Article # 10 Assistive Technology in the Reading Clinic: Its Emerging Potential

McKenna, M.C., & Walpole, S. (2007, January/February/March). Assistive Technology in the Reading Clinic: Its Emerging Potential. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(1), 140–145. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.42.1.6

In the experience, traditional reading clinics, whose mission it is to serve struggling readers through comprehensive, individually administered assessment and individually tailored one-on-one instruction, have been slow to embrace the potential of technology. Instead, technology applications in literacy instruction appear to have been far more commonly implemented in special education settings and far more commonly investigated by literacy researchers whose agendas do not focus on struggling readers. They believe that this situation is unfortunate. Developments within assistive technology (AT), not to mention policy-driven reality, suggest that clinical practice be reconsidered in light of emerging applications if clinics are to serve struggling readers optimally and if, ultimately, clinics are to thrive in a digital era.


The study has a belief in the utility of the reading clinic as an essential context for teacher preparation and as a means of serving struggling children. Clinics remain a vehicle useful in reaching nuanced judgments about reading difficulties, offering detailed guidance to practitioners, and pioneering new methods of assessment. The research suspected that AT holds exceptional promise for achieving these ends. Our purpose here is first to sharpen the definition of AT in clinical settings, to describe how theory and available research support its use in clinics, to link AT in clinics to AT in schools, and finally to identify questions for future inquiry.



The problem is that traditional reading clinics served struggling readers through comprehensive, individually designed for one-on-one instruction, and have been slow to believe in the potential of technology. There has been far more research on technology for learning disabillities than for struggling readers. Assistive technology can help the students read print and any print is beneficial for the struggling readers. A weakness of the research is that it is limited and sometimes conflicting. For exampole in text-to-speech technologies it may be helpful for comorehension for below average and reading disabled, but lacks the strength to help students with ADD. Sometimes speech recognition can suffer from inaccurate word matches and students with severe spelling disorders hasve problems with spell checkers. The strengths of the research is that it shows the potential for readers to compensate for specific reading deficits by using AT along with instructional interventions.

The implications of the findings are that many readers can benefit from Assistive Technology, not only students with learning disabilities. Teachers can impliment the AT with help from additional school personal who are better able to monitor the student. The child's individual classroom sets the format for the type if instruction that may happen, and create expectations that are attainable.