We’d love to share a recent success story from one of the largest school districts in Washington.

The district serves a wide range of students in its elementary, middle, and high schools, and really values inclusive practices to support students with diverse needs in general and special education classrooms.

As part of the Clicker Pilot Program, Sarah Wagner, the district's Assistive Technology Coordinator and Occupational Therapist by training, led the work on reading and writing supports. She worked closely with a handful of teachers from resource and general education classrooms. They looked at how Clicker could help students who need a lot of adult support or have trouble keeping up with the district's curriculum.

The barriers to student writing that sideline growth

System-level barriers

The district had tried out different assistive technology tools for years, but the trials were informal and unstructured. As a result, it was hard to collect valuable feedback, measure results, or make the case for district-wide investment. Sarah and her team wanted a more intentional process, so they'd have clear data to assess themselves and share with leadership.

At the same time, the district faced a tightly scripted curriculum. Sarah said, "You could walk into any third-grade classroom on any given day, and they are all going to be doing the same lesson today. At the same time. It's that structured." That structure brought a sense of consistency and fairness across classrooms. However, the digital materials were often just static PDFs. The core supports students needed weren’t accessible.

Classroom-level barriers

Those system barriers showed up clearly in classrooms. As Sarah described,

"One of the biggest challenges we had was with students and their writing. They had some great ideas for writing, but they were unable to use the technology that we had. We had a standard word processor, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech. But students with articulation, cognitive, or executive functioning issues found it hard to use the different buttons and programs. They struggled to write down their ideas without a lot of adult help. They needed an adult to sit with them and guide them through each step."

Writing support quickly became the biggest need.

Student-level barriers

And inside the systems and classrooms were real students. One fifth grader with cerebral palsy had strong ideas but was too fatigued to write with a pencil and paper. Typing was also exhausting, and speech-to-text wasn't an option due to articulation limitations. As Sarah explained: "He fatigues easily. So much of it is energy conservation. For him, he just doesn't have the stamina to type out whole words." The team struggled to find a tool that gave him the independence he needed to participate alongside his peers.

Choosing Clicker

The district collaborated with the Special Education Technology Center (SETC), a state-run network that loans assistive technology and provides training. They found that the limited window of short-term trials  made it challenging for teachers to fully explore a resource and capture its longer-term impact.

So when the district got a chance for a formal, 90-day pilot of Clicker, Sarah and a few others in the special education department eagerly accepted.

"We've done trials for years and years, but this was the first year that we did a structured pilot."

At the same time, the district also got approval to trial another assistive technology tool. Having both pilots side by side allowed teachers to easily compare how each program helped students with complex needs.

Why the 90-day pilot made a difference

The longer pilot gave teachers the space to explore and create. During small trial windows, teachers spend more time on learning logistics, such as logins or setup. With the longer trial, teachers could actually use Clicker with students. They could save work samples and see how they fit with their curriculum.

"It took a couple of weeks to bring in the resource teacher and the general education teacher, but once they were involved the process became more collaborative. [It gave us] a chance to see how students might progress through it." Sarah shared.

The longer window allowed teachers to address those logistics. They also had time to check on progress. For many, that revealed how Clicker could support inclusion in ways that other tools didn't.

Student IEP progress accelerated and opened doors beyond the classroom

The pilot confirmed what Sarah and her team had hoped. Clicker could remove writing barriers and open access for a wide range of students.

In post-surveys, 91% of staff said Clicker increased student participation, and many noted that it helped students make progress on IEP goals. The most-used features were the Sentence Sets  (chosen by 9 of 11 staff), word prediction, and Clicker Books.

What stood out most was how teachers could recalibrate student support in real time. "Students used the sentence builders with the Sentence Sets, but some teachers said, 'This might be too supportive, let's rearrange'. So they [compared] what students could write without Clicker supports and what they could write with Clicker supports."

When IEP goals become life skills

Clicker’s flexibility lets teachers meet students where they are, but also challenges them to grow. Which is exactly what happened for the fifth grader with cerebral palsy. He struggled with fatigue, typing, and speech-to-text. Now, he uses Clicker with a joystick mouse, which helps him build sentences, write math equations, and keep up with his peers.

He used Clicker's Word Bank differently than most students—not for word prediction, but to conserve energy. Instead of typing every letter, he could start words and draw from a robust, customizable bank. Paired with an adaptive joystick mouse, he has much more stamina to write independently for the first time. Soon, he was writing sentences, keeping up with peers, tackling reading tasks, and even solving math problems in Clicker. For a student who had always relied on a one-to-one paraeducator, Sarah shares, '...it was a whole new level of independence and participation."

Writing support works best when it's shared

Teachers also noticed broader benefits. Work samples and classroom observations revealed that students were more engaged and included in group writing activities.

For Sarah, the pilot also reinforced a valuable lesson: Student resources, tools, and technology only work when they're shared. "When districts are looking for assistive technology tools for their students with complex communication needs, it's important that the OT isn't the singular owner of Clicker. There has to be buy-in from the special education teacher and also the gen ed teachers."

From "Does it work?" to "Can we keep it?"

That kind of cross-team ownership showed up in teacher feedback, too. After seeing her students' growth, one resource teacher asked:

"Is this going to be available next year? I want to talk about that."

The clearest proof of the pilot's success came when teachers stopped asking if Clicker worked for students and started asking if they could keep it.

Let’s give your students the same opportunities... what will happen when students have the tools to step in and the space to step up?