Using Computers to Generate IEPs: Rethinking the Process

Abstract

Computer-assisted Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) offer the promise of enhancing special education practice. For instance, such technology could enhance the IEPs participatory process by empowering parents and students, ease the bureaucratic demands of timely standardized documents, improve upon the overall quality of the document, and facilitate more effective instruction. For all the promises, however, we must consider the possibility that this technology may reinforce existing flaws or, perhaps, create new ones. We see technology as reshaping the IEP process; a reshaping we hope is in the best interest of special education and the students we serve. Accordingly, we examine the IEPs evolution, the organizational influences on the adaptation of technology, and legal and programmatic issues. We also delineate questions and offer recommendations for the future use of technology to help develop IEPs.