for all teachers was encouraged by incentives were less likely to report that lack of training for special education teachers was a moderate or major barrier than other schools. Thirty-seven percent of schools with incentives for all teachers to participate in telecommunications training reported special education teacher training as a moderate or major barrier, compared to 50 percent of schools where training for all teachers was mandated and 52 percent of schools in which training for all teachers was left up to the initiative of the individual teacher (table 3).

Table 2.-Number of regular public schools enrolling students with disabilities, and the percent of these schools indicating barriers to the use of advanced telecommunications by students with disabilities: Fall 1996

*Ninety-seven percent of regular public schools enrolled students with disabilities. The number of schools in each category has been rounded to the nearest 100.

Table 3.-Percentage distribution of regular public schools according to teacher training policies for all teachers and the extent lack of teacher training is a barrier to the use of advanced telecommunications by students with disabilities: Fall 1996

Further, when a school reported that training for all teachers was provided by the school or district, that school was less likely than schools that did not report providing training for all teachers to report that lack of training for special education teachers was a moderate or major barrier to the use of advanced telecommunications by students with disabilities (table 3). Schools were asked about whether training was available on use of computers, use of advanced telecommunications, or integration of technology into the curriculum. From 41 to 45 percent of schools where these types of training were available for all teachers indicated special education teacher training was a moderate or major barrier compared with 57 to 61 percent of schools where such training was not available for all teachers.

Students with disabilities were as likely to be enrolled in schools where students have Internet access as were those without disabilities (51 percent of both groups) in fall 1996. Insufficiently trained special education teachers was the most frequently cited moderate or major barrier (47 percent) to the use of advanced telecommunications by students with disabilities. But this factor was less of a barrier in schools where training in advanced telecommunications was available for all teachers and where incentives were provided to all teachers to participate in such training. About one-third of public schools reported the following factors were moderate or major barriers to the use of advanced telecommunications by students with disabilities: too few computers available to students with disabilities, too few computers with alternative input/output devices for students with disabilities, and insufficient evaluation and support services to meet the special technology needs of students with disabilities. Generally, barriers to such use by disabled students were more frequently cited in schools with higher proportions of poor students and in larger schools.