TY - GEN
T1 - From Sociotechnical Gaps to Solutions
T2 - 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2025
AU - Zaidi, Ali
AU - Karahalios, Karrie
N1 - We thank our participants for contributing their valuable time and perspectives. Thank you to our organization partners (Julie Duvall of CU Autism, Family First Advocacy, The Arc of Illinois, Equip for Equality, and Family Matters PTIC) for their assistance connecting us with parents and ensuring our research goals aligned with stakeholder needs. Without them, this work would not be possible. Finally, we would like to thank the Social Spaces lab and other colleagues in the department (Vinay Koshy, Alex Atcheson, Ti-Chung Cheng, Naina Balepur, and Charlotte Kiesel) for their feedback throughout the writing process.
PY - 2025/7/4
Y1 - 2025/7/4
N2 - Parents of children with disabilities face significant challenges navigating special education, particularly during Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings with school administration, where they must advocate for their child to receive accommodations. Existing advocacy support methods often exclude families with limited resources. This work aims to design collaborative systems that mitigate or remove advocacy barriers and empower parents. Building on research demonstrating AI's potential in advocacy and special education, we investigate parents' interactions with schools, advocacy workflows, perceptions of technology, and visions for AI-based support. Interviews and design probes with 14 parents reveal systemic barriers, including information overload, resource constraints, and inequitable power dynamics with schools. Parents' feedback suggested infrastructures that foster equitable advocacy through simplifying information, preparing parents via dialogue, and meeting reflection. This study engages with a traditionally underrepresented population and explores how AI can reshape special education advocacy, presenting actionable principles for creating systems focused on parent empowerment.
AB - Parents of children with disabilities face significant challenges navigating special education, particularly during Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings with school administration, where they must advocate for their child to receive accommodations. Existing advocacy support methods often exclude families with limited resources. This work aims to design collaborative systems that mitigate or remove advocacy barriers and empower parents. Building on research demonstrating AI's potential in advocacy and special education, we investigate parents' interactions with schools, advocacy workflows, perceptions of technology, and visions for AI-based support. Interviews and design probes with 14 parents reveal systemic barriers, including information overload, resource constraints, and inequitable power dynamics with schools. Parents' feedback suggested infrastructures that foster equitable advocacy through simplifying information, preparing parents via dialogue, and meeting reflection. This study engages with a traditionally underrepresented population and explores how AI can reshape special education advocacy, presenting actionable principles for creating systems focused on parent empowerment.
KW - AI and Special Education
KW - AI-Assisted Advocacy
KW - Human-AI Interaction
KW - Sociotechnical System Design
KW - User-centered design
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105020669613
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105020669613#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1145/3715336.3735778
DO - 10.1145/3715336.3735778
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105020669613
T3 - DIS 2025 - Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
SP - 2619
EP - 2636
BT - DIS 2025 - Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
A2 - Nunes, Nuno Jardim
A2 - Nisi, Valentina
A2 - Oakley, Ian
A2 - Yang, Qian
A2 - Zheng, Clement
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 5 July 2025 through 9 July 2025
ER -