(Press-News.org) Children with disabilities need better support to manage their online lives and potential online risks, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA).
For children with disabilities, being online and part of a well-connected community can have huge benefits. However, children with disabilities will encounter more online risks, and these can escalate more quickly than for their peers.
The research shows that extra support from professionals such as teachers, youth workers and speech and language therapists does not always happen when they are learning, playing, and socialising on the Internet. It also highlights how this impacts on the ability of children with disabilities to access or activate digital resilience support from this community of professionals.
Digital resilience refers to the ability to learn how to recognise, manage and recover from online risk experiences, such as bullying, sexual messaging and mis/disinformation, and is an increasingly important process for participating an increasingly connected world.
The study, published in the journal New Media and Society and involving researchers from the University of Liverpool, finds that professionals supporting children with disabilities need to better support their connected lives to promote community digital resilience and counter the digital inequalities.
The findings come as the latest draft of the Online Safety Bill nears the end of its passage through Parliament. While this landmark legislation will put greater responsibility on tech companies to do more to keep users safe, including children, it is widely accepted that it will not be able to eradicate all risk from online life. This underlines the need for improvements to user education about online risk, especially for vulnerable groups such as children with disabilities.
Lead author Dr Simon P Hammond, of UEA’s School of Education and Lifelong Learning, said: “Educators spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with unforeseen safeguarding events and/or sudden disciplinary issues, a key contributor to high and stressful workloads.”
Dr Jeanette D’Arcy, of the University of Liverpool’s Communications and Media Department, commented: "Education professionals need support to invest their time in building and maintaining the kinds of connections in their communities that will help them provide the best support to this group.”
“Redistributing time to be invested into addressing structural holes, gaps between differing professionals surrounding children with disabilities, is likely to pay dividends in other areas,” added Dr Hammond. “Related to this, supporting other community members is also key to promoting children’s digital resilience.
“This means children with disabilities will have more support when learning how to recognise, manage and recover from online risk experiences – an increasingly key task for all citizens. For communities to be greater than the sum of their parts, responsibility needs to be diffused yet ownership collective. A thorny but not impossible task and one likely to pay dividends.
“Despite learning best through concrete experiences, children with disabilities receive less supported learning opportunities to develop digital resilience in the face of online risks. In short, professional communities are providing least support to the group most in need.”
Previous research has focused on the development of digital resilience at an individual level but the ways in which surrounding networks of community support impact this is underexplored.
Dr Gianfranco Polizzi, of the University of Liverpool, said: “The paper’s findings illustrate that professionals should examine community resources, assets, and be ‘connection brokers’, who activate and provide access to a variety of assets and manage pools of resources to build digital resilience at a community level as well as for the individual.”
The research was funded by Internet Matters, an organisation that provides resources, information and support to keep children safe online. Head of Policy and Research Simone Vibert said: “Our data consistently shows that children who are vulnerable offline, including as a result of disability, are more vulnerable online too, and need specific support to increase their resilience. This research paper points to the critical role of professionals in providing this support.
“Teachers and other professionals have a deep influence on children’s lives, and it is a missed opportunity if this influence is not harnessed to help children navigate online risks – so that they can enjoy the benefits of connected technology more safely. Internet Matters welcomes this report and is committed to doing our bit to provide professionals with the support they need to engage children in their online lives.”
The research involved 30 online semi-structured interviews with professionals supporting the education, growth, and wellbeing of children with disabilities from across the UK, including teachers and youth workers.
‘Connection brokers: How educators work within and between social networks to cultivate community digital resilience to support children with disabilities using the Internet’ is published in New Media and Society on March 24.
END
More support needed for children with disabilities using the Internet
2023-03-24
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Giant volcanic ‘chain’ spills secrets on inner workings of volcanoes
2023-03-24
Volcanic relics scattered throughout the Australian landscape are a map of the northward movement of the continent over a ‘hotspot’ inside the Earth, during the last 35 million years.
University of Queensland researchers Dr Tamini Tapu, Associate Professor Teresa Ubide and Professor Paulo Vasconcelos discovered how these relics reveal the inner structure of the Australian volcanoes became increasingly complex as the hotspot’s magma output decreased.
Dr Al-Tamini ...
Simplified calculations reproduce complex plasma flows
2023-03-24
Overview
Accurate and fast calculation of heat flow (heat transport) due to fluctuations and turbulence in plasmas is an important issue in elucidatingthe physical mechanisms and in predicting and controlling the performance of fusion reactors.
A research group led by Associate Professor Motoki Nakata of the National Institute for Fusion Science and Tomonari Nakayama, a Ph.D student at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, has successfully developed a high-precision mathematical model to predict the heat transport level. This was achieved by applying a mathematical optimization method to a lot of turbulence and heat transport ...
KERI-KIT develop an optimal SiS2 production technology to boost ASSB performance
2023-03-24
A team led by Dr. Ha Yoon-Cheol, a Principal Researcher of Next Generation Battery Research Center at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) and Dr. Cheol-Min Park, a Professor of School of Materials Science and Engineering at Kumoh National Institute of Technology (KIT), has developed a low-cost production technology for silicon disulfide (SiS2) for solid-state electrolytes (argyrodite-type) that has potential to accelerate the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs).
ASSBs replace the liquid-state electrolytes that transfer ions between the anode ...
Heated tobacco products make SARS‑CoV‑2 infection and severe COVID‑19 more likely
2023-03-24
Heated tobacco products—an alternative to traditional cigarettes, similar to e-cigarettes or vapes—do not burn tobacco leaves, but rather allow users to inhale the vapor produced by heating the tobacco leaves. Users choose heated tobacco products to avoid the smoke and odor of burnt tobacco as well as the expectation that they pose fewer health risks than traditional cigarettes. However, the long-term health effects of heated tobacco products, particularly the new risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, have not been clarified.
Addressing this concern, ...
Tiny nanoparticle could have big impact on patients receiving corneal transplants
2023-03-24
Corneal transplants can be the last step to returning clear vision to many patients suffering from eye disease. Each year, approximately 80,000 corneal transplantations take place in the U.S. Worldwide, more than 184,000 corneal transplantation surgeries are performed annually.
However, rejection rates for the corneal grafts can be as high as 10%. This is largely due to poor patient compliance to the medications, which require frequent administrations of topical eyedrops over a long period of time.
This becomes especially acute when patients ...
Climate change threatens global fisheries
2023-03-23
The diet quality of fish across large parts of the world’s oceans could decline by up to 10 per cent as climate change impacts an integral part of marine food chains, a major study has found.
QUT School of Mathematical Sciences researcher Dr Ryan Heneghan led the study published in Nature Climate Change that included researchers from the University of Queensland, University of Tasmania, University of NSW and CSIRO.
They modelled the impact of climate change on zooplankton, an abundant and extremely diverse group of microscopic animals accounting for about 40 per cent ...
Dairy sector boasts 100 years of successful herd data collection
2023-03-23
URBANA, Ill. – The U.S. dairy industry operates a comprehensive data collection program that records herd production information from farmers nationwide. The program provides crucial input for cattle breeding and genetics, and its cooperative structure ensures benefits for producers and scientists alike. A new study from the University of Illinois explores the program’s century-old history, highlighting its relevance for modern agriculture and digital data collection.
“The National Cooperative Dairy Herd Improvement Program (NCDHIP) is an interesting case study because it illustrates how to translate the benefits ...
Study: Mapping people’s knowledge of bees may aid in pollinator conservation
2023-03-23
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — U.S. college students’ knowledge of bees focuses primarily on honey bees and pollination services, according to Penn State researchers, who said findings from their recent study could help in designing campaigns to generate support for protecting threatened pollinators.
Wild and managed bee populations have been in steep decline worldwide in recent years, noted study co-author Christina Grozinger, Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research in ...
Spectroscopy probe could enhance deep brain stimulation procedure for Parkinson’s
2023-03-23
VANCOUVER -- Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has become an increasingly common treatment for patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease, but the procedure still carries significant risks. A new probe that performs two types of spectroscopy could make the procedure safer and improve success rates by helping doctors more accurately navigate instruments inside the brain. The research team identified white and grey matter using principal component analysis (PCA), proving that spectroscopic measurements could be suitable for neuronavigation.
For DBS, surgeons place electrodes in the brain to disrupt the errant signals that cause debilitating tremors and stiffness associated ...
Habitat will dictate whether ground beetles win or lose against climate change
2023-03-23
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The success of North American crops from corn to Christmas trees partly depends on a relatively invisible component of the food web — ground beetles. Nearly 2,000 species of ground beetle live in North America. New research led by Penn State shows that some of these insects could thrive while others could decline as the climate changes. The team found that the response will largely depend on the species’ traits and habitats and could have significant implications for conservation efforts.
“We know that climate change influences everything from coral reefs in the ocean to trees on land, but there’s ...