Time spent online is increasing, but at the same time, so are the risks. Learning online safety and appropriate behavior are now critical skills, especially for students with disabilities.
Online Safety For Children With Learning Disabilities
While most parents, teachers, and guardians of students with disabilities are aware of the potential for in-class bullying- and have strategies to stop bullying before it starts, when students are online, there could be a lot of unseen exclusion and harassment happening as a significant part of the inappropriate behavior, language, and other material students encounter is outside the immediate view of parents, teachers, and guardians.
The challenges with online safety include:
- Many kids with learning disabilities, ADHD, autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and/or emotional/behavioral disorders have difficulties with social interactions and appropriate behavior. They often find it difficult to read social cues, regulate their behavior, establish the accuracy of information, or assess the trustworthiness of others. This makes the risk of victimization, bullying, and harassment when interacting with peers and adults online far higher.
- Someone who seems friendly takes an interest in the student’s life and asks superficially harmless questions about their home, school, or friends can easily build a relationship. However, a child or teen with learning or other cognitive disabilities may not recognize that the questions may be inappropriate or that sharing certain types of information with a stranger, such as their phone number, school, or real name, may be dangerous.
Research indicates that children with disabilities can derive significant value from online resources. Still, their challenges underscore the importance of caregivers and teachers being aware of their online activities and engaging with them openly and directly about potential online encounters.
Tips for Teaching Online Safety
Threats to children’s safety online make it tempting to ban Internet use entirely. Still, they would lose out on technological skills and the opportunity to improve their social skills. Completely blocking access or using scare tactics is ineffective.
Experts say educating children about the risks and responsibilities associated with online communities is the most effective way to keep them safe.
Ways to teach disabled students online safety:
- Teach responsible online citizenship: Help students recognize and avoid malicious online behavior by modeling appropriate and inappropriate interactions and teaching ways to escape and report cyberbullying.
- Discuss what information is unsafe to share online: Teach all students that some information —such as their real name, school, phone number, address, pictures, or other identifying information —is unsafe to share.
- Create a “Do Not Share” list and post it in a clear view as a reminder.
- Have discussions of meaning in writing: Incorporate discussions into conversations about online behavior.
- Explain that statements can easily be misinterpreted online: Thinks that are meant to be funny or sarcastic can be taken seriously, making it crucial to understand how informal and formal language differs. Teach how writing for different audiences and purposes can change what you say (e.g., using emoticons or the “sarcasm tag” /sarcasm).
- Help students understand that what they post online isn’t private: many posts can be viewed by strangers, not just friends, and can be shared on a public platform by others.
- Posts can’t always be removed: Although posts can be removed, many remain online forever, making it essential that students consider the consequences of what they share.
Social interactions are complex, whether they occur in person or online. The social skills needed for basic conversations are different than those used to resolve conflicts, making it crucial to understand behavior in social situations using interaction skills for resolving disputes, taking turns, interacting with authority figures, and affective skills like identifying feelings, understanding the feelings of others, and recognizing whether someone is to be trusted with the cognitive, social skills students need to make choices, self-monitor, and understand online community norms.
