Personal,Cultural,and Institutional Perspectives of Special Education Technology Integrators: A Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to gain a deep understanding of the lived experiences of four special education technology integrators from personal, cultural, and institutional perspectives. Two semi-structured, recorded interviews were conducted with each participant, followed by a focus group with all participants. Data analysis included continuous memoing, coding, cross coding, raw data triangulation, investigator triangulation, and member checking as a means of deeply understanding participant experience within the larger educational system. Study findings can be used to inform educational stakeholders and policy makers of the challenges found within special education, the unique benefits that special educators bring to the system, and how through collaboration, we might initiate systemic change in support of special education teachers.

Keywords

qualitative research methodologies assistive technology technology perspectives technology integration in-service teachers professional development inclusive education educational perspectives

As more schools and districts move toward inclusive classrooms and co-teaching models, there is a need to take a deeper look into the uniqueness of the special educator (Gomez-Navarro, 2020; Karlsson et al., 2018; Redford, 2019; Thomas et al., 2019). Special educators are “culturally” different from their general education counterparts pedagogically, instructionally, and technologically (Gomez-Navarro, 2020). In fact, teacher preparation programs for special educators are widely different from those of general educators (Boot et al., 2017; The Condition of Education, 2019; Edyburn, 2014, 2020). There is a robust amount of literature related to students with disabilities and the use of assorted assistive technology tools to meet their unique needs. Additionally, literature on supporting students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms continues to increase. However, there is a paucity of literature focusing on the personal, cultural, and institutional experiences of those who make the greatest impact on students with disabilities—special educators (Edyburn, 2013, 2014, 2020; Gomez-Navarro, 2020).

Problem Statement

The body of research on effective technology integration from the perspective of the special educator is sparse (Edyburn, 2020). During a rapid-fire review of literature published between 2005 and 2019, Edyburn (2020) prepared a report that overviewed the current state of technology research. Approximately 968 publications were reviewed, including research on assistive technology testing, access, training, implementation, advocacy, and accountability. Universal design for learning (UDL) and the efficacy of augmentative and alternative communication devices (AAC) to meet the needs of infants and toddlers, applied behavior analysis (ABA), attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism were also well represented in the report.

However, research on the pedagogical, instructional, and technological differences between special education and general education are not well noted in the literature. For the purposes of this study, we are defining pedagogical, instructional, and technological differences as “cultural” differences between these two sub-groups of educators. On a larger scale, research on the personal, cultural, and institutional lived experiences of special education is not well noted in the literature. In a current study, Gomez-Najarro (2020, p. 110) notes the following:

Historically, there have been what Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling described as “enduring fissures” (Cochran-Smith & Dudley-Marling, 2012, p. 237) between general and special education, both in teacher education programs and in K–12 schools (Robinson & Buly, 2007). These divisions between general education and special education are deeply rooted in various aspects of education, including federal policy, funding, and society’s view of disability (Blanton et al., 2018; Edyburn, 2020; Lalvani, 2015)—of which influence relations between general and special education professionals.

Research on special education teachers’ use of technology in instruction exists (The Condition of Education, 2019). However, there is no literature that advocates for the specific needs of special education teachers (Boot et al., 2017). The problem is that we don’t understand the lived experiences of special educators.

We don’t know much about how potential teachers choose special education as a profession. Special education is a complex profession that requires teachers to be prepared to serve students with multiple disabilities and collaborate with other teachers, administrators, parents, and advocates (Council of Exceptional Children, 2020). Attaining special educators’ personal stories might provide insight into why they choose to become special education teachers. Understanding the motives to join such a complex profession might help us understand how and why special educators remain in the field (DeSutter & LeMire, 2016), even though known issues remain unresolved (Edyburn, 2020). Smith-Chandler and Swart (2014) suggest that an integrative approach to research “…involves the consideration of the amalgamation of individual’s experience-centered personal narratives and life stories” (p. 428). Thus, our first goal was to understand the personal experiences of special educators.

We don’t know much about the pedagogical, instructional, and technological (i.e., cultural) differences that exist between general and special educators. Bruner (1986) suggests that “…human mental activity depends for its full expression upon being linked to a cultural tool kit” (p. 15). Further, that “…this amplification of cultural tools is the hallmark of human skills, and we overlook it in our research with peril” (p. 15). Thus, our second goal was to understand the cultural experiences of special educators.

In practice, we know special educators experience inconsistencies across schools and districts in levels of administrative support, access to technology and other resources, equitable caseloads, and capabilities of instructional aides. However, institutional inconsistencies are not well documented in the literature. According to Bruner (1986), “The humanities seek to understand the world as it reflects the requirements of living in it” (p. 50). Institutional experiences are the systemic procedures, policies, and processes within the top-down structure of the educational institution that impacts the narrative of participants (Bruner, 1986). Thus, our third goal was to understand the institutional experiences of special educators.

Understanding the lived experiences of effective special education technology integrators from personal, cultural, and institutional perspectives could be used to inform teacher preparation programs and in-service professional development for special and general education teachers (Karlsston et al., 2018; Smith-Chandler & Swart, 2014; Thomas et al., 2019). Further, understanding and retelling the technology integration narratives of special education teachers could provide foundational knowledge for social and institutional change leading to improved understandings of special educators within the context of public education (Clandinin & Huber, 2010).

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to gain an understanding of special education technology integrators’ stories through the lenses of personal, cultural, and institutional perspectives. We utilized a purposeful sample of four special educators identified as effective technology integrators from a previous study (Courduff et al., 2016). For the current study, we used a narrative approach in order to develop a holistic understanding of the lived experiences of special educators (Clandinin & Huber, 2010; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Smith-Chandler & Swart, 2014). We wanted to know what motivated special educators to become such, what compelled them to use technology with students, and what drives them to remain in special education in spite of the known challenges in special education classroom (Courduff, 2011; Courduff & Szapkiw, 2015a, 2015b; Edyburn, 2020; Gomez-Navarro, 2020; Karlsson et al., 2018; Redford, 2019; Thomas et al., 2019). Study findings could provide a deeper understanding of personal, cultural, institutional experiences of special educators in the literature. Our hope is that by providing their stories, we can provide a voice for special educators that leads to stronger advocacy for them.

Main Research Question: What are the lived experiences of K–12 special educators who have been identified as effective technology integrators for teaching and learning?

Sub Questions

What are the personal stories of technology integration as lived experiences of special educators?

How do special educators define themselves as a subculture within public education?

How do special educators contextualize their experiences within education as an institution?

Research Methods

We utilized a narrative inquiry approach in order to deeply understand perceived experiences of each participant. In narrative inquiry, “We let our research unfold in a way that preserves its own integrity and let it tell its own tale, without being subservient to preconceived beliefs and arbitrary research restrictions” (Kim, 2016, p. 88). Clandinin and Connolly (2000) posit that narrative inquiry aligns with Deweyan pragmatics and that experience is transactional and “…experience/thought result from ongoing and continuous interactions…with our personal, social, and material environment” (p. 65).

Participants and setting

Participants were recruited from a list of 10 effective special education technology integrators from previous research (Courduff et al., 2016). Potential participants were sent a recruitment letter by email. Four of the 10 agreed to participate, and were sent a link to a secure, online informed consent site. Because these participants were part of a previous study, we paid rigorous attention to the control of bias during data collection, analysis, and publication preparation. Participants had between 10 and 15 years of experience in the special education classroom. Two females are specialized academic instructors and teach in the moderate to severe transitional/kindergarten setting; one female, also a specialized academic instructor, teaches in the mild to moderate kindergarten through fifth grade setting; and one male, a speech-language pathologist, teaches high school moderate to severe students during the day, preschool moderate to severe students in the evenings, and older adults with speech and swallowing challenges in the summers.

Instrumentation and data collection

Recorded interviews and a focus group were employed as valid data sources to understand the personal, cultural, and institutional stories of participants. Two semi-structured, recorded interviews were conducted with each participant, followed by a focus group with all participants. The interview questions were semi-structured and based on emerging themes from the literature (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) (See Online Appendix B: Interview Questions).

Data analysis

Data were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach (Smith-Chandler & Swart, 2014) as this approach serves to “appeal to the more universal experiences of disability that are inevitably encapsulated in the unique stories that the individual chooses to tell” (p. 428). Data recordings and transcriptions were reviewed over a 4-month period. Initial coding was conducted by reviewing transcripts and recordings of individual interviews. Then, interviews were coded by theme: personal, cultural, and institutional as per the interview questions. Data were cross-coded, looking for thematic or categorical themes (Chandinin & Huber, 2010; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Field notes were created at the end of each interview session. Continuous memoing was employed during initial and ongoing coding to ensure that personal bias was controlled. Once the initial coding was complete, the primary researcher met with each participant to discuss initial themes in order to ensure accuracy in capturing each story. Initial codes contained the following: access to resources, influence in becoming a special education teacher, influence of technology on practice, parent perspective, relationship with general education teachers, and unwritten rules of teaching. Memos and field notes were reviewed to ensure that all codes and insights were included in the process. Interview data were cross coded with raw focus group data. The focus group data added the following unexpected codes: working with unprepared and unmotivated instructional aides and differences in technology integration within SDC and RSP instruction. When final codes were developed, the primary researcher met with each participant again and encouraged them to provide further context, clarification, or correction of data analysis and reporting (Chandinin & Huber, 2010; Chandler & Swart, 2014; Kim, 2016).

To ensure methodological and data analytic validity and rigor, a second researcher with an earned Ph.D. in educational technology was asked to provide an independent review and coding of the raw interview and focus group recordings along with the transcripts. Once the researcher completed the data analysis, we met and compared initial and final codes. Through investigator triangulation, we found that our independent codes aligned, proving the validity of the data representation of this research.

Findings

Each participants’ experience will be reported from a personal, cultural, and institutional lens. There will be some overlap between lenses as participants were encouraged to simply tell their story, adhering to the interview questions as they could, and moving away from the questions when it made sense to do so. After completing the first round of data coding and analysis, follow-up interviews were conducted to ensure that the findings reflected their story rather than the researcher’s version of their story. Subsequently, preliminary themes were developed and participants were invited to a focus group where the themes were presented and discussed. The focus group conversation confirmed preliminary themes and added themes such as the challenges of working with instructional aids and differences in special day class (SDC) and resource specialist program (RSP) instruction. Study results will first be presented through a holistic lens of participant experiences.

Chris

Chris is a Caucasian male in his 40’s with 17 years’ experience teaching as a speech-language pathologist (SLP). He has used technology throughout his career. He teaches high school moderate to severe students during the day, preschool moderate to severe students in the evenings, and older adults with speech and swallowing challenges in the summers.

Personal Perspectives: Every Day Is Different in the World of Special Ed

Influence to become a special educator

Chris told me that he “got into special education because of his mom.” His mom had a stutter in her younger years, went to speech therapy, and is now an administrator and public speaker. He started in the field as a substitute in 2000 and was hired for his first teaching position in 2003 as a high school special education history and English teacher. In 2005, he transitioned to a role of speech language pathologist. He defines speech therapy as a medical position, and currently works as a high school speech pathologist during the day. With the high schoolers, he works on pragmatics: fluency, vocabulary development, and syntax.

In the evenings, he works with a private practice for children aged 2–5 on articulation disorders and phonological processing disorders; most often correcting the dropping of initial and final consonants in spoken words. When asked if it was difficult to transition from working with high schoolers during the day to preschoolers in the evening, he answered, “So, I really get a wide scope of the field throughout the entire day, which is really cool.” In the summers, he works with the elderly who have gone through some sort of trauma dysphasia. He loves the flexibility of his work. “I feel like I’m not pigeon-holed into one particular thing for the rest of my life—I can run with it.” He explained, “Every day is different in the world of special ed especially because the students don’t have typical days.”

Technology

When I asked Chris how he came to be so efficient using technology, he explained, “So, I grew up in that window for my age group where technology had just been integrated into schools, and when I was in high school, they had a program called Career Innovations in Technology. The internet had just come out when I was a junior, it was Prodigy, right before America Online (AOL). It was a full year long program and it was throughout the day, so it’s totally structured differently than what we have today. It only lasted a couple years, no, I think it lasted for about a decade. They were big on Apple Computers and printing [Microsoft] PowerPoints and how we could access the internet here at school to connect with others. What were emails? You know this was really right at the start of it. So, I had grown up in an era with my age group that was introduced to this stuff, so we were big into technology. That included web design. That included photoshop and so by the time I was a senior I was able to code, which was all about writing “if—then” statements and writing code to develop websites so in order to make things move or to create certain colors. You literally had to type in four numbers and some letters to create the color that you wanted for the background of the website whereas now you just click a button and you change a color, you drag an image, you put it in. Back then you really had to know your stuff to do that. So, once I learned how to do that through the program, I started making money as a side job for companies who needed websites designed and developed. I was playing both roles. I was able to create the graphics part and I was able to do the website part. People needed someone for graphic design but they also needed someone for the website part, I did both. It’s kind of all under the table like ‘Hey, I’ll cover you for that,’ and ever since then I’ve just stuck with technology, it just worked. It just made sense. And everything changes still to this day. Everything reflects back on where that initially started with that coding. It makes sense to me when certain things come out or certain things move a certain way, it’s like oh yeah, I remember how that worked. So, it’s really kind of cool” (See Online Appendix C: Daily Schedules).

Influence of technology on practice

In his current role, Chris incorporates technology into speech goals for his students. Although he doesn’t prepare his students to take the smarter balance assessment consortium (SBAC), he makes activities relevant to the curriculum. “My curriculum is cool for me because there’s not really a curriculum, my work is based on goals. Now with that being said, as a speech pathologist, one of the things I feel that is crucial is to say is, ‘Okay, this kid’s got this disorder—what type of goal can I make that can make it relevant to the curriculum?’ So, if I’m going to do vocabulary development, cool. If I’m going to work on irregular verbs or if I’m going to work on synonyms and antonyms, it’s going to be relevant to the curriculum. So, I’ll pull things out of the science book or out of the English book and we build from there. You know, I think that’s crucial. So yeah, I guess the common core does matter with my role too. It should.”

Chris also provides training in assistive technology/augmentative and alternative communication (AT/AAC) and the county Special Education Local Plan Agency (SELPA) for in-service special education teachers, presents at regional and state technology conferences, is the founder of the “Speech Dude” webinar series through AbleNet, and is a member of the leadership team with the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association (CSHA).

Cultural perspectives: It’s a generational divide

I asked Chris about his experiences working with general education teachers, and whether or not he feels there is a cultural divide between the two sub groups of educators, he explained that he doesn’t see the differences in technology integration or the relational aspects of teaching to be the problem. Rather, he feels that differences in technology integration are generational. “I don’t know if it’s necessarily a cross between the GenEd and the SpEd teachers versus a generational thing with some teachers who have a more difficult time with adapting to technology and change. I think that’s more of it. It’s that thought of, ‘I’ve been doing this for so long and this is what has been successful for me. Why change into some new things? Why put Chromebooks into every students’ hand? Why do that when everything else has been going so fine?’ And, you know sometimes it also could seem like more work. I think it’s a generational thing versus a SpEd/GenEd thing.”

Institutional Perspectives: My District is Not the Norm

Access to resourcesJ

Chris stated that his district is highly supportive of all teachers in getting them the resources, training, and support they need for technology integration. “I can say that I feel like our district is amazing at this technology integration movement. Being part of the Special Education Technology Trainers (SETT) group with several other district people and hearing about the resources that they have in comparison to what’s going on in our district, I think that we have to be at the top at the state honestly. We’ve got 25,000 students. We’ve got 25,000 [Google] Chromebooks. We’ve got eight comprehensive high schools, two smaller campuses for additional support for the students who can’t make it on our comprehensive sights. Every class has a projector. Every class has an frequency modulation (FM) system so we’ve got teachers who can wear a lanyard and speak. This is across the board district wide. We’ve got [Google] Chromebook carts.” He continued to explain that in order to get a [Google] Chromebook cart, a teacher signs up for a full day training offered by the district. A full day training is provided each semester and once the teacher has completed the training, they receive either a 20- or 36- [Google] Chromebook cart based on their needs. The district also pays for cutting edge web-based educational subscriptions such as Peardeck, Quizlet, Newsela, and Snap & Read. Every student has a google account and access to all accessibility [Google] Chrome extensions and apps without needing information technology (IT) approval or notation on an individualized education program (IEP). Further, the district supports both Google Classroom and Office 365—providing robust training and support for both. There are six technology coaches in the district who will sit with teachers on their prep period to provide specific insight on how to integrate the tools into instruction and learning.

The technology tools, training, and support is offered to every certificated employee—general education and special education alike. This is also not the norm. Previous research (Courduff & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2015a, 2015b) suggests inconsistency of technology resources provided for general education teachers and special education teachers.

Chris understands that his district is not the norm. “We are the only district that I know of that has done that and I’m on Twitter a lot and I see it across the states. Typically, districts go with one or the other—Google Classroom or Microsoft Office 365, but not us. We have full access and support for both platforms.”

Taylor

Taylor is a female Hispanic in her 30’s who has been teaching for over 7 years. Taylor has integrated technology within her instruction since she started teaching. She teaches in a moderate to severe TK—2nd grade special education classroom with students with autism and severe emotional behaviors. Her students range in age from 4 to 7.

Personal perspectives: I just fell in love with the way their brains worked

When asked what she loves about special education, Taylor explained,

Well, I kind of just fell in love with it after working as a 1-on-1. It was something that was so different. Going into that school where there are kids from all kinds of backgrounds, and knew things that I didn’t know at 22. I appreciated the way these kids responded and reacted. These kids were so honest and real and truthful. And the thing is, they didn’t have the social cues needed to not be so honest. I really respected that fresh honesty, especially from the community of students with autism. Nobody in my family had been diagnosed with mental illness, or disability or anything like that, so it was brand new to me.

Influence to become a special education teacher

Taylor said that she fell in love with the way that her students’ brains worked.

Specifically, students with autism are so logical, and my brain isn’t naturally super logical. I’m kind of all over the place. So, I thought, “If something happens, we’ll just figure it out.” While their brains are like, “no—this has to happen like this.” I was interested in that mentality. When they’re so angry, they’re in struggle, they’re in pain. Inside, their hearts are hurting and I could empathize with that. I realize that they’re not doing this because they want to hurt me. They are so dis-regulated that they don’t know what to do, so they do something to someone they know and trust. They were like, “I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to feel like this.” I would never want to feel like that. So out of control that you are driven to that physical side, that fight or flight. Something inside me just wanted to be able to help these kids. That’s why I do like some of the behavior because I like being able to help them work through that. Seeing them go from every time being a big blow up or meltdown to being able to use those coping skills and seeing them processing, saying to themselves, “Ok, this is how I get this problem solved—this is what I need to do.” That is what drew me in, and that is what I do now. It started then.

Parent perspectives

Taylor went on to explain that a few years later, her baby niece was diagnosed with autism. Because Taylor is close to her sister, she gained a deep understanding of autism from the parent perspective. She explained that when she started teaching, she didn’t fully understand the parent perspective because, “…they [parents] would jump on you for the littlest things and I would think to myself, ‘why are they so combative?’” Through helping her sister understand the many processes involved in diagnosis, IEPs, and services for her niece, Taylor changed the way she works with families. Taylor’s unique experience with her niece helped her understand the concern, fear, and worry other parents feel.

Then I realized that the parents are still grieving, the parents are still going through their own process. So, trying to work with parents who have children with autism or other disabilities means helping them through the process. Helping them figure out what it means for them as parents and what it means for them as a family unit.

When I asked her if she thinks families are in denial about their small children being diagnosed with autism, she said, “Yes. In general education, you work with a school model, a teaching model. But in special education, you are also dealing with a medical model and parents don’t fully understand that.” Instead, many parents believe that special education is where a child can be fixed. The parent perspective is often,

Here you go—fix my child. I want my child in GenEd by first grade. But the child is in moderate to severe special education. They can’t talk, and they are cognitively working at a 9 to 18-month level, and yet the parents want the child to go into GenEd. I don’t have a magic wand; all I can do is give them the structure that each child needs and to work with parents to provide the same structure in the home setting.

She reflected that helping her sister understand the process was intense at times. “She would call me crying. She said that my niece had qualified for 44 hours of applied behavior analysis (ABA) and she thought it was a lot of time for a 3-year-old. I told her that this is all the child had ever known and that children with autism really thrive in structure.” Her sister had to quit her full-time job to work part time from home so that she was available to take her niece to all of the services. Taylor explained that more hours are given to a preschooler so that some of the behaviors can be addressed before the child enters kindergarten. “Early intervention is huge. Kids that go to services prior to kindergarten are more structured and ready to learn than those who have not had any services prior to kindergarten.”

The students go from controlling their whole world to a world being controlled for them. That’s how school works. My students come in with reactions and behaviors that are bigger than a neuro-typical child. Children who have had that early intervention come in to school more ready to learn. Most of my students will be in school until they are 22 years old because they are in a moderate to severe program. They need job skills so they can get jobs and live on their own. So, when students come to me with no early intervention, I need to get them ready to learn by first or second grade. And that’s really hard because they did not get the head start that they needed to be ready to learn in school.

Influence of technology on practice

Taylor believes it’s important that her students be exposed to technology early so that they learn how it works. She acknowledged that her students are using “really old technology,” but that is what was available at the school. Her goal is to teach them how to be more independent using technology skills. But integrating technology results in a lot of troubleshooting on her part. “They just click on stuff and change things but it’s important for them to play with the technology. Many people don’t believe they are capable of learning anything, and so they don’t need access to the technology. The teacher before me didn’t take them to the computer lab at all. I take them once a week for an hour.” Taylor works with her students on skills such as using the mouse (left click, right click, scroll feature), in the computer lab and in the classroom. In the classroom, she has put a star on the left click side of the mouse so that students can more easily understand left from right. Then, she helps them transfer those skills to the computer lab where left and right click are not marked. She noted that her instructional aides were not properly trained to work with students with severe disabilities. Rather, the aids want to “do the skill for the student, instead of helping them learn to do it for themselves.”

With the first and second grade students, she works on letter recognition. She has access to two [Apple] iPads that function as AAC devices with TouchChat software installed. She explained that TouchChat is an appropriate app for her students because it’s more basic and limits choices. Her primary use of the iPads is for students to learn to use words. She explained that kids just “take off because the words are modeled for them so they learn to use words on their own much more quickly. It’s great to hear what they can do when they start to understand how language works and how communication works.”

When I asked Taylor about her typical day, she told me that it is very structured (See Online Appendix C: Daily Schedules).

Taylor is teaching the students to understand and live within the structure of a learning classroom. “My lesson plans have to be activity-based and it depends on the day as to what we get done.” Her students struggle with fine motor skills using paper/pencil activities so when the students get tired or the frustration levels get high, she falls back on social skills. She uses natural consequences for behaviors. She spends a lot of time teaching her kids to use coping skills to handle disappointment. She calls it a Social Thinking Lesson, where she helps her students self-regulate by asking, “Is this an appropriate reaction to the size of the problem?”

Parent perspectives

In terms of home-school connection, Taylor said that it depended on the home situation. Some parents are better at following through with practice activity, optional homework, and reading than others. She reminds parents that this is a team and it is really important that they function as a team so that the student experiences consistency between home and school. “As a parent, you’re part of this too.” Homework is a four-page packet for the month including activities for life skills, social skills, and reading skills. She noted that parents respond positively when their children learn to use words. She said, “they are so appreciative, they send cards and notes. I tell them, ‘It’s not me, I’m just the teacher. It’s a whole team effort. It’s the parents, it’s the kid, it’s the entire team. They are thriving because of the team effort. That’s why they are blossoming. That’s why they are thriving.’”

Cultural Perspectives: Your Kids/My Kids

Relationship with GenEd

Taylor maintains a sense of humor in working within the cultural differences between GenEd and SpEd teachers. She told me how surprised GenEd the teachers were when they overheard her referring to them as “GenEd.” The GenEd teachers had never “really thought about being referred to as GenEd, they thought of the reference to SpEd teachers, but not the other way around…They don’t realize that it’s a thing.” Taylor mentioned that the general education kindergarten teachers have been hesitant to include her kindergarten students in school events and field trips. “They tend to forget me on certain things.” Taylor expressed that, while planning for a field trip, the GedEd kindergarten team told her that only four of her five students could attend due to a limited number of spots. She explained that one of her kids was a “runner” and his mom preferred he not go on the field trip. “So, it worked out. But why was it assumed that one of my kindergarteners had to stay behind? Why not one of their kids? It’s still very much a ‘my kids—your kids’ environment.”

Taylor does not give up on the collaboration. All of her students have 5th grade buddies, including some boys who have behaviors. “And they try so hard to help them be good!”

And, GenEd, they try to be helpful, but they are always asking, “oh, how’s it going?”…like my job is so hard. But this is what I signed up for. I love what I do. And yes, there are days when it’s way hard, but I don’t think my job is any more difficult than theirs. I don’t want to teach GenEd. I know that I would struggle. They are really quick witted. I don’t have the come-backs for their comments. I like teaching social skills and basic things. It’s a different job.

Institutional: I feel like a leech to the district

When Taylor could not find a job after she completed her bachelor’s degree, she entered the world of SpEd as a 1-1 instructional aid in the autism program of a large K–12 district. In November of that year, she was offered a job teaching transitional adults in the emotionally disturbed program in the same district. Because Taylor had not yet started a credential program, she entered the provisional internship permit (PIP) program http://www.uft.org/teaching/how-pip-works in order to be able to fill the need for a special education teacher in the district. As part of the PIP program, Taylor began to take courses at a local private university. The PIP expired after 1 year, and so Taylor was put on an emergency credential in order to keep her position and fill a teaching need for the district. While waiting for her Intern credential to be approved, and per regulations under an emergency credential, Taylor was allowed to teach for 20 school days in the emotionally disturbed classroom, then was placed in a different classroom until her Intern credential came through. Finally, she was allowed to return to her original assigned classroom. Of the experience, Taylor said,

It was super overwhelming because I had never taught, didn’t know what to do, had a really hard time transitioning into being a teacher at that place. And they said, “Oh, we’ll give you a lot of help, don’t worry,” but then they got busy too. So, I was kind of on my own and had to figure out classroom management, IEPs, all those things and trying to do them with no instruction or training on it.

Taylor stated that the program director would stop by every once in a while, to check on her. She explained that her focus was working primarily on behaviors and that there was very little time in the day for instruction, “kicking, biting, scratching, hitting, pulling hair…when I started in the 1-1 program I worked with emotionally disturbed students and then I moved to working with 18- to 22-year-olds in an adult transitional program.” Taylor was in the adult transitional program for 8 months, then, “…they put me with the opposite group of kids, the early childhood group, which is where my heart lies anyway. I really enjoy little kids.”

Taylor was the third teacher assigned to these students in 3 years. The staff would ask if she was ok and she’d respond, “This is fine, this is great!” Taylor continued,

I had a different perspective because I was coming from a more intense to a less intense setting. This was a nice change for me because at that time I really needed the change. I had scars and cuts. Every day I would come home with different bruises or cuts. You don’t want to put students into the holds necessarily so I would hold off as long as possible. When you need to do it, you do. I’ve been bitten more times than I can count, I’ve had my hair pulled more times than I can count. I didn’t feel like I was making that much of a difference as I would like to because I felt like all I was doing was just helping with behavior.

Taylor explained that, while she enjoys working with students on behavior, it’s not the only thing she wants to do. She also wants to teach, and so the change to early childhood was needed and welcomed. Her current kids have an intelligence quotient (IQ) lower than 80. They don’t talk and they might never talk. She works with autism, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy.

Access to resources

Taylor uses technology with her moderate to severe students, and without much support from district or site level administrators. For example, when each teacher at her school site was given a Chromebook for use in the classroom, her principal told her that because she had a budget through the county, she did not qualify for a Chromebook. Additionally,

I found that there’s a lack of professionals in my district that are knowledgeable about the type of technology we utilized within our mod severe programs. So, there is nobody to troubleshoot our technology. It feels like you are on your own. This is challenging to address when faced with the great amount of prep and IEP management that already comes with the job. Technology standards are addressed during district training for elementary education, but it’s covered really more in a broad sense and hasn’t really taken down to the special education level.

The challenges Taylor faces are real. “My kids are of no benefit to the district. They will not test well due to their disabilities, so the progress they make in school makes no impact on district test scores.” Taylor said that she feels “…bad even asking for basic technology and supplies that the kids need. I feel like a leech to the district.” Taylor conveyed the belief that from an institutional perspective, her students do not contribute anything to the success of the district. They just cost the district money.

Maria

Maria is a female Hispanic early childhood teacher in her 50’s, working with moderate to severe students in an afternoon early intervention program. Maria has been teaching for over 20 years, and has utilized technology for the past 10 years.

Personal Perspectives: I Am Most Effective in Early Intervention

Influence to become SpEd

Maria’s first interest in special education happened when her son was diagnosed with ADHD. At that time, Maria worked as an instructional aid while going to school for her teaching credential. Maria holds both mild/moderate and moderate/severe teaching credentials, but she doesn’t need either in her current role because, “I ended up getting a position in early childhood because this was my niche. I believe I’m really most effective at this age level.” Maria explained that she is a huge advocate for early intervention. “You’re really teaching them how to go to school, focusing on the social, the emotional, and the vocational and life skills. With SpEd at this level it’s really about learning how to go to school.”

An early childhood classroom is considered “non-categorical,” which means that Maria’s students could move into a resource, mild/moderate, or moderate/severe kindergarten class, “…it just depends on the progress they make.” In the mornings, Maria works on IEPs, supports special education teachers throughout the district, and goes on home visits as necessary. Her students come to school right before lunch. A typical day with students includes 30 minutes letter recognition. “They write their names, they trace their names, they see the number of the week and write and trace those. Then they go to lunch.” During lunchtime, Maria works with students on socialization skills. The remainder of the 3.5-hour day is spent in circle time, centers, and recess. Circle time and center time focuses on language, math, arts, and fine motor skills (See Online Appendix C: Daily Schedules).

Access to resources

Maria said that, “The majority of teaching in this age group is done with a computer because that is a preferred activity. If you combine the preferred activity with the parts of the day that are the most difficult for them, it makes for more internalization of the subject matter.” Maria has [Apple] iPads, laptops, and a desktop iMac in her classroom. She regularly provides lists of websites to parents based on the technology that they have at home. She said that all of her students have smartphones of their own, stating, “These kids are going to have to deal with the technology. Period. They all have cell phones…so they can play with them. That’s a whole other area of research for you, the long-term effects of attention span, based on their ability to stay engaged in a task that is not technological in nature, you know, sitting and attending. How productive can a child be away from a piece of technology?”

Cultural Perspectives: I’ve Experienced a Significant Amount of Bullying

Relationship with GenEd

Maria stated that there are some very interesting perceptions regarding the differences between GenEd and SpEd, starting with pay.

It’s interesting, it goes from questions like, “Do you guys get paid as much as we do?” to actually getting questions about your competency, until they see you at an IEP meeting and you’re doing your thing and they say, “oh, this is why you get paid the same amount of money as I get paid, when you have 12 kids and I have 30, because of all the paperwork you do.” I think a lot of it stems from just ignorance of what a SpEd teacher is or does. I mean it’s unfortunate, I’ve experienced a significant amount of bullying.

Another challenge is collaboration with general education teachers. General education teachers don’t understand the value that special education teachers can bring in helping students in the regular classroom. She stated that general education teachers resist the help due to their ignorance.

…ignorance of what people in special education do, until they have problems and are told, “hey, maybe you should go to so-and-so in that classroom. She may be able to help you with some ideas on how to deal with a student who has autism.” And even then, they take offense to it, “Why should I go to her? She’s SpEd and I’m regular ed.” But the ones who are amenable to the process, eventually we work together. I give my input and say, “you know what, perhaps you would like to take steps to get this child tested and not prolong this anymore because if they are in the wrong setting, you’re looking at an educational nightmare for every teacher that this child’s going to have.” When there’s good communication, there’s much better outcome. As far as I fit in my school site, we’re a separate classroom from the school. Not too many people know who I am or what I do. They all know I’m SpEd because the entire wing is SpEd. But at the same time, we’re trying to make our kids visible, we’re with them at playtime, at library, at assemblies, so we do our part to integrate with the community and give them the interaction, but we’re still separated, we’re still segregated.

Maria completed this part of the conversation by adding, “…but my principal is so supportive that it does not matter to me.”

Institutional Perspectives: You Tell Us What You Need, We Give It to You

Access to resources

As we spoke about the need to use technology to address non-preferred tasks in a preferred medium, Maria talked about the process of getting the technology resources, apps, add-ons, etc. at her site. She said that she is able to get whatever she needs, when she needs it without a lot of extra paperwork.

They are very good about letting me have whatever I want. This is a very, very large district so they don’t micromanage you at all. They [say], “you tell us what you need, we give it to you.” In small districts they [say], “ok, what are you doing? What is that for? You need to write it all down now and write a paper on why you need Starfall in your classroom.” Unlike here: “You want Starfall? Let me pencil that into my budget for next year. $70? Okay, you got it.” But it really depends on the district.

Maria continued to say that she has the ability to download and install any extensions or apps that she feels would benefit her students, which is not the case in most districts. She confirmed that this level of access is provided for all teachers in the district, “I just know technology integration when it comes to my classroom and how I integrate technology in that aspect. But, we [every classroom] all have access literally to carts with [Apple] iPads, everyone has access to that.”

Emily

Emily is a Caucasian female in her 40’s. She has been in special education for over 20 years. She has served as a specialized academic instructor (SAI), teaching in the mild to moderate kindergarten through fifth grade setting and a Resource Specialist Program (RSP) teacher who has served in her current district for 12 years, and has been integrating technology in teaching for 15 years. Prior to this, she served in a much larger district for 4 years. She has an Education Specialist Credential for Mild/Moderate, Education Administrative credential, and certificates in assistive technology (AT), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and an autism authorization.

Personal Perspectives: This Is Exactly What I Should be Doing

Influence to become SpEd

Emily never dreamed of becoming a special education teacher. She explained that her dad worked as a Consumer Service Coordinator for a Regional SELPA and supported adult-aged persons with disabilities. Emily often accompanied her dad on visits with customers and reflected, “I have always had that instilled in me, advocating for individuals with disabilities. I became friends with some of his consumers who had cerebral palsy (CP) and it was just wonderful.” So, her early exposure to the world of disability was positive and full of hope. In high school, Emily worked as an aide for Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) for a local SELPA Regional Center. She explained that the IFSP program is intended as a support network for families who have children ages infant to 3 years old. She called it an IEP for infants. In college, Emily studied theater and then worked as a substitute teacher for a large school district. When she saw an advertisement for an internship for an Education Specialist mild/moderate program at a local university, she jumped for it. “That never even dawned on me as a possibility, I don’t know why. It doesn’t make sense that I never realized that existed. I never thought about it and as soon as I read that [the advertisement], I thought, ‘That’s exactly what I need to be doing.’”

In her current position, Emily serves as an RSP teacher with 21 students on her caseload. She also mentors a new special education teacher at her site, fills in for her site administrator when he is at district office meetings, works on site level tri-annuals and initials, and leads the AT assessment team for the district. She works with this team 1 day per week, doing observations, interviews, and paperwork in order to provide recommendations for students who need assistive technology services. At this, she laughed and said,

That’s really time consuming, because the observations can take hours. Then you have to do interviews, then you have to consult with the other specialists and write reports, and then you trial things. Then, you consult again after you start trialing, which is wonderful. I love it, it’s just when it’s one day a week, it’s a bit stressful, trying to make sure I get everything done because when I’m not at my site, the work doesn’t go away.

When I asked her about a typical day, she smiled, “there is not typical day, but if I had a dream day…” (See Online Appendix C: Daily Schedules).

Although Emily might never get that dream day, she sees her personal journey as a gift. She never regrets a thing. Especially not the tough stuff.

Cultural Perspectives: It Can Be an Amazing Collaboration, or It Can Be One Heck of a Nightmare

Relationship with GenEd

“I feel like I can work with whoever. I’m pretty easy-going.” Emily is collaborative and tries to connect to those she works with. “I can’t speak for all special educators, but I think we approach things differently. But thank God because otherwise what’s the point?” When I asked her about co-teaching and working with general education teachers, she said,

It depends on the teacher. It can be an amazing collaboration or it can be one heck of a nightmare. It can be a heck of a nightmare if a teacher has a lot of control issues and just really likes to have the reins. Some of them see us more as an aide position where we’re just helping them to accomplish what they’re trying to accomplish. There is a lot of old school thinking. Teachers who are willing to collaborate and try new approaches are flexible in how they are willing to group and instruct their students. That’s a beautiful thing.

When Emily was asked if she thought the challenges of collaboration were generational or dispositional, she thought about it for a while.

You know, I think it’s both. I would say generational. I think there’s a component to that because they’re really still set in a mindset, “I talk—you listen.” I find that a lot. It’s a hard sell though when they’re so used to doing things a certain way.

As an example, she is working with a student who is on the autism spectrum.

He thinks completely differently. He’s gifted. But there are a lot of huge behavioral challenges. We thought that his teacher would be open to trying new things. She says she is, but I think deep down she has a really hard time. For example, she would give her class a specific prompt for a writing assignment about building a snowman. She showed them [her students] a video to give them some prior knowledge, and that worked for most students. For him, he had no connection with that. If it were me, I would look at what we really want him to do. What type of writing piece is this? Is the snowman part of the standard? Probably not, so let him write about something different, as long as it’s the same style that’s being required who cares? Right? This teacher put a stop on that, “No, this is the assignment, he has to write about this. I already gave you the video.” It’s hard to help some teachers get past that mindset of, “well this is the assignment that everybody is doing.” I think universal design for learning (UDL) is hard for some teachers when they’re in that mindset, “this is the assignment for everybody.”

Emily went on to explain,

There are a million other things he could write about. He had these wonderful topics that he is fascinated and obsessed with. Give him one of those and he would have done it with excitement. But instead, you’re fighting this fight and now you have behavior problems and what’s the point? So that you can have someone write about a snowman? So that it can look like everybody else’s assignments? I think that’s a hard concept to get through to different teachers. But not all teachers are like that.

Emily talked about her relationship with general education teachers at her site. She said that, “They see the value in what we do. They say, ‘I could never do what you do.’ It’s not that they don’t see value in what we do, they are just not collaborative. It’s more a sense of, ‘You do what you do and I’ll do what I do’ mentality.” Emily explained that co-teaching is a new initiative in the district. However, it is still in the first year of implementation, and that this might be why the general education teachers don’t have a collaborative mindset. “If we continue this next year, who knows? She might be more willing to try new strategies that I suggest. Co-teaching is very new.” Emily expressed that there is one teacher at her site who is very collaborative and open to trying everything new. I asked Emily when she thought teachers would finally stop being referred to students as “my kids” and “your kids.” She said, “We are moving towards that. I think we have a long way to go. I think that as the old generation is phased out, the newer generation is coming in, I think we’ll see more openness to that.”

Another area of cultural concern for Emily is the preparation that some parents have to help their kids academically, socially, and even physically. Understanding and supporting parents “…depends on what school you’re at…we have a lot of parents who we’ve had to call Child Protective Services (CPS) and we’ve had to do training. We’re trying our best to try to help parents but there’s some who come to the table with not many more skills than what their child has.” When asked if she thought this is a generational problem and she said,

In our school possibly because of the demographics. We have a lot of apartments nearby so I think a lot of people who end up with us are transients. They’ve moved around a lot and they’ve fallen through the cracks with their kids. So, they may not have been identified in the past, and no one’s really walked them through the process and they may not already have the skills to seek these things out by themselves. We have a lot of students who need some significant help, not just in school but outside of school. So, I try to talk the parents into and walk them through the steps to get the outside help.

She has worked with students whose parents want inclusion but would be better served in a self-contained special education classroom. Of one parent, she said, “she insists on inclusion so we increase his pull-out time to two hours per day. And he still has extreme behaviors, so what’s the point?” She also described a student who was a great example of what inclusion should look like.

It was really hard to get the parents’ trust at first, but this student did so well in the regular classroom. He was so well liked and got along with everyone. We used a lot of technology with him. The GenEd teacher was a great advocate for him. Instead of a regular Chromebook, she suggested a touch screen Chromebook. It was amazing!

Emily noted that there are a lot of misunderstandings related to assistive technology that can be, and should be, used to support students at school and at home.

When they [parents and teachers] hear the word ‘assistive technology’ they immediately think of an iPad or all these high-tech things and in my assessments, they mostly need low-tech. They need a checklist or a chrome extension. It’s more about organization. I had a student with an AT assessment who had a malformation in his hands. But, oh my gosh, he is the fastest typer! He found a way around it so he doesn’t need a special keyboard, he knows how to navigate it [the technology], he just needs to incorporate it more into what they are doing.

Institutional Perspectives: I Work With a Dream Administration

Emily refers to her site administration as “…a dream administration. I’ve heard horror stories at different sites or within sites from different teachers. There are always going to be exceptions, but I’ve always had a great positive relationship with other administrators, and Dr. X, the Superintendent.” Emily respects the Superintendent because he has established a practice of volunteering in a classroom once a week for a period of time every year. “I guess every year he observes in different classrooms for a length of time, and so one year he consulted with the SpEd department, and they asked if I’d be willing to, and I said, ‘heck yeah—bring him in!’…and he worked in my classroom once a week for quite a while.”

Emily reflected that some special education directors with strong personalities can be hard to work with for some special education teachers, but she admitted that she’s “always had a very positive experience. For me, that’s the culture of this district.” Emily went on to say that, finally, a special education teacher was recently promoted to a professional development position at the district office. “Special education is a different beast. Professional development needed it, they needed special ed.”

Access to resources

In terms of technology resources, Emily told me that technology integration is a district goal. All schools have one-to-one Chromebooks and all students have Gmail accounts and use Google classroom or an alternative tool to access the Google suite. Emily uses Google to prepare lessons, communicate with teachers, and for all professional tasks. “Oh my gosh, I live on Google docs and sheets.”

For Emily, inclusion is a goal. “Our district is trying to really move more towards full inclusion as much as possible, not changing placement to SDC and keeping kids in the classrooms as much as humanly possible. While we’ve always tried to do that, it’s even stronger now.”

Results

The results of this study indicate that special educators enter the profession because of a desire to work with people with disabilities. Yet, barriers of misunderstanding across groups of educators still exist. Although systemic issues still remain, access to technological resources is less of a problem than previously noted in the literature (Edyburn, 2020). In this section, I will provide a summary of results by research sub questions: personal, culture, and institutional experiences.

Main Research Question: What are the lived experiences of K–12 special educators who have been identified as effective technology integrators for teaching and learning?

Sub Question 1: What are the personal stories of technology integration as lived experiences of special educators?

Personal experiences

Three main themes emerged through interviews regarding personal experiences: Influence, disposition, and technology. Participants were influenced to consider the profession due to a known disability in the family, a family member who is a special educator, and/or the flexibility of the work environment. Participants became special educators because they are drawn to the uniqueness of the work and are dedicated to students with disabilities. They enter the profession with the dispositional tools to create learning environments that fit the unique need of each student. Finally, participants explained that technology provides a way for students with special needs to communicate, to learn, and to be productive.

Sub Question 2: How do special educators define themselves as a subculture within public education?

Cultural experiences

Cultural and social misunderstandings between general and special educators still exist. The “us and them” mentality is the norm. Misunderstandings in terms of responsibilities, teaching roles “my students and your students” and even pay scale still exist between sub cultures of GenEd and SpEd. Additionally, generational and dispositional differences in perspective of technology integration, full utilization of UDL, and the “you will do it my way” mentality of some veteran teachers, exists. On a promising note, co-teaching is an emerging trend in education and holds the possibility of breaking cultural barriers. Finally, working with parents is complex due to many challenges. Challenges include parents not fully aware of their rights, high levels of transiency in some areas, the psychological challenges of raising a student with a disability, and parental mistrust of the process through which students receive services.

Sub Question 3: How do special educators contextualize their experiences within education as an institution?

Institutional experiences

At the institutional level, administrative support and access to technology is inconsistent. Site level administrators are instrumental in providing equitable levels of support and resources for special educators. Participants either had 100% access to administrative support including all needed, updated technology resources, or almost none at all, due to a lack of funding or lack of focus on funding for technology. While caseloads were within legal limits, participants explained that they were also required to facilitate IEP meetings, develop initial, and tri-annual assessments and reports, and facilitate assistive technology assessments for students not on their caseloads.

Additionally, participants explained the existence of the “unwritten rules of teaching” such as being told not to thoroughly inform parents of their rights, teaching to the [state] test, and being considered a burden/insignificant within the larger context of the numbers of teachers in the district. Finally, instructional aides (paraeducators) typically prefer assignments in general education classrooms working with students with mild to moderate disabilities. Training for instructional aides is the responsibility of the special education teacher. Moreover, instructional aides assigned to moderate to severe special education classrooms are not trained to work with the depth of disability found in these classrooms.

Discussion

Analysis of the stories of the participants in this study indicate that some small changes have occurred within education. While there are still many challenges inherent in special education practice, there is a national movement to prepare teachers to work as co-teachers within inclusive settings. Access to technology has improved due to the need for virtual teaching and learning opportunities across the U.S. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019).

Some of the challenges for effective special educators remain the same. Advocacy and voice for special educators within the larger context of the educational system is sparse (Gomez-Navarro, 2020). This is partially due to the fact that general education teachers significantly outnumber special education teachers (Ed Data Inventory, 2020). A recent report on the state of the profession discussed known issues such as lack of time for collaboration due to extensive time doing paperwork, assessment of students not on the caseload, lack of administrative support, and other systemic known issues, but the need for advocacy for special educators was lacking (Council of Exceptional Children, 2020). Additionally, the Condition of Education (2019) report showcases several policy recommendations including young adult educational and employment outcomes by family status and postsecondary outcomes for non-traditional undergraduate students, but makes no mention of policy changes for special educators.

Realistically, many stakeholders in education don’t understand what special educators do and fail to provide the resources and services required by the individuals with disabilities in education act (IDEA, 2004). In a recent post, Glass (2020), education blogger and activist, cautioned special educators to stay informed of IDEA because, “…one wrong step and students aren’t receiving the education promised, or, worst-case scenario, here comes a district lawsuit which includes the case manager. Be aware of IDEA, especially Child Find requirements…there is a ton of information in this handbook that is never taught in college or any pieces of training. Know this information. There are many mandates that most teachers are not aware of, that the school district is required to provide to special education teachers” (para. 5). Edyburn’s (2020) Assistive Technology Rapid Literature Review, substantiates the lack of literature on advocacy for the special education teacher. Results of the review revealed that literature in the special education technology field focuses on testing, implementation, accountability, and access of assistive technology and AAC. The advocacy focuses on the tools, not on the people who teach with them (Edyburn, 2020).

Implications for Policy

What we know to be true in practice is not well known in the literature. In order to truly make change to practice, we must advocate for changes in policy. It is relatively easy to suggest that the known issues be addressed within district teacher unions. However, there is not a strong special education voice in school unions, not because it’s not necessary, but because special education teachers don’t tend to self-advocate (Gomez-Navarro, 2020; Karlsson et al., 2018; Redford, 2019; Thomas et al., 2019). Additionally, there is sparse evidence that organizations who are committed to advocate for the needs of special education teachers actually do so (Council for Exceptional Children, 2020; Edyburn, 2020).

As such, teacher preparation programs should train special educators to self-advocate. Administrators should be aware of educational law and IDEA and be prepared to support special education teachers and parents in understanding their rights transparently. Professional development offerings should intentionally include special education technology integration, assistive technology and AAC.

Implications for Future Research

Future research should include the sustainability of co-teaching from financial and relational perspectives. Additionally, a policy oriented multiple case study that investigates advocacy for special educators from an administrative perspective is needed, as well as a policy-oriented case study that investigates equitable special educator access to technology from an administrator perspective. Finally, there is a need for future research on special educator-parent relationships. Specifically, there is a need to know how teachers and parents communicate regarding the goals, strengths, and needs of the students. Understanding the current relational trends could lead to the creation of more open systems of communication and more systemic advocacy for both groups.

Conclusion

What has become very clear through this research is that, in the mind of the special educator, the best interest of the student is at the forefront of every conversation, every action, every point of contact, and every decision. Special educators enter the profession because they are uniquely suited to work with students with diverse needs. Although cultural challenges still exist, these challenges continue to be overlooked, or overcome. Institutional inadequacies continue to be challenging for some, but with continued research in this field, there is hope for change in policy and advocacy that meets the needs of special educators, along with those they serve and support.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material, sj-docx-1-jst-10.1177_01626434211019393 - Personal, Cultural, and Institutional Perspectives of Special Education Technology Integrators: A Narrative Inquiry

Supplemental Material, sj-docx-1-jst-10.1177_01626434211019393 for Personal, Cultural, and Institutional Perspectives of Special Education Technology Integrators: A Narrative Inquiry by Jennifer Courduff and Abrisham Moktari in Journal of Special Education Technology

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jennifer Courduff

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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