More support needed for children with disabilities using the internet

Children with disabilities need better support to manage their online lives and potential online risks, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

For children with disabilities, being online and part of a well-connected community can have huge benefits. However, children with disabilities will encounter more online risks, and these can escalate more quickly than for their peers.

The research shows that extra support from professionals such as teachers, youth workers and speech and language therapists does not always happen when they are learning, playing, and socialising on the internet. It also highlights how this impacts on the ability of children with disabilities to access or activate digital resilience support from this community of professionals.

Digital resilience refers to the ability to learn how to recognise, manage and recover from online risk experiences, such as bullying, sexual messaging and mis/disinformation, and is an increasingly important process for participating an increasingly connected world.

The study, published in the journal ‘New Media and Society’ and involving researchers from the University of Liverpool, found that professionals supporting children with disabilities need to better support their connected lives to promote community digital resilience and counter the digital inequalities.

Lead Author Dr Simon P Hammond, of UEA’s School of Education and Lifelong Learning, said: ‘Educators spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with unforeseen safeguarding events and/or sudden disciplinary issues, a key contributor to high and stressful workloads.’

Dr Jeanette D’Arcy, of the University of Liverpool’s Communications and Media Department, commented: ‘Education professionals need support to invest their time in building and maintaining the kinds of connections in their communities that will help them provide the best support to this group.’

‘Supporting other community members is also key to promoting children’s digital resilience,’ added Dr Hammond. ‘This means children with disabilities will have more support when learning how to recognise, manage and recover from online risk experiences – an increasingly key task for all citizens. For communities to be greater than the sum of their parts, responsibility needs to be diffused yet ownership collective. A thorny but not impossible task and one likely to pay dividends.

‘Despite learning best through concrete experiences, children with disabilities receive less supported learning opportunities to develop digital resilience in the face of online risks. In short, professional communities are providing least support to the group most in need.’

Previous research has focused on the development of digital resilience at an individual level but the ways in which surrounding networks of community support impact this is under-explored.

The research involved 30 online semi-structured interviews with professionals supporting the education, growth, and wellbeing of children with disabilities from across the UK, including teachers and youth workers.

Image: Leon Seibert