Developing AI Agents for Disability and Self Determination: Lessons from Project RAISE

In this session, 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐚 𝐃𝐢𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐫, Williamson Family Distinguished Professor in Special Education at University of Kansas, shares what Project RAISE has taught her about building AI with people rather than for them. AI can transform how individuals with disabilities access information, make decisions and advocate for themselves - but the most effective tools are not designed solely for people with disabilities, they are designed with them. Lisa also highlights emerging approaches for engaging self-advocates throughout development, testing and refinement, and why lived experience contributed during design is what makes an agent address real needs, use accessible language and support meaningful outcomes across education, employment and community settings. 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: 0:00 Developing AI Agents for Disability and Self-Determination 1:33 Built For vs Built With - The Word That Changes Everything 2:35 Speaker Intro - Dr. Lisa Dieker, Williamson Family Distinguished Professor in Special Education at University of Kansas 3:38 Why a Special Education Professor Is Deep in Technology 4:39 Life Lessons: A Son With Tourette's, Dyslexia and Dysgraphia 5:09 Self-Determination Begins With Voice - Have You Asked Them? 5:39 Bookshare, Kindle and What Actually Changed His Life 6:42 The Mistake: Retrofitting Instead of Co-Designing 7:12 AI as a Cognitive Prosthetic, Not a Replacement for Learning 7:44 What 24 PhD Students With Disabilities Taught Her About Accessibility 8:14 Not Every Disability Is Visible 8:45 The Accessibility Paradox: AI Helps and Complex Interfaces Don't 9:15 Prompts Written Above a Fifth-Grade Reading Level 9:45 Uneven Representation and the Wheelchair Cliché 10:18 The Data: 16% Disability Representation in AI Design 10:48 What's Missing: Reliable Multimodal Access 11:50 Cognitive Access and Translating Content Down, Not Just Across 12:21 Trustworthy Human Judgement and When an Agent Should Not Decide 12:52 Who's Missing: The Design Team and the Data Sets 13:23 Why Project RAISE Stopped Using Facial Tracking 13:54 Designing With Disability First Makes It Better for Everyone 14:24 The Microwave, the Car, the Phone, the Computer - Design Assumptions 15:55 Shifting From Build-Then-Fix to Co-Design From the Start 16:59 Flipping the Model: Evaluate and Improve Before Market 17:30 TeachLive: The First Avatar Simulator for Training Teachers 18:01 Martin and Bailey - Avatars Co-Designed With Real Families 19:02 Project RAISE: Teaching Kids With Autism to Code a Robot 20:02 The First Agent the Kids Said Looked Stupid 20:34 Running a Competition So the Students Chose the Agent 21:07 Recording Third Graders So the Agent Used Their Actual Language 21:39 Replacing Facial Tracking With a Halo on Ethical Grounds 22:41 ZB and RAISY: A Narrow Agent Built for a Specific Need 23:12 The Three Phases: Learn, Teach a Peer, Then Into the Classroom 24:13 Adding Biometrics So the Agent Responds to a Rising Heart Rate 25:15 Affirmation Over Praise: "You Got This" Instead of "Great Job" 25:45 Results: Communication, On-Task Behaviour and Maths Gains 26:16 Where AI Agents Could Go: Goal Setting, Self-Advocacy, Transition 26:47 Support Decisions - Don't Make Them for People 28:18 Current Work: Coaching Teachers With Multimodal Biometric Data 29:51 FLITE ICA: Fully Automated Audio Analysis in Under Two Minutes 30:54 Toward the Neurophysiological State of Teacher Mind and Body 31:54 What She's Learned: Compliance Standards Are Not Accessibility 32:26 The Future Isn't Artificial Intelligence - It's Amplified Self-Determination 33:28 Q&A: Securing an Agent That Acts Like an Employee 35:00 Q&A: Supporting Independence Without Creating Dependency 36:01 Q&A: Which Disabilities Are Hardest to Design For 37:33 Q&A: Accountability for an Autonomous Agent's Security Incident 39:06 Q&A: Ethical Lines - Representation, Guardrails and Closed Loops 40:07 Q&A: On "Challenged" vs "Disability" 41:09 Q&A: Designing for Senior Citizens and Ageing Users Register for TestMuConf 2027: https://www.testmuai.com/testmuconf-2027/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=organic&utm_term=&utm_campaign=ai_agents_disability_self_determination_project_raise #TestMuConf #TestMuAI #Accessibility #InclusiveDesign #AIAgents #A11y #ResponsibleAI #EdTech