Special education teachers fill out mountains of paperwork, customize lessons for students with a wide range of learning differences, and attend hours of bureaucratic meetings.
It鈥檚 easy to see why it would be tempting to outsource parts of that job to a robot.
While there may never be a special educator version of 鈥淪tar Wars鈥濃�� protocol droid C-3PO, generative artificial tools鈥攊ncluding ChatGPT and others developed with the large language models created by its founder, Open AI鈥攃an help special education teachers perform parts of their job more efficiently, allowing them to spend more time with their students, experts and educators say.
But those shortcuts come with plenty of cautions, they add.
Teachers need to review artificial intelligence鈥檚 suggestions carefully to ensure that they are right for specific students. Student data鈥攊ncluding diagnoses of learning differences or cognitive disorders鈥攏eed to be kept private.
Even special educators who have embraced the technology urge to proceed with care.
鈥淚鈥檓 concerned about how AI is being presented right now to educators, that it鈥檚 this magical tool,鈥� said Julie Tarasi, who teaches special education at Lakeview Middle School in the Park Hill school district near Kansas City, Mo. She recently completed a course in AI sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education. 鈥淎nd I don鈥檛 think that the AI literacy aspect of it is necessarily being [shared] to the magnitude that it should be with teachers.鈥�
Park Hill is cautiously experimenting with AI鈥檚 potential as a paperwork partner for educators and an assistive technology for some students in special education.
The district is on the vanguard. Only about 1 in 6 principals and district leaders鈥�16 percent鈥攕aid their schools or districts were piloting AI tools or using them in a limited manner with students in special education, according to a nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey conducted in March and April.
AI tools may work best for teachers who already have a deep understanding of what works for students in special education, and of the tech itself, said Amanda Morin, a member of the advisory board for the learner-variability project at Digital Promise, a nonprofit organization that works on equity and technology issues in schools.
鈥淚f you feel really confident in your special education knowledge and experience and you have explored AI [in depth], I think those two can combine in a way that can really accelerate the way you serve students,鈥� Morin said.
But 鈥渋f you are a novice at either, it鈥檚 not going to serve your students well because you don鈥檛 know what you don鈥檛 know yet,鈥� she added. 鈥淵ou may not even know if the tool is giving you a good answer.鈥�
Here are some of the areas where Park Hill educators and other school and district leaders see AI鈥檚 promise for special education鈥攁nd what caveats to look out for:
Promise: Reducing the paperwork burden.
Some special education teachers spend as many as eight hours a week writing student-behavior plans, progress reports, and other documentation.
鈥淚nevitably, we鈥檙e gonna get stuck, we鈥檙e gonna struggle to word things,鈥� Tarasi said. AI can be great for busting through writer鈥檚 block or finding a clearer, more objective way to describe a student鈥檚 behavior, she said.
What鈥檚 more, tools such as Magic School鈥攁n AI platform created for K-12 education鈥攃an help special education teachers craft the student learning goals that must be included in an individualized education program, or IEP.
鈥淚 can say 鈥業 need a reading goal to teach vowels and consonants to a student,鈥� and it will generate a goal,鈥� said Tara Bachmann, Park Hill鈥檚 assistive-technology facilitator. 鈥淵ou can put the criteria you want in, but it makes it measurable, then my teachers can go in and insert the specifics about the student鈥� without involving AI, Bachmann said.
These workarounds can cut the process of writing an IEP by up to 30 minutes, Bachmann said鈥攇iving teachers more time with students.
AI can also come to the rescue when a teacher needs to craft a polite, professional email to a parent after a stress-inducing encounter with their child.
Some Park Hill special education teachers use 鈥淕oblin,鈥� a free tool aimed at helping neurodivergent people organize tasks, to take the 鈥渟pice鈥� out of those messages, Tarasi said.
A teacher could write 鈥渢he most emotionally charged email. Then you hit a button called 鈥榝ormalize.鈥� And it makes it like incredibly professional,鈥� Bachmann said. 鈥淥ur teachers like it because they have a way to release the emotion but still communicate the message to the families.鈥�
Caveat: Don鈥檛 share personally identifiable student information. Don鈥檛 blindly embrace AI鈥檚 suggestions.
Teachers must be extremely careful about privacy issues when using AI tools to write documents鈥攆rom IEPs to emails鈥攖hat contain sensitive student information, Tarasi said.
鈥淚f you wouldn鈥檛 put it on a billboard outside of the school, you should not be putting it into any sort of AI,鈥� Tarasi said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no sense of guaranteed privacy.鈥�
Tarasi advises her colleagues to 鈥渁bsolutely not put in names鈥� when using generative AI to craft documents, she said. While including students鈥� approximate grade level may be OK in certain circumstances, inputting their exact age or mentioning a unique diagnosis is a no-no.
To be sure, if the information teachers put into AI is too vague, educators might not get accurate suggestions for their reports. That requires a balance.
鈥淵ou need to be specific without being, without being pinpoint,鈥� Tarasi said.
Caveat: AI works best for teachers who already understand special education
Another caution: Although AI tools can help teachers craft a report or customize a general education lesson for students in special education, teachers need to already have a deep understanding of their students to know whether to adopt its recommendations.
Relying solely on AI tools for lesson planning or writing reports 鈥渢akes the individualized out of individualized education,鈥� Morin said. 鈥淏ecause what [the technology] is doing is spitting out things that come up a lot鈥� as opposed to carefully considering what鈥檚 best for a specific student, like a good teacher can.
Educators can tweak their prompts鈥攖he questions they ask AI鈥攖o get better, more specific advice, she added.
鈥淎 seasoned special educator would be able to say 鈥楽o I have a student with ADHD, and they鈥檙e fidgety鈥� and get more individualized recommendations,鈥� Morin said.
Promise: Making lessons more accessible.
Ensuring students in special education master the same course content as their peers can require teachers to spend hours simplifying the language of a text to an appropriate reading level.
Generative AI tools can accomplish that same task鈥攐ften called 鈥渓eveling a text"鈥攊n just minutes, said Josh Clark, the leader of the , a private school in Massachusetts serving children with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences.
鈥淚f you have a class of 30 kids in 9th grade, and they鈥檙e all reading about photosynthesis, then for one particular child, you can customize [the] reading level without calling them out and without anybody else knowing and without you, the teacher, spending hours,鈥� Clark said. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 a super powerful way of allowing kids to access information they may not be able to otherwise.鈥�
Similarly, in Park Hill, Bachmann has used Canva鈥攁 design tool with a version specifically geared toward K-12 schools and therefore age-appropriate for many students鈥攖o help a student with cerebral palsy create the same kind of black-and-white art his classmates were making.
Kristen Ponce, the district鈥檚 speech and language pathologist, has used Canva to provide visuals for students in special education as they work to be more specific in their communication.
Case-in-point: One of Ponce鈥檚 students loves to learn about animals, but he has a very clear idea of what he鈥檚 looking for, she said. If the student just says 鈥渂ear,鈥� Canva will pull up a picture of, for instance, a brown grizzly. But the student may have been thinking of a polar bear.
That gives Ponce the opportunity to tell him, 鈥淲e need to use more words to explain what you鈥檙e trying to say here,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e were able to move from 鈥榖ear鈥� to 鈥榳hite bear on ice.鈥欌��
Caveat: It鈥檚 not always appropriate to use AI as an accessibility tool.
Not every AI tool can be used with every student. For instance, there are age restrictions for tools like ChatGPT, which isn鈥檛 for children under 13 or those under 18 without parent permission, Bachmann said. (ChatGPT does not independently verify a user鈥檚 age.)
鈥淚 caution my staff about introducing it to children who are too young and remembering that and that we try to focus on what therapists and teachers can do collectively to make life easier for [students],鈥� she said.
鈥淎ccessibility is great,鈥� she said. But when a teacher is thinking about 鈥渦nleashing a child freely on AI, there is caution to it.鈥�
Promise: Using AI tools to help students in special education communicate.
Park Hill is just beginning to use AI tools to help students in special education express their ideas.
One recent example: A student with a traumatic brain injury that affected her language abilities made thank you cards for several of her teachers using Canva.
鈥淪he was able to generate personal messages to people like the school nurses,鈥� Bachmann said. 鈥淭o her physical therapist who has taken her to all kinds of events outside in the community. She said, 鈥榊ou are my favorite therapist.鈥� She got very personal.鈥�
There may be similar opportunities for AI to help students in special education write more effectively.
Some students with learning and thinking differences have trouble organizing their thoughts or getting their point across.
鈥淲hen we ask a child to write, we鈥檙e actually asking them to do a whole lot of tasks at once,鈥� Clark said. Aspects of writing that might seem relatively simple to a traditional learner鈥攚ord retrieval, grammar, punctuation, spelling鈥攃an be a real roadblock for some students in special education, he said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a huge distraction,鈥� Clark said. The student may 鈥渉ave great ideas, but they have difficulty coming through.鈥�
Caveat: Students may miss out on the critical-thinking skills writing builds.
Having students with language-processing differences use AI tools to better express themselves holds potential, but if it is not done carefully, students may miss developing key skills, said Digital Promise鈥檚 Morin.
AI 鈥渃an be a really positive adaptive tool, but I think you have to be really structured about how you鈥檙e doing it,鈥� she said.
ChatGPT or a similar tool may be able to help a student with dyslexia or a similar learning difference 鈥渃reate better writing, which I think is different than writing better,鈥� Morin said.
Since it鈥檚 likely that students will be able to use those tools in the professional world, it makes sense that they begin using them in school, she said.
But the tools available now may not adequately explain the rationale behind the changes they make to a student鈥檚 work or help students express themselves more clearly in the future.
鈥淭he process is just as important as the outcome, especially with kids who learn differently, right?鈥� Morin said. 鈥淵our process matters.鈥�
Clark agreed on the need for moving cautiously. His own school is trying what he described as 鈥渋solated experiments鈥� in using AI to help students with language-processing differences express themselves better.
The school is concentrating, for now, on older students preparing to enter college. Presumably, many will be able to use AI to complete some postsecondary assignments. 鈥淗ow do we make sure it鈥檚 an equal playing field?鈥� Clark said.
