With the AI revolution is in full gear, we , educators and teachers, have an incredible opportunity to leverage the educational potential of this technology to enhance our teaching and boost our students learning.
I strongly advocate for the embrace of AI in education and I believe it can help a lot in creating unprecedented learning experiences and in unlocking new possibilities. This is even more relevant in special education where the need for tailored instruction and accessibility is paramount.
AI, as research shows, is seen as a potentially powerful way to promote more inclusive classrooms and close educational gaps between students with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
In their online survey with parents and teachers, The Special Olympics Global Center found that a large number of parents and educators are optimistic about AI’s ability to enhance learning through adaptive and personalized approaches, simplify complex information, and improve accessibility for students with IDD.
Given the huge potential of AI in special education, I embarked on a series of posts to explore how educators can effectively leverage AI to enhance teaching practices, streamline tasks, and create more inclusive learning environments for students with diverse needs.
Benefits of Using AI in Special Education
In today’s post, I am sharing some of the main benefits that AI can bring to special education. These insights are informed by Goldman et al. ‘s paper “Using AI to Support Special Education Teacher Workload“.
1. Streamlining Administrative Tasks
Special education teachers (SETs) have a huge workload which in some districts has reached ‘crisis levels’ (Goldman et al., 2024). Besides their in-class teaching, SETs have to spend a tremendous amount of their time completing non-teaching tasks such as writing IEPs, communicating with parents, collaborating with general educators, and managing progress reports (Goldman et al., 2024).
And this is where AI comes in handy! It helps teachers automate so many of these repetitive tasks and save them valuable time, time that they can channel towards other important tasks such as personalized instruction, student engagement, and addressing individual learning needs.
There are various generative AI tools teachers can use in this regard. My top go-to are AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude. These Swiss-knife tools can draft IEP snapshots, simplify complex text, generate progress monitoring templates, and even translate documents for linguistically diverse families.
While AI chatbots are invaluable for SETs, there are also other education focused AI tools that offer tailored help with specialized tasks like creating tailored assessments, generating reading materials, designing adaptive quizzes, and many more. Some of these AI tools include: Brisk Teaching, Eduaide, Edcafe, Curipod, MagicSchool, Twee, among others.
2. Enhancing Collaboration
An important part of SETs’ work is collaborating and building strong partnerships with parents, general educators and support staff. These collaborations focus on things like sharing student progress, developing effective strategies, tailoring instruction to individual needs, and ensuring consistent support across all learning environments.
AI can play a decisive role here. First, using AI to streamline repetitive tasks, as we have seen earlier, relieves SETs of the administrative drudgery and frees up time to work on meaningful communication and collaboration. Second, generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude can be used to get help with some of these collaborative tasks.
For instance, you can use these AI tools to draft individualized communication plans, write progress summaries, create accessible resources for parents and educators, create multilingual translations and make resources accessible to linguistically diverse families.
SETs can also use AI design tools like Canva AI or Napkin AI to easily create visually appealing resources such as progress charts, instructional infographics, and customized templates for parent meetings, team collaborations, or for creating presentations. These tools simplify the design process and enable SETs to create professional-quality materials quickly and effectively thus enhancing the overall collaborative process.
3. Adapting Educational Content
Adaptive learning is at the core of special education. SETs often spend significant time adapting and modifying curriculum materials to suit the needs of their students (Goldman et al., 2024). They would make sure that the instructional content align with each student’s IEP goals, accommodates their learning style, and more importantly, is presented at an appropriate reading or comprehension level.
Making teachable content accessible to all students is definitely not an easy task because it requires careful consideration of individual abilities, interests, and challenges. Fortunately, AI offers huge capabilities to help with streamlining this process of content adaptation. This will not only save SETs precious time but also enable them to create more personalized and effective learning experiences for their students.
Starting with general purpose AI tools such as ChatGPT, SETs can use these amazing tools to quickly simplify complex texts, rewrite materials at different reading levels and generate summaries customized to students’ comprehension abilities. In a post I shared in the past titled best AI text levellers for teachers, I talked about several specialized tools designed to help educators adapt reading materials effortlessly.
For instance, Brisk Teaching allows SETs to modify the reading level of online articles directly in Google Docs making content accessible in just a few clicks. Similarly, Lexile Tool by Eduaide provides two distinct features: the Lexile Increaser for advanced learners and the Lexile Decreaser for struggling readers, offering precise control over text complexity. Diffit goes a step further by letting teachers adapt source materials from URLs, PDFs, or videos while also generating supplementary teaching aids like quizzes and summaries.
Finally, Almanack‘s Lexile Level Adjuster streamlines the process of creating grade-appropriate texts and even bundles additional resources such as flashcards and worksheets. These tools, combined with general-purpose AI chatbots, are invaluable for SETs aiming to enhance accessibility and engagement in their classrooms.
4. Supporting Progress Monitoring
One of the key tasks of special education teachers is to monitor students progress and track their performance against IEP goals regularly. Before AI, this can be done either manually through time-consuming efforts or using basic EdTech tools that often lacked the flexibility and customization needed to address individual student needs effectively.
Now with generative AI tools, progress tracking becomes highly automated. For instance, AI platforms like Diffit or Curipod can generate tailored progress monitoring materials, such as fluency tests or comprehension quizzes, and visualize student performance trends with charts and graphs.
These AI tools help special education teachers quickly assess how well students are meeting their IEP goals, identify areas needing improvement, and adjust instructional strategies accordingly, all without the extensive manual effort required in the past.
5. Personalization and Accessibility
Personalization and accessibility are key pillars in special education. Students with learning difficulties have the same right to access education materials as their peers. And as I mentioned earlier, this can be done through a rigorous process of adaptation and individualization.
Thankfully, AI offers powerful support when used strategically. While AI tools can generate valuable insights, their effectiveness depends on the quality of input, and due to privacy concerns, SETs must limit the information they provide. This means that AI-generated content often serves as a starting point that SETs can build on to create highly tailored and meaningful resources that align with each student’s unique needs.
For instance, let’s say you have a student with dyslexia and you want to create a reading comprehension activity tailored to their needs. To maintain privacy, you provide the AI with general information, such as, “I am a teacher creating materials for a Grade 3 student with dyslexia. Please generate a short passage about ecosystems using simple sentence structures and clear vocabulary.”
After the AI generates the content, go ahead and refine it further by simplifying any overly complex terms, adding bolded keywords for focus, and integrating visuals like labeled diagrams or images to support comprehension. This ensures the final material is accessible and fully meets the student’s unique learning needs.
6. Reducing Burnout
Teachers in general face significant challenges that can lead to burnout, and when it comes to SETs, the overwhelming workload of adapting materials, managing IEPs, and tracking progress often exacerbates this issue (Male & May, 1997). AI, as we have seen, can help streamline and facilitate several of the tasks that typically consume a significant amount of SETs’ time.
While it wont radically eliminate it, AI can significantly reduce the burden allowing SETs to focus more on meaningful aspects of their work such as engaging with students and developing personalized strategies. This shift can help create a more manageable workload making burnout less overwhelming and more preventable.

Final thoughts
AI is definitely a game changer in special education. It offers a wide variety of novel learning possibilities, streamlines SETs work, and enhances accessibility. However, these gains are only feasible when special education teachers are provided with ample opportunities to train and develop their skills in effectively using AI tools. Without proper training and support, the potential of AI to transform special education may remain underutilized. Plus teachers who are already familiar with AI, as research shows, “are much more likely to think it can make education more inclusive, inspiring more creative thinking about how it can support their students with IDD.”
Sources
- Culican, J. (2023). How AI is Revolutionizing Special Education. Linkedin. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-ai-revolutionizing-special-education-jamie-culican/
- Goldman, S. R., Taylor, J., Carreon, A., & Smith, S. J. (2024). Using AI to Support Special Education Teacher Workload. Journal of Special Education Technology, 39(3), 434–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/01626434241257240
- Male, D. B., & May, D. (1997). Research Section: Stress, Burnout and Workload in Teachers of Children with Special Educational Needs. British Journal of Special Education, 24(3), 133–140. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8527.t01-1-00029
- Shriver, T. (2024). A New Era of Special Education Begins with Inclusive AI. Time. https://time.com/7018588/special-olympics-ai-idd-artificial-intelligence/
- Special Olympics Global Center. (2024). Attitudes towards Education and AI. https://media.specialolympics.org/resources/community-building/global-youth-and-education/Special-Olympics-AI-Research-Public-Release.pdf
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Title: Key Benefits of Using AI in Special Education
URL: https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2025/01/key-benefits-of-using-ai-in-special-education.html
Source: Educational Technology
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Date: January 22, 2025 at 11:57PM
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