The potential contribution of ethical frameworks in guiding the development of digitally inclusive support practices for adults with learning disabilities

Seale, Jane (2024). The potential contribution of ethical frameworks in guiding the development of digitally inclusive support practices for adults with learning disabilities. In: Bianchi, Andria and Vogt, Janet A. eds. Intellectual Disabilities and Autism: Ethics and Practice. The International Library of Bioethics, 108. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 195–207.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61565-8_15

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is adults with learning disabilities and the support practices that enable them to access and use technologies. These practices have been influenced by two conflicting risk discourses: the risk of digital exclusion and inequalities discourse and the safeguarding and risk aversion discourse. Attempts to mediate this conflict by proposing a third discourse focused on positive risk-taking have had limited success. The potential of ethical frameworks to offer a way forward is examined. Firstly, the extent to which ethical frameworks have been applied to adults with learning disabilities and their use of technologies is explored. Then the extent to which ethical frameworks contribute to each of the three risk discourses is discussed. The conclusion of this examination suggests that the ethics literature provides some support for a possibility-focused approach to supporting people with learning disabilities to use technology and that ethicists should collaborate with people with learning disabilities and digital inclusion researchers to develop detailed case examples, with accompanying guidance, of what such digitally inclusive support practice might look like in practice.

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