This presentation explores how Assistive Technology (AT) supports students with disabilities as they transition from high school to postsecondary education, employment, and independent living. Blending professional AT expertise with real student examples, the session highlights how accessible materials, coordinated support teams, and individualized AT decisions shape successful transitions. Participants will learn how AT needs shift across environments and how to strengthen student voice and self‑advocacy. The session reviews legal foundations for AT in transition services and offers strategies for embedding AT into IEP transition plans. Frameworks such as the SETT Framework and QIAT Indicators guide teams in evaluating AT and selecting tools for communication, mobility, computer access, organization, and ADLs to support readiness for adulthood.
Learning Outcomes
- Explain the role of AT within transition planning and how it aligns with legal requirements and IEP development.
- Use the SETT Framework and QIAT Indicators to guide AT selection that supports postsecondary, employment, and independent living goals.
- Identify AT tools and strategies that build student readiness, self advocacy, and independence during the transition to adulthood.
Working memory is the brain’s mental workbench, the space where we hold and manipulate information long enough to make sense of it and act on it. It’s also a critical part of executive functioning with an integral role in many academic and work tasks: reading comprehension, writing composition, math problem solving, taking notes, following directions, managing tasks, and building mental concepts. When working memory is overwhelmed, students and employees may struggle.
Using examples from various academic and workplace settings, AT consultant Shelley Haven will demonstrate pairing working memory compensation strategies with specific technology features to help externalize (offload) information with digital tools, categorize it into meaningful chunks, and organize it for more effective use, long-term retention, and recall.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify common working memory obstacles that affect academic and work tasks like reading, writing, math, note-taking, planning, problem-solving, and retention
- Explain how externalizing, categorizing, and organizing information helps to reduce working memory demands
- Select at least three AT tools or features that help compensate for working memory challenges and explain how they can assist learning and work-related tasks
For many students, generative AI chatbots have become a regular part of school life, whether as learning supports or always-on homework helpers. While educators likely understand the potential for “chatbot cheating”, these tools can also pose less obvious risks for young learners, including:
- Attention drains from endless chatbot conversations
- Oversharing personal information (which chatbots store in memory)
- Influence by chatbot’s authoritative “voice”, even when it shares misinformation or bias
- Humanlike empathy (“That’s a great idea!”) that encourages interaction like a trusted friend.
AT consultant Shelley Haven will demonstrate chatbot features, settings, and practices that can help educators reduce these risks while supporting more effective student use.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify key safety and trust-related risks students may face when using generative AI chatbots
- Run a “safety audit” of chatbot settings and create guardrails for student use
- Teach students how to improve their fact-checking and sourcing habits
As demand for skilled engineers continues to rise, engineering programs must evolve to engage neurodiverse and underrepresented students through intentional, inclusive design. Our initiative, Internships Designed with Engineering Autistic Students in Mind (IDEAS in Mind), broadens participation and supports belonging among neurodivergent engineering students. Developed in partnership with the University of Arizona Sonoran Center, the College of Engineering, and local employers, the program connects autistic engineering students with industry internships while fostering engineering identity through experiential learning. This presentation will share practical frameworks for building inclusive engineering programs that support neurodiverse students through industry partnerships and intentional program design. Attendees will gain insights applicable to STEM education, career readiness, and disability inclusion initiatives at their own institutions.
Learning Outcomes
- Practical frameworks for building inclusive college programs
- Developing industry partnerships
- The impact of cross-unit collaboration
This interactive session presents a cross-institutional Arizona faculty book study designed to move teacher educators from awareness of High Leverage Practices (HLPs) to systematic implementation. Participants will examine pre-post data, growth patterns, and practitioner tools, and engage in structured dialogue to apply the model within their own institutional contexts.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyze pre–post data illustrating faculty growth in HLP implementation.
- Differentiate between awareness-level understanding and implementation-level integration.
- Identify structural elements necessary for faculty professional learning grounded in implementation science.
- Develop at least one actionable strategy for embedding HLPs within their institutional context. Engage in cross-institution dialogue to strengthen inclusive teacher preparation statewide.
Join this interactive session led by an AT specialist, an AT user, and an accessibility and content editor. Through the AT user’s lived experience, from high school to university and into the workplace, we will explore common barriers that impact learning, access, and independence. The session will highlight how inaccessible materials create real‑world challenges and limit full participation. After identifying each barrier, our accessibility editor will demonstrate practical, step‑by‑step techniques for remediating documents and improving clarity. Participants will leave with actionable strategies to design content that is accessible, inclusive, and easier for all learners to use.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify common accessibility barriers in learning materials and understand their impact on learners’ independence, engagement, and success.
- Analyze real‑world experiences of an AT user to recognize how inaccessible design affects educational and professional pathways.
- Apply practical document‑remediation techniques to create clearer, more accessible, and more inclusive content for diverse learners.
Even though Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping education at every level, students with disabilities remain an afterthought in most implementation conversations. This session bridges Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and emerging AI tools to help educators, disability service professionals, and administrators critically evaluate, adopt, and implement AI tools in their learning environments. Participants will explore how AI can expand access and reduce barriers for students with disabilities and explore how it can quietly create new ones when implemented without an equity lens. This session draws on research in inclusive education, disability studies, and emerging AI literature to move beyond surface-level AI enthusiasm and offer an honest look at what these tools mean for students with disabilities. Grounded in UDL, participants will gain a practical, student-centered.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify ways AI tools can either expand or limit access for students with disabilities when evaluated through a UDL framework across educational settings.
- Examine current or planned AI tools and policies in their own educational context to determine whether they are proactively designed to include students with disabilities or require modification to meet equity and access standards.
- Develop a practical action step for implementing or revising an AI-related practice, policy, or learning experience in their setting that centers student voice, reduces barriers, and aligns with UDL principles.
In today’s educational and workplace environments, literacy, access, and sensory support have become focal points for helping individuals. What are the best practices around how we can use both assistive technology and sensory supports in these and other environments? In this session, we are taking a look at the research and anecdotal evidence for devices which work well and how they can be incorporated in multiple environments. We will discuss how the devices we currently have can be used for the creation of inclusive environments. We will also investigate how certain assistive technology devices can be used in alternative manners to enhance any environment. Finally, we will also look to introduce sensory supports for multiple environments.
Learning Outcomes
- Participants will compare various types of assistive technology for reading support and determine which would work best for their individuals.
- Participants will differentiate how various types of assistive technology can be utilized by areas outside of the typical usage patterns in order to create more accessible environments.
- Participants will discuss the various tools and applications that they currently use and how those could be adapted into other settings or activities.
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) and Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) have built an innovative, statewide partnership to strengthen the school‑to‑work transition for students with disabilities. Through coordinated Pre‑Employment Transition Services (Pre‑ETS), formal interagency agreements, and aligned technical assistance for educators, these systems create seamless and equitable pathways to employment. This session will highlight practical strategies that empower schools, enhance transition planning, and elevate post-school outcomes across Arizona.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify evidence‑based components of quality transition services that improve post‑school outcomes.
- Analyze how VR Pre‑ETS and school-based transition planning jointly support access to competitive integrated employment (CIE).
- Apply strategies that increase student participation in work-based learning and employment pathways.
