Schools Find Their First Niche for AI Tools

More are using artificial intelligence to help students with dyslexia, other challenges
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 29, 2024 5:15 PM CST
Schools Find Their First Niche for AI Tools
Makenzie Gilkison sits in the lobby at Greenfield-Central High School on Dec. 17 in Greenfield, Indiana.   (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Schools everywhere have been wrestling with how and where to incorporate artificial intelligence, but many are fast-tracking applications for students with disabilities, reports the AP. Its story draws on the example of 14-year-old girl Makenzie Gilkison, a student with dyslexia in Indianapolis who can finally keep up with her peers in the classroom in regard to reading comprehension because of a customized AI-powered chatbot, a word-prediction program, and other tools. "I would have just probably given up if I didn't have them," she tells the AP. Her experience shows that AI holds the promise of helping many other students with a range of visual, speech, language, and hearing impairments to execute tasks that come easily to others.

  • New priority: Getting the latest technology into the hands of students with disabilities is a priority for the US Education Department, which has told schools they must consider whether students need tools like text-to-speech and alternative communication devices. New rules from the Department of Justice also will require schools and other government entities to make apps and online content accessible to those with disabilities.
  • The benefits: Students can use AI to summarize jumbled thoughts into an outline, summarize complicated passages, or even translate Shakespeare into common English. And computer-generated voices that can read passages for visually impaired and dyslexic students are becoming less robotic and more natural.

  • The concerns: Schools have been trying to balance the technology's benefits against the risk that it will do too much. But the technology can help level the playing field for students with disabilities, said Paul Sanft, director of a Minnesota-based center where families can try out different assistive technology tools and borrow devices. "There are definitely going to be people who use some of these tools in nefarious ways," says Sanft. "But I don't think that's the biggest concern with people with disabilities, who are just trying to do something that they couldn't do before."
  • Not 'cheating': "I'm seeing that a lot of students are kind of exploring on their own, almost feeling like they've found a cheat code in a video game," says Alexis Reid, an educational therapist in the Boston area who works with students with learning disabilities. But in her view, it's far from cheating: "We're meeting students where they are."
  • Read the full story.
(More artificial intelligence stories.)

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