Accessibility barriers to online education for young adults with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

In postsecondary education, technology and online resources have become a pervasive component of learning, but they are not always accessible. For students with intellectual disabilities, completing technology-dependent tasks may pose unique challenges that are not always addressed by the disability support services offered at the university level. During our fieldwork, we have observed several barriers to online education tools in a postsecondary environment for students with intellectual disabilities. For example, a student with an intellectual disability submitting an assignment via email to an instructor may encounter difficulties recalling and navigating to the location of their attachment file.