reduces barriers so the message can be created more effectively. In this second article, we shift the focus to the two-fold nature of writing: 1. Transcription: the physical act of getting words onto the page.
academic participation. This means the team must identify, document, and connect the student’s needs to the specific AI- enhanced supports they will use, ensuring those supports are available and taught consistently across settings. To do this effectively, AT and AI considerations should be woven throughout the IEP, including: • Consideration of Special Factors: Assistive Technology (AT Consideration Page) The team must address whether the student requires AT devices or services. If the answer is “yes,” this must lead to documentation in other sections of the IEP. This is the critical starting point for noting AI- powered AAC features. • Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance: Describe current abilities, access methods, and barriers; note how AI features may address these challenges. o Note: The Present Levels of Performance (PLOP) should describe the student’s access and performance both without the assistive technology tool or other supports in place and with the tool/supports in place. This side-by-side context helps the IEP team understand the impact of the technology/supports on the student’s participation and outcomes. Throughout this article, we offer further examples and descriptions of how to capture this in writing. Including both perspectives is essential for showing how the AT, such as AI-enhanced AAC, reduces barriers, supports skill development, and enables access to the curriculum. Example: PLOP Written Expression and Communication With AT supports: Maria demonstrates the ability to independently produce structured written work when provided with appropriate assistive technology supports. With access to AI-based writing tools, she can compose a paragraph that includes a topic sentence and three supporting details. When using a keyboard with word prediction features, Maria selects appropriate words from a list of five predicted options with accuracy. Without AT supports: In the absence of technology tools, her written and expressive output is limited to responding to yes/ no questions, providing single keywords, or selecting from a set of three choices presented by her communication partner. These patterns indicate that Maria’s access to robust assistive technology significantly increases the complexity and independence of her written expression. • Annual Goals and Objectives: Include goals that reflect learning to use AI features for transcription, writing process skills, or both. • Supplementary Aids and Services: Document training and support for staff, peers, and families to ensure consistent use. • Accommodations: Specify how and when the AI- enhanced AAC will be available.
2. Process: the cognitive work of planning, creating, revising, and refining ideas.
For students who need or use AAC, both of these areas can be labor-intensive. Physical access challenges, slow message generation, and limited vocabulary access can make transcription difficult. Limited experience with writing instruction can affect planning, organizing, editing, and word choice. In our first article, we reframed co-authorship not as “cheating,” but as a natural and necessary part of writing for all students. We noted that general education students regularly co-construct their work with peers, teachers, and digital tools (e.g., brainstorming together, using grammar checkers, seeking feedback, and refining ideas collaboratively). For students who use AAC, co-authorship often includes communication partners, teachers/therapists, and paraeducators. Often, this type of supported co-authorship can become inconsistent, overly dependent on adult input, or limited to what a support person already knows; however, here we argue that co-authorship using AI is a viable AT tool/support for students. It is essential, however, that planning and documentation in the IEP of AI-supported co- authorship is explicitly embedded into the IEP, to ensure that the student’s ideas remain at the center, that their supports are consistent across settings, and that they have access to the same range of collaborative tools their peers already use. Because the IEP is where AT decisions are formally considered, documented, and implemented, it is the team’s responsibility to explore how AAC tools with AI features (e.g., such as predictive text, context-aware vocabulary, variety of syntax/sentence structures) can support both transcription and the process of writing. This article offers practical ways to document these supports in the IEP so students can access the same range of writing opportunities as their peers. INTRODUCING THE IEP PROCESS FOR AT AND AI The Individualized Education Program (IEP) is the legal and instructional roadmap for ensuring students with disabilities have the supports they need to access and make progress toward the general education curriculum and their IEP goals. Under IDEA, the IEP team must consider assistive technology (AT) for every student and determine whether devices or services, and here we argue including those with AI capabilities, are necessary for the student to receive a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). For students who use AAC, integrating AI features as AT into the IEP is essential for equitable access to communication and
41
October / November, 2025 | www.closingthegap.com/membership Closing The Gap © 2025 Closing The Gap, Inc. All rights reserved.
BACK TO CONTENTS
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator