Mobile App Helps Students With Special Needs to Self-Monitor Their Behavior, Stay on Task

A mobile app allows students with special needs to self-monitor their behavior and focus more in class.

A mobile app is revolutionizing how students with special needs monitor their behavior in the classroom. Developed as part of a four-year research project led by Sara Estrapala, an assistant research professor at the University of Missouri, the app aims to increase academic engagement and reduce disruptive behavior by empowering students to self-regulate their own actions.

Mobile App Helps Students With Special Needs to Self-Monitor Their Behavior, Stay on Task
A mobile app enables students with special needs to self-monitor their behavior and focus more in class. 14995841 from Pixabay

The I-Connect App

Recognizing the desire of teenage students with disabilities to have a say in their decisions, Estrapala embarked on this project to provide them with a tool that promotes independence while still aligning with their teachers' goals.

The mobile app, called I-Connect, allows students to set personal improvement goals and monitor their progress in real-time. Around 50 high school students from public schools in Jefferson City, Hallsville, and Fulton will participate in the study to test the intervention.

They will first establish their individual goals, such as paying closer attention or following instructions more effectively. After downloading the I-Connect app, students will receive periodic alerts with prompts to determine if they are using goal-oriented behaviors and assess their engagement inside the classroom.

The mobile app will also generate graphs to track their progress, allowing both students and educators to analyze the improvements over time. Estrapala's research is supported by a $519,939 early career development and mentoring grant.

Throughout the project, she will be mentored by Erica Lembke, a professor of special education at the University of Missouri, and Howard Wills, a professor at the University of Kansas.

The key idea behind the app is to combine students' desire for independence with evidence-based practices that have been proven effective, such as goal-setting, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation.

By involving students in the decision-making process and helping them understand their own behavior, Estrapala aims to foster a systematic and meaningful approach to behavior management in the classroom.

Enabling Independence for Students

While adults often believe they know what is best for students, this project challenges that notion by allowing students to voice their goals and actively participate in their own behavioral development.

The ultimate goal is to equip students with the necessary skills to increase their academic engagement and reduce disruptive behaviors, enabling them to fully access the school curriculum.

"We need to leverage that developmental need for students to make independent decisions and have a say in what they want to do, and I want to combine that with some evidence-based practices that we already know work, such as goal-setting, self-monitoring and self-evaluation," Estrapala said in a statement.

"Adults often feel like they know what is best for the students, but going forward, let's ask the students themselves what their goals are and then have them go through a process of learning about their own behavior and how to change it in a systematic way that can be helpful in the classroom," she added.

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