Accessible Digital Textbooks Paraguay
Creating digital tools to enable universal design for learning and inclusive education
Highlights
In the Latin America and Caribbean region, more than 19 million children have a disability. Although school attendance and completion rates have increased steadily over the last 20 years in the region, barriers to access quality education are still too high for children and adolescents with disabilities.
In Paraguay, disability is a major factor associated with school participation and learning levels. The Accessible Digital Textbooks for All (ADT) initiative, implements accessible digital tools and content to make learning accessible to all students - with and without disabilities - in the same classroom.
This report presents the research results of the piloting of an accessible digital textbook for children with and without disabilities in Paraguay. The report provides results across three areas. First, it analyses the familiarity with and ability of teachers and students to interact with technology. Second, it investigates the pedagogical practices used for inclusive education and to integrate the accessible digital textbook as a tool in the classroom by teachers to support inclusion. Third, it presents recommendations for improving the content and interface of the accessible digital textbook.
This study is part of longer-term multi-country research examining the implementation of accessible digital textbooks. Future research will explore the impact of the use of the ADT on student learning on a larger scale.
