Technology policy and practice

In the UK a significant amount of public funding and collective effort was channelled into attempting to realise the transformative potential of technologies for disabled people (Fowler 1991). Much of the focus regarding the potential of technology, however, was largely on children rather than adults. In the UK, from the early 80's up until 2010, a national programme co-ordinated the use of technologies in compulsory education. For children and young people with 'special educational needs' technologies were used in schools to help develop literacy and numeracy skills; improve cognitive, sensory and motor skills; and facilitate communication (Hope 1987; Hawkridge and Vincent 1992). In addition, emphasis was placed on using technologies that would facilitate access to the curriculum (Liston 1986; Day 1995). For young adults, technologies were used in college to continue developing literacy, numeracy and communication skills, and to promote skills that were perceived as 'vocational,' such as information handling and word-processing, as well as soft skills, such as self-esteem and motivation (Fowler 1988; Vincent 1989).

When people with learning disabilities left school or college, they became the responsibility of either Social Services or the Department of Health, neither of which invested in a national infrastructure of support and networking in the way that education had. In the late 80's, the Department of Health and Social Services began closing down large, segregated long-term institutions and began supporting the residents to integrate into local communities and live in smaller, supported living or 'group homes'. Microcomputers were introduced into the long-term institutions as part of a drive to use 'living skills' programs' to teach the residents social life skills (e.g. telling the time, independent travel) they would need when they began living more independently (Armstrong and Rennie 1986; Wain 1991). Microcomputers were also introduced into social service day centres and similar third sector organisations in order to continue developing the life and literacy skills of people with learning disabilities who were now living in the community (Jotham and Leicester 1988; Jotham et al. 1989). Towards the end of the twentieth century, technology usage by adults with learning disabilities became more varied and included more social goals, such as advocating for oneself, making friends, and participating in the community (Blamires 1999; Seale 2014).

The absence of learning disability in technology-focused literature

In the digital divide literature, people with learning disabilities are virtually invisible, despite a concern voiced in the learning disability literature regarding their digital exclusion. Digital divide surveys either do not capture data on disabled peoples' technology experiences, or do not distinguish between different kinds of disabilities, such as physical disabilities and learning disabilities (Chadwick 2013). Furthermore, in mainstream digital inclusion research, meaningful use of technology has been associated with 'smart use' or use that is relevant and has some 'fit' with a person's life (Selwyn 2006; Selwyn & Facer 2007). To date there has been little in-depth consideration of what constitutes meaningful or appropriate use of technology for people with learning disabilities. Furthermore, the digital divide discourse tends to be dominated by a focus on access to the Internet and mobile technologies, rather than more varied technologies, such as assistive technologies—potentially excluding people with learning disabilities further.

In the educational technology practice literature published between 1980 and 2000, many stakeholders ranging from parents, teachers, developers, advisors and researchers, voiced their opinions and experiences of the transformational nature of technologies for disabled people (Howe 1980; Glen 1981; Kitchen 1982; Ward 1985; Duffin 1986; Painter 1987; Cowley 1988). One rare piece of research during the period of interest that did seek to more directly represent the voice and experience of disabled users themselves was that conducted by Vincent (1989), who reports on a research project which described the technology experiences of young people with 'special educational needs' who were attending further education colleges. However, the ten young people with learning disabilities whose experiences are reported are, for the most part, reported by their teachers either in a third-person narrative or in a mixture of third- and first-person narratives. We are aware that because people with learning disabilities can face challenges when trying to communicate their experiences. However, we feel that with creative support, it should have been possible for researchers during this period to record more first-person accounts of technology use by people with learning disabilities. In the context of the study reported here, we are seeking to explore what this creative support might look like.

The absence of technology in learning disability historical research

One field of research which has sought to give voice to the experiences of people with learning disabilities has been life-history work. Much of the collaborative life-history work between social historians and people with learning disabilities has focused on issues such as the experience of being institutionalized and relationships with parents and others. The results offer powerful insights into issues of oppression, loss, and resilience. Technology, however, has not heavily featured in this life-story research. In our review of life-story literature we have found just three examples when parents mention briefly how their children have used technology, and three examples when people with learning disabilities themselves share their experiences. In "Witnesses to Change" (Rolph et al., 2005, p. 318), three parents briefly mention how their children used computers at college. In "Good Times, Bad Times" (Atkinson et al., 2000, p. 79), Simone Apsis talks about her passion for computer programming. In "Testimonies of Resistance" (Mitchell et al. 2006, p. 36) Majorie Chappell and Karen, our third author, share their life histories, and in doing so make some mention of computers. Given that technologies were hailed as revolutionary tools with the power to transform the lives of people with disabilities, it is surprising that technologies do not feature more frequently or powerfully in the life-histories of people with learning disabilities that are reported in life-story research. There could be a range of reasons for this absence, including a lack of familiarity with technologies on the part of the historians.

Our review of the existing research, therefore, suggests that the voices of people with learning disabilities are missing from the collective accounts of the impact of technologies on their lives and that this invisibility started in the 1980's and continues to this day. In this paper we will report on a study that has sought to develop methods that will give voice to the technology-related memories of eight adults with learning disabilities. Through these methods, the aim is to explore their experiences and illuminate issues that would be worthy of further exploration.

Underpinning methodological framework

In planning the design and methods of our research, we have drawn on key arguments within disability studies that argues for the importance of disabled people having their voice through active participation in research about their lives (Watson 2012). Therefore, in order to enable the voices of people with learning disabilities to be heard in the history of their technology use, our methodological framework is underpinned by the principle of inclusivity. However, we also feel that it is important to promote a democrative ownership of the history of technology use by people with learning disabilities and enable the voices of all actors to be heard. To reflect this, we have adopted two further principles of reciprocity and transparency.

Writing the funding and ethics proposals

The idea for the research project came from Jane. Her inspiration came from some previous research she had conducted, in which she had interviewed practitioners in the field of assistive technology about their memories. She was aware that without the memories of people with learning disabilities, the history of this period would be incomplete. In October 2016, Jane therefore submitted a funding bid to the RTR Foundation for a small grant to develop and pilot an inclusive approach to facilitating the sharing of technology memories. Alongside this funding bid, Jane submitted an ethics protocol to the ethics committee at her university, which outlined how issues of consent would be addressed, including: recruiting adults over the age of 18, producing accessible information and consent forms, and continual revisiting of consent during the project.

Recruiting the researchers and participants with learning disabilities

While writing the funding and ethics protocol, Jane contacted Ajay and Karen and asked them if they would be interested in working alongside her as researchers on the project. Jane identified Karen as a potential researcher with a learning disability through contacts she had with the Social History of Learning Disability Research Group 1 Jane had met Ajay back in 2013, because he had given a presentation on multimedia advocacy at a seminar series she had organised 2.

Jane also identified and contacted two groups who were ideally placed to participate in the project due to their interest in technology and/or inclusive research. The first was a group of adults with learning disabilities who work with Val Williams at the Norah Fry Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Bristol 3 on a range of activities including teaching and funded participatory research projects. Jane met this group in 2014 to talk about her initial research ideas and they were interested in participating. The second group was the Woodbine Multi-Media and Research Group which was suggested to Jane by a colleague, Liz Tilley, because they had been working on a related project with her called "The Inclusive Archive Project" 4. Jane contacted Susan Spencer who supported the IT Group, and Susan indicated that the group were interested in taking part in the research.

Developing and piloting an approach to facilitating the sharing of technology memories

Once the funding had been awarded and ethical approval had been granted, Jane met with Ajay and Karen separately to plan how to capture people's memories of their technology use. Jane met Ajay in person on two occasions. During their second meeting they Skyped with Karen to share ideas. Separately, Jane met Karen in person on two occasions.

Jane shared with Ajay three ideas of how they might help participants to tell their stories: memory box; scrap book; or multimedia presentation. The idea of a memory box was inspired by Jane's attendance at an end-of-project conference run by the Inclusive Archive project [4], in which people with learning disabilities had been facilitated to collect together a range of memorabilia that was important to them and place it in a box, which could be carried around and shared with others—taking each piece of memorabilia out and explaining its significance. The idea of a scrap book was inspired by Jane's own professional career, in that she had kept a folder containing photographs of her time working as a special needs technology consultant along with paper copies of all the training materials she had developed. The idea of a multimedia presentation using PowerPoint was inspired by the multimedia Life story work pioneered by The Rix Centre 5 and was a method that Ajay was very familiar with. To make these examples come to life for Ajay, Jane brought along her own memory box, scrap book and PowerPoint presentation and used them to tell her story of working as a practitioner in health and social care settings between 1984 and 2000, supporting adults to use technologies.

Having heard Jane's technology story and seen the methods she used to convey her story, Ajay tried the methods out at their next meeting. He brought along some of his own technology and his own PowerPoint presentation (Figure 1). Jane and Ajay then had a Skype conversation with Karen and shared with her their memory boxes, photos, and scrapbooks presentations and asked her what she thought. Karen felt that, unlike Ajay, she would be unable to create a memory box or a PowerPoint presentation herself because she did not have any of her old technology equipment; she did not have any photographs of her using her old technologies and she did not have word processing or presentation software on her laptop. We, therefore, agreed that participants could choose to be interviewed about their memories and then afterwards a digital version would be produced of their story using generic images found on the Internet as illustrations. This is how Jane worked with Karen to produce her own story.

Capturing the memories of participants with learning disabilities

Jane and Ajay worked with the Bristol Group to capture their memories and Jane and Karen worked with the Woodbine Multi-Media and Research Group. We visited each group twice. In the first meeting we introduced the project by sharing our own stories with them—using our memory boxes, scrapbooks and multimedia presentations as prompts to support the storytelling, but also to give people ideas about how they might choose to tell their stories. At the end of the first meeting we supported participants to decide what method they would use to tell their story in our second meeting. In the second meeting, around a month later, we facilitated each person in turn to share their story and encouraged the rest of the group to ask questions and compare their experiences. Each meeting was audio-recorded and Jane produced a transcript of each recording. Jane used these transcripts to create a life story for each participant and gave each life story back to participants for final approval.

Analysing the memories of participants with learning disabilities

The approach that we took to data analysis reflects the approach described by Williams (1999, p. 51) and can "broadly be characterised as a thematic content analysis" in that we reflected upon and recorded the bits of the stories that we found interesting and our own reactions to these interesting aspects. These reactions were strongly influenced by our own personal histories and we will discuss this more later on.

Writing this journal article

The production of this article was a three-stage process. Jane wrote the first version of the article and then shared an accessible version of it with Ajay and Karen for comments, changes, and approval. Following a second edit, Jane then shared an accessible version with the participants for comments, changes, and approval. Following a third edit, Jane then submitted the article.

Technology Tales From The Woodbine Multi-Media and Research Group

Daymien, Ros, Colin (a pseudonym) and Robert shared their technology memories. Daymien created a PowerPoint presentation;(Figure 2); Ros created a Word document and brought along a memory box (Figure 3); Colin created a scrapbook (Figure 4); and Robert created a Word document.

Technology Tales From The Bristol Group

Rachael, Kerry, Chris, and Sal shared their technology memories. None of the participants brought along memory boxes or created presentations. Rachael, Chris, and Sal brought along current technology that they owned, such as iPads. For Kerry, Jane searched Google for images of the games Kerry said that she had used at school and printed these off as a stimulus for memory sharing (Figure 5).

The nature of technology used by people with learning disabilities

In analysing the life stories, Ajay was particularly interested to learn about the variety of different technologies that participants had access to and used. This probably reflects the fact that he had a personal history of using a wide range of computers (e.g. from BBC Micros to PC's and iPads), programmes and applications ( e.g. Windows 97, Paint and MovieMaker), games (e.g Pacman, Sims and Hexen II); and social communication tools (e.g email, MySpace and Facebook). He told us:

When I was at school, I remember there were was some old BBC computers. When I went to Sixth Form College, they were using old technology, like Windows 97. When I was using the computer was typing, saving the document, printing out the document. I think it was in 1999 that I went to WH Smith to buy a book on how to use Internet email. I wanted to learn how to use email because I had Outlook on my computer, but I needed to set it up to work properly. I went to two places for work experience and training. One was in Stratford and I was using the computer to design and print certificates. The other was at McIntrye Care in Milton Keynes, doing illustrations. I used Paint. [When I began working at the Rix Centre] I had to check that the computer was working, and also Windows MovieMaker and different multimedia software packages. In 2001 when I was using the computer at home I went to Internet Explorer. I was using Yahoo to find things I like, and using old social media like MySpace and Sims. I joined Facebook in 2006. When I went to the Gamestation shop, I would buy some games. I like to play fun, action, adventure games.

We feel that the memories we have captured in our study serve to both illuminate and challenge the relationship that people with learning disabilities have with their technology, particularly in relation to notions of inequality and difference. In terms of inequality, we noted that the participants in our study had access to and used a vast array of technologies. All of the participants had mobile phones, seven of the participants had tablets, and seven of the participants regularly used the Internet. All of the participants played games, either on their phone, tablet or PC. Use of social media was less prevalent within the group. It is interesting to note that some of the participants relied on their families to purchase these technologies and others used their own monies (through state-provided benefits). With this small group of participants, we did not capture any examples of socio-economic deprivation, where participants wanted technology but were not able to afford it. In this sense they were perhaps a uniquely privileged group. This would seem worthy of further investigation. Taking this into account, the results of the current study suggests to us that digital divide research needs more accurate and nuanced evidence upon which to base claims of digital inequality. Achieving this will probably require methods that are more inclusive than the traditional surveys that tend to be used with people who do not have learning disabilities.

In terms of difference, we were interested in the presence or absence of specialist or assistive technologies in the life histories of our participants. In the twentieth century, significant attention was paid in the research literature to the development of specialist or assistive technologies, such as speech synthesisers and communication aids, and the implications they had for constructions of disability. Disability and technology studies scholars such as Goggin and Newell (2003) argue that disability is built into technology through failure to develop "mainstream' technologies that are accessible to all users. The existence of inaccessible "mainstream" technologies legitimises the existence of "special" or assistive technologies designed specifically for disabled people. For many, this is not acceptable, as it has a stigmatising effect and reinforces the notion of disabled people being different. A popular, although not unproblematic, solution has centred on the promotion of Universal Design, with its emphasis on reducing the need for specialist adaptations, by designing with all possible users in mind (Roulstone, 2016; Goggin & Newell, 2003). In our study we noticed that none of the participants talked about having access to or using specialist assistive technologies. One participant, Kerry, did talk about how her friends at school used specialist technologies, such as Widgit 6, Possum 7 and wheelchairs with voice synthesizers. This fascinated Ajay, who reflected:

'The wheelchair had a voice synthesizer'—I've never heard of this before. I was looking, searching on Google. This is weird stuff. I found a video on YouTube of Stephen Hawking where he gave a presentation. He could not speak, but he could use a computer voice. This was very inspiring, him telling the story now.

The invisibility of specialist assistive technologies in our participants' histories could be explained in a number of ways. Firstly, it could reflect a "normalising" approach to technology by support workers, where mainstream technologies are preferred to specialist technologists in order not to mark disabled people out as different (Rahamin, 2004). Secondly, it could reflect the relatively high ability levels of the participants in that all of them had basic literacy and numeracy skills and did not have complex access needs, meaning that perhaps they did not need specialist technologies. Thirdly, it could suggest that people with mild and moderate learning disabilities were ignored and that much of the specialist technologies were provided to children with visual impairments or physical disabilities. Further research is needed to explore which of these explanations is more likely.

Competent and meaningful use of technology

Karen was particularly interested in how skilled the participants were in their technology use, linking to her own memories of confident technology use. For example, Karen shared with us:

My happiest memory is when I didn't have to ask people to set the computer up. Once I got the hang of it, there was no stopping me. When I get a new laptop, I don't bother with the instructions. I just plug it all together, switch it on, and off I go. Having someone showing or telling you what to do, they do it their way, and they don't understand that I work differently.

In sharing her technology memories within this current project, Karen made it clear that meaningful technology use for her involved programming, writing websites, and playing games—all requiring very different skills to word-processing, and arguably more advanced:

One of the guys in the group home had a computer and he let me borrow it. It was about 1984 and it was a Commodore Vic 20. Loz taught me how to programme it. I wasn't writing games; I was writing little tunes and things like that. I was using POKE 8. I think some years went by when I didn't bother with the computer. I went on a training scheme and I remember using a BBC computer to answer some questions. When I moved to Northampton, I wanted to be involved in computers. I don't know why. I just decided that that was what I wanted to concentrate on. So, I was doing the training on the Internet. Around 1994 or 1996 I became the Internet Officer for Central England People First. I was the Internet Officer for about 10 years. I had to check all the emails. When we first decided to design a website, we used this programme called Sausage 9. [Now] I play games [on my iPad] most days.

Perhaps linked to this confidence in using technologies her way, Karen was interested in what the participants shared about why they used the technologies in the way they did—in particular, whether this use was meaningful to them, This probably stems from her own experience, where she had experienced being required to do things on the computer that she did not want to do. For example, in "Testimonies of Resistance" (2006, p. 52), Karen said:

I did do a computer course with an Employment Training Scheme…Well they said we had to sit a maths test, me and Daniel before, just because we had learning difficulties. The other ones didn't have to do it. Really annoying. They were using a program called WordStar, a word-processing thing. It was typing. It was not what I wanted to do, secretary work, as just because I wasn't as quick as the others they put me in the dunce's class. I'm not stupid.

There is a strong argument within the digital inclusion literature that technology use is central to everything we do, and, therefore, central to living a normal life and our inclusion in society. Digital inclusion happens when all members of society are able to access the affordances offered by technology use (Selwyn & Facer, 2007). Despite the powerful narrative that began in the twentieth century regarding how technology had great potential to emancipate disabled people, many are arguing that now in the twenty-first century, there is long-standing digital divide in which people with learning disabilities are not accessing technologies to the same degree as non-disabled people. (Carey et al., 2005; Lussier-Descrober et al., 2018). Furthermore, there is strong evidence to suggest that people with learning disabilities experience many of the factors that are linked to digital exclusion, such as socio-economic deprivation and fewer employment and educational opportunities (Department of Health, 2001; Emerson et al., 2005). It has been tempting for digital exclusion researchers to adopt a "deficit" approach when thinking about the exclusion of people with learning disabilities and assume that a major cause of their exclusion is that they don't know how to use technologies. The life histories that we have illuminated in our study, suggest that for certain technologies, with some kind of support, people with learning disabilities can be both competent and confident users. For example, both Karen and Ajay shared memories of purchasing, installing, and using their technologies. Like Karen and Ajay, we noticed how most of the participants were also confident and competent technology users. They were very aware of the strengths of technologies (e.g. easy to use, affordable) as well as the weaknesses of technologies (e.g. power, weight, and affordability). This confidence is exemplified by a conversation that Ros and Karen had together:

What was not clear from the histories that participants shared, was the extent to which having access to technologies as young children at school had contributed to their levels of confidence and competence. It seems that their experiences after school might have had more of an influence. All the participants except Sal mentioned using technologies at college or adult training and day centres to undertake certificated courses or projects, such as producing a newsletter. This mirrors the memories shared by parents of people with learning disabilities in previous studies (Rolph et al., 2005).

In the late twentieth century, disability-related developments in technology policy and practice were accompanied by a prevalent narrative that heralded assistive technology as an innovatory prostheses (Foulds, 1982; Cain, 1984) that had the potential to provide an emancipatory breakthrough for disabled people and increase their independence (Southgate, 1985; Day, 1995): "This new technology can emancipate the handicapped and help to open up the horizons of many children whose communication and interaction with the outside world were previously very limited" (Southgate, 1985, p. 150).

The dominance and power of this celebratory "master narrative" produced a range of responses from the educational technology community. Firstly, a tendency to over-focus on the technological wizardry of the new products being developed was observed. The gaze of attention and wonderment was on the abilities of the technology, rather than the abilities of disabled people. Such technological determinism can also be accompanied by a failure to see disabled people as agents of their own fate, capable of making decisions about whether technology use was or was not appropriate for them. Roulstone (2016, p. 93) for example, highlights Finkelstein's view that "technology decision-making had to be more fully-shaped by…disabled people aware of the reappraised role of technology". In the context in which Roulstone was writing, this reappraised role of technology was with regards to being aware that technology did not guarantee liberation or independence. In the context of the life histories reported in this paper, we would suggest that adults with learning disabilities are capable of exercising agency by deciding what constitutes meaningful use of technology in their lives. For example, for Daymien, Ros, and Chris, technological competence seemed particularly important to them. Daymien stated that he has been a "whizz-kid since college," and Chris shared that it felt good to be "the cleverest one in the computer lesson". On their visits to the Woodbine Multi-Media and Research Group, Jane and Karen also observed how members of the group went to Ros for help with their phones, iPads, and Facebook accounts, and how Ros really enjoyed helping them. When reflecting on the stories shared by the Woodbine participants and the different purposes or motivations for using their technologies, Karen recognised that whilst there were similarities between herself and the participants in how they used technologies (e.g. playing games, using the iPad and Facebook), there were also differences. She concluded:

I think each one of us had a different perspective on technology—I think their technology suited what they needed.

In their work with adults with learning disabilities in informal post-compulsory education settings, Jotham and Leicester (1988, p. 21) observed that adults with learning disabilities "come to computer sessions not to learn to read, but rather to use computers and make things happen". This is in stark contrast to the views of other practitioners and researchers who have worked in more formal compulsory education settings and argue that the purpose of using technology is to improve literacy and numeracy or vocational skills (Watts, 1986; Vincent, 1989). In her work on digital inclusion (Seale, 2009), Jane has argued that technologies are only agents of inclusion if users are enabled to use them in ways that are personally meaningful. In Karen's words, technology must be suited to what they needed. We are, therefore, very interested in what constitutes meaningful use for our participants. Is it about making things happen, improving literacy, numeracy and vocational skills, or something else? The answer would appear to be that meaningful use is about being able to engage in social and leisure activities. Daymien, for example was particularly proud of his online activity as a DJ. Sal talks about how her happiest memories of using technologies are linked to listening to the news on her iPad. For Rachael, using the Internet to search for images of her favourite media stars was important to her, while using email to keep in touch with family and friends from church was of real significance to Robert. For Chris, having and using technology meant being able to "get some space" and take his mind off things.

What is particularly striking is that each person appears to have exercised agency in determining how they personally constructed technology use. Furthermore, these personal constructions are not necessarily linked to what they used technologies for in school or college. For example, Chris talks about how, although he was taught to use Microsoft applications at college, he does not use them now because he finds them too difficult. Conversely, despite having happy memories of using educational games at school, computer games appear to have no great meaning or importance in Kerry's present life. What is also important to note is that, unlike Ajay, none of the eight participants were in employment and using their technology in their work. It is also interesting that none of the participants mentioned a desire for this to happen. This has implications for government-driven digital inclusion agendas, much of which are underpinned by a neo-liberal discourse that values employment as the primary outcome or purpose of being digitally included (Seale, 2009), and we would suggest, therefore, worthy of further investigation.

The nature of support available to enable people with learning disabilities to use technology

Jane is interested in understanding the different kinds and levels of support that participants received from support workers (teachers, occupational therapists, social services care workers, advocates, parents, and friends). This interest stems from her professional background as a support worker herself. Between 1987 and 1993 she worked in a range of health and social care settings where her role was to use microcomputers and associated technologies to engage people with learning disabilities in interactive and educational activities. She shared with project participants one of her proudest memories of this period, which was when she developed an eight-week training package for two young men with learning disabilities to enable them to not only set up and use the computers in their day centre by themselves, but to support other day centre users to use the computers. When writing about this experience, Jane said: " the course has given more power in their hands" (Seale, 1992, p. 5). The extent to which support from others to use technology truly empowers people with learning disabilities has continued to be of importance to Jane in her subsequent research, and she has gone on to define poor quality support as taking control away from the person with a learning disability and making choices on their behalf (Seale, 2014).

In the late twentieth century, many expert UK practitioners in the field of education, disability, and technology recognised that although Universal Design had a role to play, it didn't rule out the need for some specialist technologies. Rather than focus on the nature of the technology, they chose to focus on the potential outcome of technology use. For example, Blamires (1999, p. 1) included specialist technologies, such as speech synthesizers, switchers, Braillers, and environmental control in his review of what he called "enabling technology," along with mainstream technologies, such as palm-tops, electronic mail, and the Internet. He wrote:

Enabling technology is concerned with the creative and sensitive application of appropriate technology to improve the quality of life of individuals and their range of life opportunities. The technology is appropriate whether or not it is at the leading edge of technological innovation or a piece of 'mass market' low technology. Appropriateness is judged as a result of periodic monitoring of progress by a partnership consisting of the individual, parent/carers and professionals. Enabling technology therefore is about participation in joint decision-making […].

In addition to the acceptance of specialist technologies, what is interesting in Blamires' position is that he is not compelling disabled people to use technologies in order to be independent from non-disabled others, such as support workers. This prompts us to reflect on the intentions underpinning the perceived potential of technology and how emancipatory technology is expected to be. Could a disabled person be empowered through their use of technology and still rely on some support from non-disabled people? This also reflects important debates within disability studies regarding whether or not society does or should expect disabled people to achieve total independence and how this compares to the views of disabled people themselves (e.g Corbett, 1997). Blamires envisaged a supportive interdependent relationship underpinned by partnership and shared decision-making. Others, such as Hawkridge and Vincent (1992) argued that technologies would not be enabling unless support involved appropriate and frequent assessment, along with training in how to use technologies. There has, however, been very little research that has sought to illuminate or evaluate what constitutes effective support from the perspective of adults with learning disabilities, and the extent to which support promotes independence from or inter-dependence with their support workers.

We feel that the memories we have captured in our study help contribute to a more nuanced understanding of what competent technology use by people with learning disabilities looks like, where competence is not understood as operating independently from support workers. For example, we noticed that all of the participants, except Sal, mentioned receiving support from someone else to use or access their technologies. The sources of support varied from professionals, to parents, sibling and peers. With regards to professionals, Chris mentioned how one of his school teachers had shown him how to use the computer. Colin was supported in his technology by a member of staff of the day centre he attended, and Kerry also spoke of a "computer teacher" at her day centre. Parents and siblings appeared to provide support to the participants in four different ways: funding or providing technologies (e.g. Ros, Robert, Rachael, and Colin); teaching them how to use technology (e.g. Daymien); using technologies alongside them, such as playing computer games or using the Internet (e.g. Daymien and Kerry); and acting as a role model by being a frequent or proficient technology user (e.g Rachael). We also identified what could be considered to be positive and negative examples of support. Ajay, for example, in reflecting on Kerry's history, commented that he thought the support that her dad gave her was a "positive thing". He also commented, however, on the fact that her school teacher had not appeared to appreciate how frustrating it might be for Kerry, never having a chance to get to the next level of the Dragon World game.

The participants did not themselves evaluate the quality of their own individual support networks or the extent to which they involved a partnership of shared decision-making. There was, however, one occasion where participants' opinions were divided regarding the influence of support workers on a fellow participant. When Chris shared with the group that he had to ask permission from the staff at his supported living facility to take money out of his account to buy an iPad, the other group members, including Ajay, felt quite strongly that Chris should not have to ask permission. Chris, however, saw nothing wrong with this and seemed to accept that the filling-in of forms was a necessary process. In fairness to the supported living staff, whilst they may have acted as a financial gate-keeper for Chris, they do not appear to have attempted to influence whether or not Chris should buy a tablet, or his choice of tablet. Future research could usefully focus in more detail on the extent to which support to use technology for people with learning disabilities involves shared decision-making. Such research might contribute to what Goggin (2018) called a disability-adequate theory of digital inequality by illuminating new aspects of literacy, education, and user support. It might also have implications for policy within learning disability support services, in terms of the extent to which support workers are encouraged or mandated by service policy and service managers to shut down or open up opportunities for positive experiences with technology (see also Seale, 2014).