E-inclusion: Learning Difficulties and Digital Technologies

Chris Abbott

01 January 2007

Too often, discussions of the role of digital technologies for learning skate over the wide variety of differences which exist between different groups of learners. Often, ‘the learner’ is presented as a single, unitary figure defined solely by age; as ‘children’, ‘teenagers’, ‘adults’ etc. And yet, there are clearly wide differences in the ways in which different groups of children respond to, benefit from, or are excluded by specific uses of digital technologies.

This review focuses specifically on the use of digital technologies to enable children with learning difficulties to learn effectively. Its goal is to move beyond some of the hype and marketing rhetoric that sometimes characterises this field and to ask nuanced questions about the evidence that exists of the role of digital technologies in this area.